Asbestos Podcast EP28 Transcript
Episode 28: Wartime Production, Peacetime Deaths
Full transcript from Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making — a 52-episode documentary podcast produced by Danziger & De Llano, LLP.
| Episode Information | |
|---|---|
| Series | Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making |
| Season | 1 |
| Episode | 28 |
| Title | Wartime Production, Peacetime Deaths |
| Arc | Arc 6 — The War Effort (Episode 4 of Arc) |
| Produced by | Charles Fletcher |
| Research and writing | Charles Fletcher with Claude AI |
| Listen | Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube |
Episode Summary
Japan surrendered September 2, 1945, aboard the USS Missouri — a ship built at the Brooklyn Navy Yard with 300 tons of asbestos insulation. The wartime emergency was over. Asbestos production was not. U.S. consumption increased 107% in the decade that followed, from 343,000 to 709,000 tons, as 40 million homes went up across postwar America with asbestos in every floor, wall, and ceiling.
Episode 28 documents the decisions made between 1945 and 1960: the Asbestos Textile Institute's 6-2 vote against cancer research in 1947; the Braun-Truan study fraud, in which a finding linking asbestosis to cancer was deleted before publication; Richard Doll's 1955 proof of the asbestos-lung cancer connection, suppressed in the U.S. for another 20 years; and the latency mathematics that made the whole architecture possible — 20 to 60 years between exposure and diagnosis, long enough for the architects of the suppression to retire and die before the cases appeared.
Key Takeaways
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Full Transcript
The Post-War Paradox
Host 1: September 2, 1945. Japan surrenders aboard the USS Missouri.
Host 2: A ship built at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Host 1: With 300 tons of asbestos insulation. The war is over. The emergency shipbuilding programs should wind down. Asbestos production should decline.
Host 2: Should.
Host 1: Here's what actually happened. U.S. asbestos consumption in 1945: 343,000 tons. Consumption in 1955, ten years later: 709,000 tons.
Host 2: Wait, that's...
Host 1: A 107% increase. In peacetime.
Host 2: How is that possible?
Host 1: Forty million homes. That's how.
Host 2: Where does asbestos consumption go without the wartime contracts?
Host 1: Today on Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making — Episode 28: Wartime Production, Peacetime Deaths. The fifteen years when everything changed — and nothing changed.
The 1947 ATI Vote and Continued Suppression
Host 2: Now — what were the companies doing while the war wound down?
Host 1: Doubling down. March 1947. The Asbestos Textile Institute holds a vote.
Host 2: On what?
Host 1: Whether to commission an epidemiological study on lung cancer.
Host 2: And?
Host 1: Six to two against.
Host 2: They voted against studying whether their product caused cancer.
Host 1: And they wrote down why. Quote: "Such an investigation would stir up a hornet's nest and put the whole industry under suspicion."[2]
Host 2: Stir up a hornet's nest.
Host 1: This is twelve years after Sumner Simpson's letter. "The less said about asbestos, the better off we are."
Host 2: Twelve years after Simpson. Same companies. Still the same calculation.
Host 1: Same companies. Same strategy. And they weren't done.
Host 2: There's more?
Host 1: The Saranac Laboratory studies. Industry sponsors had been funding research there for years. In January 1947, they met and agreed — quote — "There would be no publication of research without the group's consent."[3]
Host 2: They controlled the science.
Host 1: Publications would not include — and this is their language — "any objectionable material."
Host 2: Define objectionable.
Host 1: Any relation between asbestos and cancer.
Host 2: So they funded research specifically so they could suppress it.
Host 1: January 1951, the sanitized report comes out. Every cancer reference removed.
Host 2: That's not plausible deniability. That's a strategy.
The Braun-Truan Report Fraud
Host 1: It gets worse. 1957. The Quebec Asbestos Mining Association funds a study through the Industrial Hygiene Foundation. Researchers Daniel Braun and T. David Truan.
Host 2: The Mining Association funded its own study. Into whether asbestos caused disease.
Host 1: The private report to the Mining Association says — quote — "The results suggest that a miner who develops asbestosis does have a greater likelihood of developing cancer of the lung."
Host 2: They found the connection.
Host 1: The published version? That finding was deleted.[4]
Host 2: Deleted.
Host 1: The journal editor, Herbert Stokinger, wrote that he was "particularly pleased to learn the main conclusion was against the association of lung cancer with asbestosis."
