Tyler, Texas, March 23, 1974

<v Narrator>Under this tent are doctors performing an autopsy on the exhumed body of Mitchell Walker. <v Narrator>The results of that autopsy will provide evidence in one of the largest class action <v Narrator>lawsuits in the history of the United States. <v Narrator>One hundred million dollars. <v Narrator>Walker, a 68 year old factory worker, died in 1972. <v Narrator>From the examination, the doctor will learn that Mitchell Walker died <v Narrator>as a direct result of breathing asbestos fibers. <v Narrator>You see, Walker had worked around asbestos for more than 10 years at the Pittsburgh <v Narrator>Corning plant in Tyler, Texas. <v Narrator>In all, more than 26 former employees died after suffering with breathing difficulties. <v Narrator>And now many men from the old plant are checking into area hospitals to have their <v Narrator>lungs examined. <v Narrator>A large number are learning that they are suffering from a disease called asbestosis.

<v Narrator>Arthur Bearden is one of those former employees who will never be able to work again. <v Arthur Bearden>They didn't tell us anything that was dangerous to work in or harsh to work <v Arthur Bearden>in. And we didn't know anything about it until '71. <v Arthur Bearden>Seven months before the federal government closed the plant down.. <v Narrator>Then there is Frank Spencer, who was employed in asbestos plants 21 <v Narrator>of his 67 years. <v Frank Spencer>Well, I don't know. <v Frank Spencer>I've been all down and out there since '69. <v Frank Spencer>You get eat up, I guess what they call it, I don't know. <v Frank Spencer>Doctor we went to- I went to my <v Frank Spencer>doctor, he found out that my lugs is all <v Frank Spencer>beat up and stuff like that. <v Narrator>This is Spencer's 31 year old son, Kenneth. <v Narrator>He has a case of thyroid cancer. <v Kenneth Spencer>Bout a year after I stopped work for him, I encountered thyroid cancer.

<v Kenneth Spencer>And whether or not it had anything to do with the asbestos out there are now I don't know <v Kenneth Spencer>for sure yet. <v Narrator>Herman Yandle and his brother J.C. <v Narrator>both put in more than 10 years with the Tyler plant. <v Narrator>Both <v Narrator>have been diagnosed as having asbestosis. <v Narrator>And this is Willie Hurt, who had such a breathing problem that he quit working in 1969, <v Narrator>but Hurt never wanted to go to a doctor to find out what was causing the problems. <v Willie Hurtt>I'm telling you if that stuff causes cancer I don't care about knowing if I've got long. <v Narrator>At six o'clock on the morning of July 29th, 1974. <v Narrator>Willie Hurt died. The autopsy show that the cause of death was asbestosis <v Narrator>and lung cancer. Hurt's death is the perfect example that breathing asbestos <v Narrator>can cause a number of diseases. <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>Well, first of all, it can cause scarring of the lungs.

<v Dr. Irving Selikoff>That's called asbestosis. <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>But it takes a fair amount of asbestos to cause a lot of scarring. <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>It takes much less asbestos to cause cancer. <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>And it's the cancers that we're worried about they can occur in the abdomen, <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>they can occur in the chest. <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>They can occur in some other sites. <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>But the problem there is that once the cancer begins, <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>there's very little we can do about it. <v Narrator>Dr. Irving Selikoff from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York is one of the <v Narrator>foremost authorities on asbestos-related diseases. <v Narrator>Dr. Selikoff performed numerous tests on asbestos plant workers who were employed <v Narrator>at the Union Asbestos and Rubber Company in Patterson, New Jersey, between 1941 and <v Narrator>1954, the New Jersey plant is the predecessor of the Pittsburgh Corning plant <v Narrator>in Tyler. The results of Dr. Selikoff's tests were astonishing. <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>One out of every five of these men tends to die of lung cancer. <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>There have been many cancers about three times as many as we expect of the stomach,

<v Dr. Irving Selikoff>colon, rectum. <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>There have been cancers of the abdomen and chest called mesothelioma, and so forth. <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>When the plant moved to Texas, they didn't <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>leave behind the hazard. <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>They took it with them. <v Narrator>In 1970, Dr. William Johnson and Dr. Joseph K. <v Narrator>Wagoner of the Division of Field Studies and Clinical Investigation of the National <v Narrator>Institute of Occupational Safety and Health began their investigation <v Narrator>of the Tyler plant. Johnson and Wagener discovered buried deep in the files of the old <v Narrator>Bureau of Occupational Safety and Health, the predecessor to NIOSH. <v Narrator>Records showing that tests had been conducted in the Tyler plant in 1967, <v Narrator>but nothing had been done. <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>This was not unusual. <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>This Tyler facility was one of essentially 26 different <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>facilities throughout the United States that had been surveyed in the 1967 <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>period covering some 31 different plants.

