Meet Mr. Asbestos
By Dan Levine
New Haven Advocate
January 31, 2001
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for a link to the whole article and dozens more articles and documents
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. . . . Top executives at Raybestos-Manhattan concealed a deadly secret:
The company had used mass quantities of asbestos in its products since
the 1920s, due to the material's unparalleled ability to resist high heat.
Executives first learned of the link between asbestos and lung cancer
in the 1930s, but consciously decided to keep the news quiet. Raybestos
workers continuously breathed the fibers, and when they began to die from
mesothelioma and the first lawsuits surfaced in the 1970s, plaintiffs'
attorneys unearthed documents indicating management knew of the dangers.
The company already faced a growing mountain of asbestos-related claims
when Smith joined the outfit in 1980. Five years later, he became president,
and by April 1988, the company had been named as a defendant in approximately
68,057 asbestos-related personal-injury cases.
Smith immediately embarked on a series of maneuvers designed to accomplish
a single goal: to make Raymark's profitable assets safe from the reach
of people dying from asbestosis, and their lawyers.
His reasoning is simple and quite unabashed. The vast majority of asbestos
claims against the company are without merit, cooked up by greedy, unscrupulous
trial lawyers who just want to make a buck, Smith says. They should not
be able to sap the company's strength. ....
Jonathan Bennett
Public Affairs Director, New York Committee for Occupational Safety and
Health
275 7th Ave., New York, N.Y. 10001
jbennett@nycosh.org
Tel: 212-627-3900 ext. 14, Fax: 212-627-9812
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