Host 2: Wait — he was pleased by the opposite of what the research showed?
Host 1: Dr. Rutherford Johnstone's 1960 textbook cites Braun-Truan as evidence that asbestosis does NOT predispose to lung cancer.
Host 2: A textbook. Teaching the fraudulent version.
Host 1: Now here's the contrast. 1955. Richard Doll publishes in the British Journal of Industrial Medicine. His conclusion: the evidence "convincingly demonstrated so substantial an excess of lung cancer in heavily exposed long-term asbestos workers as to overcome honest doubt."[5]
Host 2: The British knew.
Host 1: Doll knew. And despite — quote — "determined attempts to dissuade them," Doll and the journal editor published anyway.
Host 2: And the U.S. response?
Host 1: Silence. Delay. Legislation to control lung cancer specifically "had to wait twenty years."
Host 2: Twenty years.
Host 1: Twenty years.
Asbestos in 40 Million American Homes
Host 2: So while they were suppressing the science —
Host 1: They were expanding the market. Let's talk about the housing boom.
Host 2: Go on.
Host 1: 1945. Five million home shortage. Eight million veterans using the GI Bill. Homeownership rates: 43% in 1940, 62% by 1960.
Host 2: And they needed to be built fast. Who was supplying the materials?
Host 1: Forty million homes built between 1945 and 1975. And every one of them contained asbestos.
Host 2: Where?
Host 1: Everywhere. Floor tiles — two to seven percent asbestos in the tile, forty to seventy percent in the backing.
Host 2: The backing?
Host 1: Joint compound — three to six percent, standard. Popcorn ceilings — one to ten percent. Roofing. Siding. Pipe insulation — up to 100 percent.[8]
Host 2: That's every room.
Host 1: Almost all drywall sheets, joint compounds, surfacing textures, and tapes contained asbestos additives. That's documented for 1940 to 1980 construction.
Host 2: Forty years.
Host 1: Let's make this concrete. Levittown, New York. 1947 to 1951. 17,447 homes.
Host 2: The symbol of the American Dream.
Host 1: Every one of those homes came with asbestos siding —
Host 2: Built in.
Host 1: Asbestos roofing —
Host 2: Not optional.
Host 1: Nine-by-nine floor tiles — which, by the "Rule of Nines," are ninety-nine percent likely to contain asbestos.
Host 2: Wait, the floor tiles too?
Host 1: Joint compound. Standard.
Host 2: So the walls.
Host 1: The marketing called it "fireproof." Quote: "Asbestos was absolutely fireproof, didn't rot, didn't decay."
Host 2: They weren't lying about that.
Host 1: No. They just didn't mention it would kill you thirty years later.
Host 2: So every GI Bill house...
Host 1: By 1958, asbestos was used in about 3,000 applications. That number comes from the Quebec Asbestos Information Service. They called asbestos "the magic mineral."
Host 2: 3,000. Name one nobody would guess.
Host 1: Some of them are surprising. Kent cigarette filters.
Host 2: Cigarette filters?
Host 1: 1952 to 1956. Thirty percent crocidolite asbestos — the most dangerous kind. Ten milligrams per filter. The marketing slogan: "Greatest health protection in history."[9]
Host 2: Asbestos. In cigarettes. To protect your health.
Host 1: And fake snow. "Pure White Fire Proof Snow" used in films. The Wizard of Oz — the poppy field scene — that snow was chrysotile asbestos.
Host 2: Dorothy skipping through asbestos.
Host 1: Dorothy skipping through asbestos. Meanwhile, 4.5 million shipyard workers went home.
Host 2: They went home.
Host 1: Eight million veterans used the GI Bill. Some went to college. Some bought houses — those 40 million homes. Some opened businesses.
Host 2: Building lives the industry was now selling them the materials to build.
Host 1: And here's something people forget. The shipyards didn't close when the war ended.
Host 2: They didn't?
Host 1: Brooklyn Navy Yard? Kept building ships until June 30, 1966.
Host 2: Twenty-one years after the war.
Host 1: USS Saratoga — aircraft carrier, 56,000 tons — built 1952 to 1956. USS Constellation — 1957 to 1961. Last ship, USS Duluth, launched August 1965.
Host 2: So workers were still being exposed.
Host 1: 9,500 workers at Brooklyn when it closed.
Host 2: In 1966.
Host 1: In 1966. And Charleston Naval Shipyard?
Host 2: When did Charleston close?