<v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>Many of these, again, had never been transmitted over to <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>the various state and or enforcement agencies. <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>In fact, when we started going back into the <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>files, indeed, we saw samples that had been taken during the 68, <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>70 period that had never been read. <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>They had just been collected in the field and then left. <v Narrator>In 1971 Dr. Johnson and his associate, Richard Lemon from <v Narrator>went to inspect the Tyler plant with a team of industrial hygienists and union officials. <v Man 2>We went directly to the plant and took a tour of the plant. <v Man 2>At that point in time, we were very appalled at the

<v Man 2>condition of the inside of the plant. There was asbestos, raw asbestos <v Man 2>laying on the floors. <v Man 1>Asbestos pipe insulation. Cutting it, sawing it with saws, breathing in dust from it, and <v Man 1>caught the lung disease. <v Man 2>We <v Man 2>attempted to do some ventilation measurements. <v Man 2>We found that the ventilation systems were completely clogged. <v Man 2>At some points with encrusted asbestos, and we took broom handles <v Man 2>to knock the asbestos out of the ventilation systems. <v Man 3>Longer I stayed, it was harder for me to breathe because it stopped up your nose. <v Man 3>Every day you could tell you were taking in a lot of dust.

<v Man 2>We were getting no readings on our ventilation instruments indicating that the <v Man 2>plant was very, very poorly ventilated. <v Man 2>The employees were not wearing respirators. <v Man 2>The employees were eating right in the area of the worksite. <v Man 4>They hauled out lotsa scrap waste material <v Man 4>and buried it, and where they dumped years back, <v Man 4>waste asbestos sat in fields and was never covered up. <v Man 4>Wind was just blowing it everywhere. <v Richard Leard>First that our agency, the Texas Air Control Board, knew of. <v Richard Leard>The situation here was in late 1971 when we were <v Richard Leard>informed by one of the federal agencies who were looking at the workers in <v Richard Leard>the plant that there was asbestos waste dumped on top of the ground, <v Richard Leard>which might possibly blow away when we were notified

<v Richard Leard>of it. <v Richard Leard>Then we came. Made an investigation, talked with the plant people and said <v Richard Leard>essentially, look, we need to get this covered up. <v Richard Leard>This asbestos material is a fibrous mineral that <v Richard Leard>actually was brought over from Africa. <v Richard Leard>And during the manufacture of the insulation material, the <v Richard Leard>fibers were crushed in various processes, made <v Richard Leard>it become airborne in these short fibers really <v Richard Leard>were what the workers in the plant were breathing. <v Richard Leard>This was the hazardous part of the materials, the fibers that were breathed <v Richard Leard>in by the workers. <v Dr. George A. Hurst>The more contaminated the atmosphere, the more fibers you gonna breathe in <v Dr. George A. Hurst>and the more fibers are going to be retained by the lung and the more damage, we see <v Dr. George A. Hurst>a film taken of a patient who had early asbestosis. <v Dr. George A Hurst>And there are some changes in the lung fields where

<v Dr. George A Hurst>there are more patchy, quiet areas that <v Dr. George A Hurst>represent early scarring of the lung. <v Dr. George A Hurst>This, in addition, shows changes in the pleura, which is the <v Dr. George A Hurst>covering of the lung. These white radio <v Dr. George A Hurst>densities represent scars that are in <v Dr. George A Hurst>the lungs as a result of the lung reaction to the minerals <v Dr. George A Hurst>which have been deposited there. <v Arthur Bearden>Now, Pittsburgh, Corning Corporation in 68. <v Arthur Bearden>They sent us to the medical clinic for the company, doctors did a chest <v Arthur Bearden>X-Ray, but we never heard anything out of the chest x-ray <v Arthur Bearden>They never did tell us anything, whether it was good or bad. <v Narrator>That was part of the problem.

