Asbestos Watch Newsletter
November/December 1988

Featured Articles:

Healthy Manville Immune From Suits
Who Says It's Safe?

Summaries in Spanish at the ends of most articles

Who Says It's "Safe "?

"TLVs for 104 substances were significantly influenced by unpublished corporate communications. Fifteen TLVs were based solely on that source of information."

Experts on protecting human health should be the ones who set the safety limits on toxic substances, shouldn't they? Recent research shows that standards are often set by "experts" in protecting corporate profit, not lives.

Threshold Limit Values (TLVs), the levels of toxic substances that people can supposedly be exposed to without health risk, are established by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH). In an article in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Dr. Barry I. Castleman, author of Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects and Dr. Grace E. Ziem, MD, show that the process followed by the ACGIH in setting TLV limits has been compromised by corporate influence.

TLVs for 104 substances were significantly influenced by unpublished corporate communications. Fifteen TLVs were based solely on that source of information. The ACGIH committee's handling of TLVs for lead and 7 carcinogens showed corporate influence and interaction with the committee. Corporate representatives listed as "consultants" were given primary responsibility for developing TLVs on chemicals owned by their employers (e.g., Dow, DuPont). Many recommended TLVs were even higher than the toxics' manufacturers would allow in their own plants.

The San Francisco WLA Chapter leafleted the May convention of the American Industrial Hygiene Association about the article's findings. victims of asbestos and other toxics are often at the mercy of industrial hygienists and other "experts" who portray government standards as "safe" levels.

The process for establishing TLVs needs to be made more scientific. All members of committees and agencies involved should be forced to reveal all their financial relationships with the companies affected. TLV information from other parts of the world, where private corporations are not in a position to set their own standards for poisoning people, should also be considered.

Copies of Castleman and Ziem's article and further information on corporate influence on the asbestos standard are available from the WLA.