Host 1: April 1, 1996.[6]
Host 2: 1996?
Host 1: Fifty-one years after the war ended. Workers exposed in the 1980s — well after everyone knew about cancer — won't develop mesothelioma until 2010, 2020, 2030.
Host 2: The clock is still ticking.
James Cook and the Latency Clock
Host 1: Let me show you what a normal life looked like. James Cook. Boatswain's mate on the USS Wisconsin, built at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. After the Pacific — his words: "nothing but fightin', fightin', fightin'" — he came home to Norfolk.
Host 2: What did he do?
Host 1: Spent 39 years at Birtcherd Dairy. Rose to distribution manager. At 94, he found a dollar yard-sale model of the Wisconsin and could still point to where his gun station was on the fantail.
Host 2: Did he get sick?
Host 1: The article doesn't say. That's the thing about these stories. Most of them don't have endings. Or the endings weren't recorded.
Host 2: They just... disappear into the statistics.
Host 1: 4.5 million workers. Each one with a story. Most of those stories end in a doctor's office somewhere, thirty years later, with no connection to the shipyard.
Unions and the Postwar Accord
Host 2: So here's a question. Where were the unions?
Host 1: That's the piece nobody talks about.
Host 2: Four and a half million workers. They had unions.
Host 1: They had unions. But here's what happened after the war. Labor historians call it "the postwar accord."
Host 2: Which was?
Host 1: Quote: "Labor unions ceded control over the workplace to management in exchange for better wages, shorter hours, improved benefits, and health insurance."[10]
Host 2: They traded safety for wages.
Host 1: "If the workplace was to be under management control, then safety was its responsibility as well."
Host 2: So the unions stopped fighting for working conditions.
Host 1: They didn't have a choice. 1947 — the same year as that ATI vote — Congress passed Taft-Hartley.
Host 2: Which did what?
Host 1: Outlawed closed shops. Banned solidarity and wildcat strikes. Required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits. Allowed states to pass "right-to-work" laws.
Host 2: And if you didn't sign the affidavit?
Host 1: You lost your position. 1949 and 1950, the CIO expelled eleven unions. About a million members — one-third of CIO membership.
Host 2: The left-led unions.
Host 1: The left-led unions. Which had been the most militant on workplace conditions.
Host 2: And workplace safety?
Host 1: Ceded to management. That was the deal.
Host 2: The deal that killed them.
Host 1: The deal that killed them.
The Perfect Crime
Host 1: Which brings us to the latency clock.
Host 2: How long until the first cases?
Host 1: Latency period for mesothelioma: 20 to 60 years. Median: 32 to 38 years.
Host 2: So if you were exposed in 1943 —
Host 1: First symptoms: 1963 to 2003. Peak: 1975 to 1981.
Host 2: And the executives who suppressed the 1947 study?
Host 1: Retired. Or dead.
Host 2: By the time the cases showed up.
Host 1: Let me show you how the math works. A worker exposed at Brooklyn in 1943. He's 25.
Host 2: Twenty-five in 1943. Add thirty years.
Host 1: Add 30 years. It's 1973. He's 55. He's a grandfather. He's thinking about retirement.
Host 2: And then the cough starts.
Host 1: And there's no way — no possible way — to connect that cough to a pipe he insulated thirty years ago.
Host 2: Even if he remembered the dust.
Host 1: Even if he remembered the dust. Which most of them didn't. It was just work.
Host 2: And the documents?
Host 1: Filed in corporate archives. Sealed in court records. Buried until litigation forces them into the open — which won't happen for another decade.
Host 2: The perfect crime.
Host 1: Thirty-year delay. Witnesses dead. Evidence buried. And the victim has no idea who to blame.
Closing Recap and Episode 29 Tease
Host 1: So here's where we are. By 1960: The industry has suppressed research for 30 years.
Host 2: Since Simpson's letter in 1935.
Host 1: They've manipulated studies — the Braun-Truan fraud — to argue asbestos doesn't cause cancer.
Host 2: While their own data showed 20 percent of workers had lung damage.
Host 1: They've voted down epidemiological studies because it would "stir up a hornet's nest."
Host 2: ATI, 1947.
Host 1: And they've expanded the market into 40 million American homes.
Host 2: Floor tiles. Joint compound. Popcorn ceilings.
Host 1: Meanwhile, 4.5 million shipyard workers have gone home. They're living normal lives. They're coaching Little League. Buying houses. Building businesses.