<v Narrator>No one was telling anyone anything. <v Narrator>And people were dying. <v Narrator>In all, more than 850 people worked at the Tyler plant during its 18 year history, <v Narrator>and none of them realized that asbestos was an enemy until it was too late. <v Narrator>The workers maintained that company officials knew of the danger, but kept it from them. <v Narrator>And when did the employees learned that the material they were using to make pipe <v Narrator>insulation was a killer? <v Man 1>Oh, we really didn't know that, til when was that... Last 71 <v Man 2>Around last November, the Ford plant closed down. <v Man 2>Boy, they come out and really told us. <v Man 2>We really found out. Dr. Grant admitted that he knew it since 63. <v Man 2>Some somebody said that he made a statement. <v Man 2>He didn't tell us that. <v man 1>He had written it and did say that he knew there were dangers since 63. <v Narrator>Dr. Lee Grant the company's physician in Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Corning

<v Narrator>have denied all charges. <v Man 2>They would never tell if we could go up and a and asked about the test that run <v Man 2>and all, we will get everything checked out, and the dust level was real low. <v Narrator>In the summer of 1963, the Pittsburgh Corning Corporation and Dr. Grant <v Narrator>authorize the Industrial Hygiene Foundation of America Inc. <v Narrator>to make an evaluation study and report on the dust hazards in the Tyler plant. <v Narrator>It is necessary to point out that this foundation was primarily supported and staffed <v Narrator>by persons sympathetic to the major asbestos companies. <v Narrator>Their report states at no time during this survey was the air in the plant <v Narrator>contaminated with dust to the point to affect visibility, and one could see <v Narrator>down the entire length to the rather long building in which the operations were being <v Narrator>conducted. <v Interviewer>What would you compare it to? <v Frank Spencer>Well, I know it's since I've been breathing so much that old, dust and stuff, you take it and pull it out of your nose when you're around in the buildings, in the dust when you're <v Frank Spencer>eating it like a fog all the time.

<v Narrator>The report went on to state there was an obvious need to institute a better housekeeping <v Narrator>program. Pittsburgh Corning never acted on these recommendations. <v Narrator>Again, in 1966, Dr. Grant and the company authorized their industrial <v Narrator>hygiene engineer to monitor the dust levels and working conditions. <v Narrator>The engineer's reports show that the TYLOR planned for exceeded the recommended safety <v Narrator>levels for airborne asbestos dust. <v Narrator>The report went on to make recommendations for improvements in the plant. <v Narrator>Essentially the same recommendations that were made in the 1963 report. <v Narrator>Again, nothing was done. <v Narrator>The following year, the Bureau of Occupational Safety and Health conducted its first <v Narrator>inspection of the plant. But as usual, nothing was done to clean up the plant. <v Narrator>In 1969, Department of Labor inspectors toured the TYLOR plant, <v Narrator>and according to the records that I have in my hand, they found that hazardous working

<v Narrator>conditions did indeed exist in this facility. <v Narrator>But despite their findings, they did nothing to force the company to clean up the plant. <v Narrator>Nor did they inform employees that working with asbestos could kill them. <v Narrator>Inspector William Holder, who is now assistant regional administrator for the <v Narrator>department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Dallas, refused to comment <v Narrator>as to the reasons why the department did not act in 1969. <v Richard Lemen>And in general, we found a very, very bad <v Richard Lemen>plant. <v Richard Lemen>And as our measurements subsequently showed, <v Richard Lemen>we were seeing fibro concentrations of 100 150 <v Richard Lemen>fibers per CC. When we have an emergency standard in December, that <v Richard Lemen>was down at five fibers per CC. <v Narrator>Finally, in December of 1971, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, <v Narrator>a law enforcement agency for NIOSH, did act. <v Narrator>The company was fined only two hundred ten dollars for violations.

<v Narrator>And a month later, when the company failed to honor the citations, it was fined six <v Narrator>thousand nine hundred ninety dollars. <v Narrator>Pittsburgh Corning. Rather than incur the expenses of complying with safety standards, <v Narrator>close the plant down and it's gutted equipment was buried under this earth. <v Narrator>Charles Van Horn, a former plant manager, had agreed to comment on what he knew. <v Narrator>But when the film crew arrived, this note was found on the door claiming that Van <v Narrator>Horn, now a trade association employee, had been called out of town. <v Narrator>The letter also states "After considering the circumstances, I feel it <v Narrator>would not be advisable for me to make any statements concerning the operations of the <v Narrator>Tylor plant as it might jeopardize the company's position in court cases coming up." <v Narrator>This letter was a lie. At the time of this filming, Charles Van Horn was identified <v Narrator>by a fellow employee as the same man seen peeping out of a nearby office. <v Narrator>And although he denied it, Charles Van Horn filed a workman's compensation suit on

