Episode 31 — The Conference That Changed Everything

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Episode 31 — The Conference That Changed Everything October 19th, 1964. Four hundred scientists in the room at the New York Academy of Sciences. The data is in front of them: 339 of 392 insulation workers with twenty or more years of exposure show X-ray evidence of asbestosis — 86 percent. Lung cancer at seven times the expected rate. Ten mesotheliomas. The numbers are unassailable. And while the final session is still running, the Asbestos Textile Institute legal team is already drafting warning letters to the Academy, to Selikoff personally, demanding suppression of the press release. The New York Times ran one article. Then — nothing. By design. Episode 31 covers the six years between Selikoff’s proof and the law. There was no OSHA in 1964 — the Occupational Safety and Health Act wouldn’t be signed until December 29, 1970. In the gap, the industry built a doubt machine. In 1966, the Asbestos Textile Institute created the “Information Center on Asbestos” in Philadelphia — its mission was to challenge Selikoff’s methodology, fund counter-research, and delay any enforceable standard. They attacked the data. When that failed, they attacked the man. A 1965 Owens-Corning memo sought “to find some way of preventing Dr. Selikoff from creating problems and affecting sales.” An ATI representative called him a “disturbing sore thumb.” Every tactic the tobacco industry would later make famous — asbestos ran it first. And in those six years of manufactured delay, 3.4 million Americans were being assigned to Navy ships, military bases, and factories still operating without enforceable standards. Key Takeaways * The suppression started before the conference ended. ATI minutes document that member companies’ “protests and threats successfully prevented the distribution of press releases at the historic asbestos conference.” One Times article covered the findings. Six months of silence followed. Not an oversight — an operation. * The doubt machine had a name and an address. The Information Center on Asbestos, Philadelphia, 1966. Created by the Asbestos Textile Institute to coordinate the industry’s scientific and PR response. Funded research designed to dispute dose-response models. Challenged Selikoff’s methodology while commissioning studies to identify “safe” exposure levels — when Selikoff’s own data showed no demonstrably safe level had been established. * The regulatory architecture had no floor. Before OSHA, average industrial workers had only voluntary compliance, state workers’ compensation, and the goodwill of their employer. Mining had the Federal Mine Safety Code. Federal contractors had Walsh-Healey. Everyone else had nothing. The asbestos industry understood exactly what that absence meant and used it deliberately — every year without a federal standard was another year no law was broken, no violation existed, no liability attached. * The ACGIH standard was already industry-captured. The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists set threshold limit values. In 1964, their asbestos TLV was five million particles per cubic foot. Selikoff’s data indicated that level was still killing workers. Industry representatives sat on the committees that set those values. Conflict of interest was structural. * The evidence base kept growing anyway. The original 1964 cohort was 632 insulation workers. By the late 1960s, Selikoff was tracking 17,800 — one of the largest occupational health studies ever conducted. The mortality gap between insulation workers and the general population wasn’t narrowing. It was widening. He called what was coming the “asbestos cancer wave” that had already been set in motion and could not be recalled. * The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed 63 days before the conference. Manufacturers who attended the October 1964 conference — who received the proof, who funded the Information Center on Asbestos, who sent the warning letters — those same manufacturers continued supplying every Navy ship, every military aircraft, every base being built for the Vietnam theater. After October 1964, there was no longer any good-faith claim of ignorance. * OSHA’s first standard was still wrong. December 29, 1970 — Nixon signs OSHA. First asbestos standard: 12 fibers per cubic centimeter. Selikoff said immediately it was ten times too high. The standard fell: 12 (1971) → 5 (1972) → 2 (1976) → 0.2 (1986) → 0.1 today. A 99 percent reduction over 23 years. The conference changed the scientific record. It changed almost nothing in the factory. Not right away. Featured: Navairre She was twenty-eight years old when she was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma. No known exposure source. Doctors gave her two years. That was more than twenty years ago. She found NIH specialists. Became one of the early adopters of HIPEC — hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy — before it was widely available. Her case helped show what was possible. Today she’s still working. Still advocating. The statistics