Host 2: With asbestos.
Host 1: With asbestos. Every wall. Every floor. Every ceiling.
Host 2: The clock is ticking.
Host 1: The clock is ticking.
Host 2: When does it strike?
Host 1: Next time. December 1960. J.C. Wagner publishes in the British Journal of Industrial Medicine. Mesothelioma. A cancer no one knew existed.
Host 2: They knew it existed.
Host 1: They knew it existed. Now everyone else would too.
Host 2: Episode 29: The Shipyard Generation.
Host 1: The shipyard generation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did asbestos production increase after World War II ended?
Despite the end of wartime emergency production, U.S. asbestos consumption increased 107% between 1945 and 1955 — from 343,000 to 709,000 tons. The postwar housing boom created massive demand: 40 million homes built between 1945 and 1975 contained asbestos in floor tiles (40-70% of tile backing), joint compound (3-6%), popcorn ceilings, roofing, and siding. Eight million veterans used the GI Bill to buy homes, pushing homeownership from 43% in 1940 to 62% by 1960. The industry had found a new market bigger than the wartime fleet.
When did asbestos companies know their product caused cancer?
By 1947, asbestos companies had substantial evidence of cancer risks and were actively suppressing research. The Asbestos Textile Institute voted 6-2 in March 1947 against commissioning cancer research because it would "stir up a hornet's nest and put the whole industry under suspicion." In January 1947, Saranac Laboratory sponsors agreed that research publications would exclude "objectionable material" — specifically, references to asbestos and cancer. Richard Doll's 1955 British study conclusively proved the connection, but U.S. companies suppressed that evidence for another 20 years.
Did Levittown homes contain asbestos?
Yes. Levittown, New York — 17,447 homes built 1947 to 1951 — contained asbestos siding, asbestos roofing, nine-by-nine floor tiles (99% likely to contain asbestos by the "Rule of Nines"), and standard joint compound with 3-6% asbestos content. This pattern was standard across the 40+ million homes built during the postwar housing boom. Floor tile backing could contain 40-70% asbestos. Pipe insulation could be up to 100%. By 1958, asbestos was used in approximately 3,000 applications.
What was the Braun-Truan study fraud?
In 1957, the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association funded a study through the Industrial Hygiene Foundation. Researchers Daniel Braun and T. David Truan's private report stated: "The results suggest that a miner who develops asbestosis does have a greater likelihood of developing cancer of the lung." The published version deleted that finding. Journal editor Herbert Stokinger wrote that he was "particularly pleased" by the opposite conclusion. Dr. Rutherford Johnstone's 1960 textbook cited the fraudulent published version as evidence that asbestosis does NOT predispose to lung cancer — teaching a generation of physicians the wrong answer.
How long is the latency period for mesothelioma?
Mesothelioma has a latency period of 20 to 60 years between exposure and diagnosis, with a median of 32 to 38 years. A worker exposed at a Brooklyn shipyard in 1943 at age 25 would not typically develop symptoms until 1973. By then he is 55, a grandfather, with no way to connect a cough to pipe insulation from three decades earlier. The executives who suppressed the 1947 ATI vote were retired or dead before the cases appeared. Victims had no idea who to blame.
When did the Navy shipyards stop using asbestos?
Navy shipyards continued operating — and exposing workers — for decades after WWII. Brooklyn Navy Yard operated until June 30, 1966 (9,500 workers at closure, 21 years after the war). Charleston Naval Shipyard closed April 1, 1996 — 51 years after the war. Workers exposed in the 1980s may not develop mesothelioma until 2010, 2020, or 2030. The latency clock doesn't respect historical periods.