<v Narrator>June 20th, 1972, companion suits for all management <v Narrator>personnel were also filed. <v Narrator>However, none were filed on behalf of the other employees, nor were the employees <v Narrator>notified that such suits were being filed. <v Narrator>Do you know of any secrecy agreements between the government and any other agency and <v Narrator>plant organizations whereby secrets were kept from the employees <v Narrator>concerning health hazards within certain plants? <v Narrator>Currently? Yes. <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>No. Currently, there is no, no such <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>state. Yes. <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>During the early conduct of these studies, because there was no right of entry <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>at that point in time. There were verbal agreements made <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>with member corporations of the asbestos industry <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>that the identity of these plants would never be known. <v Narrator>Whether in secrecy agreements between the government and the officials or the TYLOR

<v Narrator>plant. <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>I'm unable to find any documentation that it was or was not. <v Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner>But this was the general conduct. <v Narrator>So it's more likely that it was. <v Narrator>Secrecy agreements most likely stopped when NIOSH was created. <v Narrator>That was about the same time that real investigations and real concern about the asbestos <v Narrator>workers began. But secrecy agreements did exist at least as far back <v Narrator>as 1962. And this Tyler plant most likely was included in those agreements, <v Narrator>in this memorandum to the assistant surgeon general director, better known as the <v Narrator>director of NIOSH, Dr. Marcus Key, the secrecy plan was spelled out. <v Narrator>This memorandum is from epidemiologist consultant Dr. Lewis J. <v Narrator>Crowley, the same Dr. Crowley who was head of the Bureau of Occupational Safety <v Narrator>and Health. It was dated February 7th, 1972, the same <v Narrator>date that this Tyler plant closed down. <v Narrator>It was pointed out that in reference to handling environmental data, specific data on any <v Narrator>plan was to be given only to the respective management and to the official occupational

<v Narrator>health safety agency of the state. <v Narrator>Any further distribution of the environmental data would have to be at the direction of <v Narrator>the Office of General Counsel, Department of Health, Education and Welfare. <v Narrator>In a section label, Confidentiality of Finding it is stated records of the medical <v Narrator>study will remain the property of the public health service and will be kept in <v Narrator>confidence in accordance with the prevailing public health service policy. <v Narrator>All reports will be written in such a manner that individuals and companies can not <v Narrator>be identified. <v Narrator>It's estimated that more than 300 of the former TYLER workers will die and <v Narrator>still others will suffer from respiratory diseases as a result of having worked around <v Narrator>asbestos. No one can determine what percentage of the deaths can be attributed <v Narrator>directly to withholding information from the employees. <v Narrator>The memorandum confirms what the plant workers had suspected that the government and <v Narrator>industry knew of the asbestos-related hazards, while at the same time government and <v Narrator>industry conspired to keep vital information from the people affected the most,

<v Narrator>the employees. <v Narrator>Do you think the companies is to blame? <v Man 1>I really hold it against them for not telling. <v Man 1>Keeping a secret from that many people working in the plant. <v Herman Yandle>I mean, I do. We tried in those days to get something done about the dust level. <v Herman Yandle>They kept telling us it wouldn't hurt us, you know, that it was alright. <v Herman Yandle>We really had a feeling it was, you know, we didn't know that it was that bad condition, <v Herman Yandle>health hazard. <v Herman Yandle>And even go to 'em and ask, talk to 'em about it, and they would just sit there and lie <v Herman Yandle>to ya. <v Man 1>For years, that's the bad part about it, for years they would sit and lie about it. <v Arthur Bearden>Well, <v Arthur Bearden>I blame the company for it. <v Arthur Bearden>And I blame on Dr. Redd for it. <v Arthur Bearden>More than anything I know of, anybody I know because they caught me. <v Arthur Bearden>They never told us anything about that stuff, it being dangerous to work in.

<v Arthur Bearden>And we didn't know anything about it being dangerous to work in, til 71. <v Arthur Bearden>And never said much before they closed the plant down. <v Narrator>A lot of people blame the company and the government, so much so that one of the largest <v Narrator>class-action lawsuits in history has been filed in the U.S. <v Narrator>district court at Tyler. <v Fred Baron>We have filed a lawsuit on behalf of several individuals on behalf <v Fred Baron>of themselves and others similarly situated as a class action against various <v Fred Baron>entities who would have had something to do with the Pittsburgh Corning plant in Tyler. <v Narrator>Who are these various entities? <v Fred Baron>The entities include the Pittsburgh Corning Company itself and their parent corporations <v Fred Baron>and various other companies that supplied asbestos fibers to the plant <v Fred Baron>and others we feel like that may be responsible for the injuries that occurred out there. <v Fred Baron>Each individual plaintiff in this lawsuit has alleged that because of their exposure

<v Fred Baron>to asbestos fibers, they've incurred some nature of lung disease. <v Fred Baron>The total group damages that have been alleged in this complaint is one hundred million <v Fred Baron>dollars. <v Narrator>In addition to the lawsuit, Baron says he has filed two claims against the government, <v Narrator>the first against the General Services Administration, the supplier of raw asbestos <v Narrator>to the Tyler company. The claim against the GSA alleges that no warning was <v Narrator>given to the dangerous properties of the fibers and their possible health hazards. <v Narrator>The second claim is against the Department of Labor alleging failure to properly enforce <v Narrator>the health and safety laws of the United States and a failure to warn the employees of <v Narrator>the dangers of asbestos in official papers filed with the court. <v Narrator>Pittsburgh, Corning, and Dr. Grant have denied all allegations. <v Narrator>The federal government has not responded to the charges. <v Narrator>Tyler, located just 100 miles from Dallas, is in east Texas. <v Narrator>Until the asbestos tragedy, Tyler was known for his vast oil fields <v Narrator>and is one of the nation's largest producers of roses.

<v Narrator>However, there was a time during the operation of the asbestos plant that even <v Narrator>packaging roses were dangerous. <v Narrator>Pittsburgh Corning sold many of its surplus asbestos bags to the rose nurseries <v Narrator>of Tyler. <v Narrator>Through testing, NIOSH was able to determine that those bags carried a dangerously <v Narrator>high concentration of asbestos fibers. <v Narrator>It was easy to recall the bags, but it was a bit more difficult to locate the former <v Narrator>employees at the plant. <v Richard Lemen>At the present time, we've located some 90 percent <v Richard Lemen>of those employees and we know their address. <v Richard Lemen>And we will be turning this information over to these Texas chest hospital to <v Richard Lemen>follow up. We hope that we can find the other 10 percent so we can get them into <v Richard Lemen>the medical care system. <v Narrator>The East Texas Chest Hospital has received a substantial grant to locate, treat <v Narrator>and educate the former workers and their families. <v Narrator>The tragedy in Tyler is not just affecting the former employees of the plant, but

<v Narrator>possibly is affecting the community as well. <v Richard Lemen>Dr. Silico off recently and looking at the Patterson, New Jersey plant, <v Richard Lemen>which was the predecessor plant of the Tyler asbestos <v Richard Lemen>plant, has found in family members some 20 to 25 <v Richard Lemen>years after their contacts initial exposure. <v Richard Lemen>Somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-nine percent with x-ray abnormalities consistent <v Richard Lemen>with asbestosis and asbestos-related disease. <v Richard Lemen>We also know from studies in Africa, as well as in England, that <v Richard Lemen>children that have played on asbestos waste dumps have <v Richard Lemen>later developed mesothelioma. <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>The first fatal case of asbestosis was reported in a major medical <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>journal, the British Medical Journal, in 1924. <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>So that we've known for a long time and in truth, <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>every death that has occurred among

<v Dr. Irving Selikoff>asbestos workers since has been an unnecessary death, when due to the asbestos <v Dr. Irving Selikoff>related diseases. I think it's unforgivable. <v Frank Spencer>I <v Frank Spencer>guess it's like a man who had taken a gunshot in the side, just dying a little all the time. <v Frank Spencer>If I was to give it up, I guess two, three <v Frank Spencer>years ago I just had just been fighting the whole time. <v Narrator>It's good to be a fighter. <v Frank Spencer>I give it up one time. I thought I'd go on through with it. <v Frank Spencer>Men gets old now, he doesn't care where he lives or dies when he can't do anything. <v Frank Spencer>Can't breathe half the time, nothing like that. I don't know it's just rough.