Timeline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1935 | Sumner Simpson letter: "The less said about asbestos, the better off we are" |
| 1941-1945 | WWII shipyard production; 4.5 million workers exposed |
| 1945 | V-J Day; U.S. asbestos consumption 343,000 tons |
| 1947 (Jan) | Saranac Laboratory sponsors agree: no publication without group consent; cancer references excluded |
| 1947 (Mar) | ATI votes 6-2 against epidemiological study; "hornet's nest" memo |
| 1947 (Jun) | Taft-Hartley Act passed; postwar labor accord strips union safety advocacy |
| 1947-1951 | Levittown, NY: 17,447 homes built with asbestos siding, roofing, floor tiles, joint compound |
| 1949-1950 | CIO expels 11 left-led unions (~1 million members) |
| 1951 | Saranac sanitized report published; all cancer references removed |
| 1952-1956 | Kent cigarette filters: 30% crocidolite asbestos marketed as "greatest health protection in history" |
| 1955 | Richard Doll publishes in British Journal of Industrial Medicine: asbestos-lung cancer link "convincingly demonstrated" |
| 1955 | U.S. asbestos consumption: 709,000 tons (107% increase from 1945) |
| 1957 | Quebec Asbestos Mining Association funds Braun-Truan study; cancer finding deleted from published version |
| 1958 | Asbestos used in ~3,000 applications |
| 1960 | Rutherford Johnstone textbook cites fraudulent Braun-Truan version |
| 1966 (Jun 30) | Brooklyn Navy Yard closes (9,500 workers; 21 years after WWII) |
| 1996 (Apr 1) | Charleston Naval Shipyard closes (51 years after WWII) |
Named Entities
People: Sumner Simpson, Richard Doll, J.C. Wagner, Daniel Braun, T. David Truan, Herbert Stokinger, Rutherford Johnstone, James Cook, Anna Jackson, Paul Danziger
Institutions: Asbestos Textile Institute (ATI), Saranac Laboratory, Quebec Asbestos Mining Association (QAMA), Industrial Hygiene Foundation, British Journal of Industrial Medicine, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Charleston Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, CPSC, CIO, AFL-CIO, Danziger & De Llano, Birtcherd Dairy
Ships: USS Missouri, USS Wisconsin, USS Saratoga, USS Constellation, USS Duluth
Locations: Levittown NY, Brooklyn, Charleston, Norfolk, Philadelphia, Quebec
Products/Brands: Kent cigarettes, Micronite filters, Wizard of Oz
References
- ↑ U.S. Geological Survey. Minerals Yearbook: Asbestos. Historical production and consumption data, 1945-1960. Available through USGS Mineral Resources Program.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Asbestos Textile Institute minutes, March 1947. Quoted in: Castleman BI. Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects. Law & Business Inc., 1984. The "hornet's nest" memorandum is reproduced in asbestos litigation discovery records.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Saranac Laboratory industry sponsor meeting records, January 1947. Documented in: Lilienfeld DE. The silence: the asbestos industry and early occupational cancer research — a case study. American Journal of Public Health. 1991;81(6):791-800.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Braun DC, Truan TD. An epidemiological study of lung cancer in asbestos miners. AMA Archives of Industrial Health. 1958;17(6):634-654. For documentation of the private-vs-published discrepancy, see: Castleman BI, Berger SA. Forbidden knowledge and corporate asbestos litigation. International Journal of Health Services. 1986;16(4):693-699.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Doll R. Mortality from lung cancer in asbestos workers. British Journal of Industrial Medicine. 1955;12(2):81-86. PMID: 14363586.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 U.S. Navy historical records. Brooklyn Naval Shipyard closed June 30, 1966. Charleston Naval Shipyard closed April 1, 1996. Employment figures from Congressional Research Service naval facilities reports.
- ↑ Brodeur P. Outrageous Misconduct: The Asbestos Industry on Trial. Pantheon Books, 1985. Internal industry data showing 20% workforce disease rates in the 1940s-1950s documented from discovery records in Borel v. Fibreboard and subsequent asbestos litigation.
- ↑ U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Asbestos in the Home: A Homeowner's Guide. Washington DC: CPSC, 1980. Documents asbestos in floor tile (40-70% backing), joint compound (3-6%), and popcorn ceilings (1-10%).
- ↑ Janoff MV. Kent micronite cigarette filters, 1952-1956. Documented in: Hilton SM. The 'hazards of smoking' in the 1950s. Social History of Medicine. 1998;11(2):231-252. Crocidolite content and "Greatest health protection" slogan documented in Federal Trade Commission and CPSC records.
- ↑ Rosner D, Markowitz G. A gift of God? The public health controversy over leaded gasoline during the 1920s. American Journal of Public Health. 1985;75(4):344-352. Postwar accord citation from: Rosner D, Markowitz G. Deadly Dust: Silicosis and the On-Going Struggle to Protect Workers' Health. University of Michigan Press, 2006.
See Also
- Asbestos History Timeline
- Veterans Mesothelioma Claims
- Asbestos Trust Funds
- Episode 27: The Women of the Shipyards
- Full Episode Index