said two years. She said otherwise. When you call Danziger & De Llano, you’re not talking to people who learned about mesothelioma from a textbook. You’re talking to people who understand that the diagnosis is not the final word. Over a thousand families helped. Nearly two billion dollars recovered. Free consultation at dandell.com [https://dandell.com]. Resources * Free consultation: dandell.com [https://dandell.com] * Episode notes and sources: mesotheliomalawyersnearme.com/podcast/episode-31-the-conference-that-changed-everything/ [https://mesotheliomalawyersnearme.com/podcast/episode-31-the-conference-that-changed-everything/] * Full transcript: wikimesothelioma.com/Asbestos_Podcast_EP31_Transcript [https://wikimesothelioma.com/Asbestos_Podcast_EP31_Transcript] * Previous episode: EP30 — Selikoff’s Warning [https://mesotheliomalawyersnearme.com/podcast/episode-30-selikoffs-warning/] Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making — 52 episodes tracing asbestos from ancient pottery to the 2024 EPA ban. Produced by Danziger & De Llano. Next: Episode 32 — The Invisible Enemy Within. The boiler rooms. The temperatures. The gun vibrations that shook asbestos insulation loose in sailors’ sleeping quarters. And Walter Twidwell — Navy boiler tender, seven ships, twenty years, a miniature dachshund named Hiram, and a jury that needed less than two hours. Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making is sponsored by Danziger & De Llano Mesothelioma Law Firm, a nationwide practice with over 30 years of experience and nearly $2 billion recovered for asbestos victims. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, the exposure happened somewhere—and Paul Danziger and Rod De Llano know how to trace it back. For a free consultation, visit https://dandell.com [https://dandell.com/]. Resources: → Mesothelioma legal rights: https://dandell.com/mesothelioma/ [https://dandell.com/mesothelioma/] → Asbestos exposure sources: https://dandell.com/asbestos-exposure/ [https://dandell.com/asbestos-exposure/] → Asbestos trust funds ($30B+ available): https://dandell.com/asbestos-trust-funds/ [https://dandell.com/asbestos-trust-funds/] → Free case evaluation: https://dandell.com/contact/ [https://dandell.com/contact/] Sister Podcast - MESO: The Mesothelioma Podcast: http://mesotheliomapodcast.com/

Episode 33: Project 100,000

March 29, 1973. The last American POWs board a transport home. 591,000 servicemembers are discharged that final year. At airports across the country — Travis AFB, San Francisco International, O'Hare — some of them are met with protesters. Spat on. Called baby killers. A 1990 academic study would find that 44.3 percent of Vietnam veterans reported low homecoming support. Nearly twice the rate of other veterans. Controlling for combat, for deployments, for demographics — that hostile reception was independently associated with 2.13 times higher odds of PTSD. 1.91 times higher suicidality. The war damaged them. The homecoming compounded it. And for the men who had spent years in Navy boiler rooms, there was a third betrayal waiting — one that wouldn't announce itself for another twenty years. In 1991, Congress passed the Agent Orange Act. Veterans who'd been sprayed with dioxin herbicides in Vietnam finally got presumptive service connection — automatic disability benefits without having to prove the link between their cancer and their service. The PACT Act of 2022 extended the same to burn pit exposure. The system has learned. Twice. But not for asbestos. A veteran with mesothelioma today — diagnosed right now, in 2026 — still has to individually prove current diagnosis, documented service exposure, and a medical nexus opinion linking the cancer to the service. Even with 30 percent of all mesothelioma patients being veterans. Even with federal court findings of "official connivance at coverup." The burden is still on them. Episode 33 documents the homecoming no one talks about — and why the men most exposed became the men most overlooked. What This Episode Covers * The hostile homecoming — 1973 — Veterans returning from Vietnam faced a documented pattern of hostility unmatched in American military history. A 1990 academic study found 44.3% reported low homecoming support — nearly double the 26% rate for all veterans. Bob Greene collected hundreds of first-person accounts for his 1989 book Homecoming: When the Soldiers Returned from Vietnam. Controlling for combat exposure and demographics, low homecoming support independently produced 2.13x higher PTSD odds and 1.91x higher suicidality. The disease the men carried home in their lungs was invisible. The damage done at the airport was also invisible — in the data — until researchers finally measured it. * Project 100,000 — August 1966. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara announced a program to accept 40,000 recruits per year who previously would have been rejected for low test scores. A social uplift program, he promised. President Johnson privately called them "second-class fellows." By December 1971, 354,000 men had been inducted. Hamilton Gregory, who wrote the definitive account (McNamara's Folly), documented that Project 100,000 recruits died at three times the rate of other Americans serving in Vietnam. A 1986 follow-up found they had lower incomes and higher divorce rates than if they had never served at all. The high-asbestos-exposure roles in the Navy — boiler tender, machinist's mate, engine room watch — went to lower-ranking enlisted personnel. Project 100,000 recruits were specifically assigned to positions requiring "little intellectual ability." The overlap is structural. The documentation doesn't exist, or hasn't been found. But the shape of it is visible. * Agent Orange vs. asbestos — why one got recognition and the other didn't — Agent Orange was specific to one war, one time window, one government spray operation. It was visible — people saw the planes. It involved two chemical companies. Asbestos was everywhere: ships, planes, barracks, vehicles, all branches, all eras, hundreds of manufacturers. Agent Orange became a cause célèbre. The Agent Orange Act of 1991 created presumptive service connection. The PACT Act of 2022 extended it to burn pits. Asbestos veterans remained on their own — required to individually prove what the Navy documented and buried decades before their service began. The complexity of the asbestos industry protected the asbestos industry. * Icom — Navy veteran. USS Kearsarge and USS John A. Bole. Boiler tender. Diagnosed with mesothelioma. His first doctor told him "it might go away." It didn't go away. Icom became the first VA patient to receive a cutting-edge P/D protocol — pleurectomy/decortication. He walked into surgery saying: "It's a beautiful day." Eight years later, Icom was still alive. His story appears in Beating the Odds: Surviving Mesothelioma, compiled by Dave Foster and available free to any family facing a diagnosis through Danziger and De Llano. * The peak mortality window — right now — Vietnam service ran 1965 to 1973. Asbestos latency is 20 to 50 years. The math puts peak mesothelioma diagnosis between 1985 and 2023. We are in that window. Men who are 75 to 80 years old today were 20-year-old boiler tenders in the Gulf of Tonkin. They survived the war. They survived the hostile homecoming. They built lives. The disease is finding them now. Key Statistics * 591,000 — American servicemembers discharged in the final year of Vietnam involvement * 44.3% — Vietnam veterans who reported low homecoming support (vs. 26% for all veterans) * 2.13x — Higher odds of PTSD from low homecoming support, independent of combat * 1.91x — Higher odds of suicidality from low homecoming support * 354,000 — Men inducted under Project 100,000, October 1966 – December 1971 * 3x — Death rate of Project 100,000 recruits vs. other Vietnam servicemembers * $180 million — Agent Orange settlement, May 7, 1984 (eve of trial) * $3,800 — Average payment to Agent Orange claimants (52,000 paid, no admission of wrongdoing) * 1991 — Agent Orange Act creates presumptive service connection for Vietnam veterans * 30% — Veterans' share of U.S. mesothelioma diagnoses (vs. 7% of population) * 20-50 years — Latency period between asbestos exposure and mesothelioma diagnosis * 8+ years — Icom's survival past a terminal mesothelioma diagnosis Who This Episode Is For If you or someone you love served in the U.S. military — particularly in the Navy, in engineering or boiler ratings — and have been diagnosed with mesothelioma or another asbestos-related disease, the legal options available to you do not depend on the VA's current policy. Civil claims against the manufacturers of asbestos-containing products are independent of VA disability claims, and they have been won by veterans whose cases the VA has not service-connected. The peak mortality window for Vietnam-era exposure is not behind us. It is now. About the Firm Featured in This Episode Larry Gates is a Senior Client Advocate at Danziger and De Llano [https://dandell.com/]. His father was a Navy veteran who came home and worked the Shell refinery in Pasadena, Texas — and died of mesothelioma in 1999. Larry is now 72, fighting his own battle with cancer, and still helping other families through the same fight his family faced. Icom's story — eight years past a terminal diagnosis — is one of many in Beating the Odds: Surviving Mesothelioma, compiled by Dave Foster and free for any family facing a new diagnosis. Call the firm to request a copy. Paul Danziger [https://dandell.com/paul-danziger/] and Rod De Llano [https://dandell.com/] founded the firm in 1995. Nearly two billion dollars recovered for over a thousand families. Free 24/7 consultation: dandell.com/contact-us/ [https://dandell.com/contact-us/] Resources * Veterans and Mesothelioma — Danziger and De Llano [https://dandell.com/veterans/] * Asbestos Exposure and Your Legal Options [https://dandell.com/asbestos-exposure/] * Mesothelioma Compensation Overview [https://dandell.com/mesothelioma-compensation/] * Free Consultation — Danziger and De Llano [https://dandell.com/contact-us/] Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making — Episode 33: Project 100,000. Arc 7: The Truth Emerges. Listen on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1860289539] | Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3RuKIhjlTIyldks82KBYR5] Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making is sponsored by Danziger & De Llano Mesothelioma Law Firm, a nationwide practice with over 30 years of experience and nearly $2 billion recovered for asbestos victims. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, the exposure happened somewhere—and Paul Danziger and Rod De Llano know how to trace it back. For a free consultation, visit https://dandell.com [https://dandell.com/]. Resources: → Mesothelioma legal rights: https://dandell.com/mesothelioma/ [https://dandell.com/mesothelioma/] → Asbestos exposure sources: https://dandell.com/asbestos-exposure/ [https://dandell.com/asbestos-exposure/] → Asbestos trust funds ($30B+ available): https://dandell.com/asbestos-trust-funds/ [https://dandell.com/asbestos-trust-funds/] → Free case evaluation: https://dandell.com/contact/ [https://dandell.com/contact/] Sister Podcast - MESO: The Mesothelioma Podcast: http://mesotheliomapodcast.com/

13. juli 202613 min

Episode 32 — The Invisible Enemy Within

S1E32 — THE INVISIBLE ENEMY WITHIN The Asbestos Podcast · Season 1 · Arc 7: The Truth Emerges (Episode 3) Episode 32 — The Invisible Enemy Within 1939. A Navy Medical Officer recommends respirators for pipe covering workers. The recommendation goes nowhere. 1941. Commander Charles S. Stephenson writes to the Surgeon General: "I am certain that we are not protecting the men as we should." No documented response. No policy change. 1943. The Navy publishes comprehensive safety requirements for asbestos work — Section 11.1, requiring respiratory protection, segregated work, periodic medical exams. Requirements that are never enforced. Fifty years later, a federal judge would call what followed "official connivance at coverup of the hazards of asbestos in the shipyards." 3.4 million Americans served in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Every Navy vessel in the fleet contained asbestos. The men below decks — working in engine rooms above 130 degrees Fahrenheit, in spaces so thick with asbestos fibers a gunner's mate once described it as watching snow fall inside the ship — were never told. Not once. Not by the Navy. Not by the manufacturers. Not by anyone. Episode 32 documents what the Navy knew, when they knew it, and what they chose not to do with that knowledge. Key Takeaways * The Navy's knowledge timeline (1939-1973) — 1939: Navy Medical Officer H.E. Jenkins recommends respirators. 1941: Commander Stephenson writes directly to the Surgeon General warning of inadequate protection. 1943: The Navy publishes Section 11.1 — comprehensive asbestos safety requirements for contract shipyards. A federal judge later found those requirements "were not enforced in naval shipyards" and that there was "official connivance at coverup." Sailors below decks received none of this. No respirators. No warnings. No monitoring. For thirty years. * Walter Twidwell — Navy boiler tender, 1954-1973. Seven ships. Korea through Vietnam. The insulation on every pipe, every valve, every surface: white, fibrous, dusty. No respirator. No warning. When he retired, he built a log cabin in Washington State. Took daily walks with a miniature dachshund named Hiram. Hosted reading contests for schoolchildren. March 2017, at age 81: a persistent cough, shortness of breath, an X-ray showing a mass. "There is no cure for it. Do you have all your paperwork in order?" When Walter learned the Navy had required respirators since 1943 — and never told him — he said: "I didn't want to sue my government, and I damn sure didn't want to sue the Navy, 'cause they're still feeding me." A friend called the lawyers on his behalf. August 2018: a New York jury awarded Walter Twidwell $40.1 million against Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Deliberation time: less than two hours. Walter died approximately a year later. * What it was actually like below decks — 130-170 degrees Fahrenheit. 112 decibels — above the Navy's own threshold for double hearing protection, making verbal communication physically impossible. 3-4 hour watches in confined spaces. Boiler room insulation ranging from 5 to 99 percent amosite asbestos. And when the ship's guns fired: vibration shaking the insulation loose. A gunner's mate on USS Chevalier testified: "There was so much airborne asbestos that it looked like it was snowing inside the vessel." * Bob Niemiec — USS Hermitage, entered service 1965. First assignment out of boot camp: scraping paint that contained asbestos. Nobody told him. Thirty years later, while umpiring baseball games, breathing problems. September 2019: two masses on his lungs, three collapsed lungs in succession, eight hours of surgery. Pleural mesothelioma. Prognosis: ten months to live. Bob decided: "I'm not going to take radiation and chemo and be sick with whatever time I have left." He takes over-the-counter pain medication. Nothing else. As of late 2024, Bob Niemiec was still alive — more than five years past his ten-month prognosis. His wife Jeannie: "They all said it's impossible medically for this man to still be alive. So it's just not his time to go." * The VA policy most veterans don't know — Mesothelioma is NOT on the VA's presumptive list for asbestos exposure. Unlike Agent Orange or burn pit exposure, a veteran with mesothelioma must prove three things individually: a current diagnosis, service records demonstrating asbestos exposure likely occurred, and a medical nexus opinion connecting the diagnosis to service. Even with every Navy ship documented as containing asbestos. Even with 30 percent of mesothelioma patients being veterans. The burden remains on the veteran to prove what the Navy already knew for decades. Key Statistics * 1939, 1941, 1943 — the Navy's documented knowledge of asbestos hazards, predating widespread veteran exposure * 30 years — the period during which known safety requirements went unenforced for sailors * 3.4 million — Americans who served in the Vietnam theater, all aboard ships the Navy knew contained asbestos * 130-170°F, 112 dB — documented conditions in Navy boiler rooms during service * $40.1 million — Walter Twidwell's verdict, less than 2 hours of jury deliberation * 5+ years — Bob Niemiec's survival past a ten-month prognosis, "impossible medically" * 30% of mesothelioma patients are veterans (versus 7% of the U.S. population) * 6.47x — elevated mesothelioma mortality for Navy veterans compared to civilians * 20-50 years — latency period between first asbestos exposure and mesothelioma diagnosis Who This Episode Is For If you or someone you love served aboard U.S. Navy vessels during the Korean War, Vietnam War, or Cold War era — particularly in engineering, boiler, or machinery ratings — the evidence documented in this episode is directly relevant to your family's health history. The veterans being diagnosed today with mesothelioma typically breathed asbestos fibers 40 to 60 years ago. The latency period means the crisis is not behind us. It is now. Featured: Larry Gates Larry Gates is a Senior Client Advocate at Danziger and De Llano [https://dandell.com/]. His father was a Navy veteran who came home and worked the Shell refinery in Pasadena, Texas — and died of mesothelioma in 1999. Larry is now 72, fighting his own battle with cancer, and still helping other families through the same fight his family faced. When you call Danziger and De Llano, you may be talking to someone who has already lived this story. Paul Danziger [https://dandell.com/paul-danziger/] and Rod De Llano [https://dandell.com/] founded the firm in 1995. Nearly two billion dollars recovered for over a thousand families. Free 24/7 consultation: dandell.com/contact-us/ [https://dandell.com/contact-us/] Beating the Odds: Stories of Unexpected Mesothelioma Survival — compiled by Dave Foster, available on Amazon or free for families facing a new diagnosis. Call the firm to request a copy. Resources * Veterans and Mesothelioma — Danziger and De Llano [https://dandell.com/veterans/] * Asbestos Exposure and Your Legal Options [https://dandell.com/asbestos-exposure/] * Mesothelioma Compensation Overview [https://dandell.com/mesothelioma-compensation/] * Free Consultation — Danziger and De Llano [https://dandell.com/contact-us/] * Episode notes and sources: mesotheliomalawyersnearme.com/podcast/episode-32-the-invisible-enemy-within/ [https://mesotheliomalawyersnearme.com/podcast/episode-32-the-invisible-enemy-within/] * Full transcript: wikimesothelioma.com/wiki/Asbestos_Podcast_EP32_Transcript [https://wikimesothelioma.com/wiki/Asbestos_Podcast_EP32_Transcript] * Previous episode: EP31 — The Conference That Changed Everything [https://mesotheliomalawyersnearme.com/podcast/episode-31-the-conference-that-changed-everything/] Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making — 51 episodes tracing asbestos from ancient pottery to the 2024 EPA ban. Produced by Danziger & De Llano. Next: Episode 33 — Project 100,000. What happened when the veterans came home. The homecoming betrayal, the Agent Orange parallel, and a government that spent years ignoring what it had already documented. Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making is sponsored by Danziger & De Llano Mesothelioma Law Firm, a nationwide practice with over 30 years of experience and nearly $2 billion recovered for asbestos victims. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, the exposure happened somewhere—and Paul Danziger and Rod De Llano know how to trace it back. For a free consultation, visit https://dandell.com [https://dandell.com/]. Resources: → Mesothelioma legal rights: https://dandell.com/mesothelioma/ [https://dandell.com/mesothelioma/] → Asbestos exposure sources: https://dandell.com/asbestos-exposure/ [https://dandell.com/asbestos-exposure/] → Asbestos trust funds ($30B+ available): https://dandell.com/asbestos-trust-funds/ [https://dandell.com/asbestos-trust-funds/] → Free case evaluation: https://dandell.com/contact/ [https://dandell.com/contact/] Sister Podcast - MESO: The Mesothelioma Podcast: http://mesotheliomapodcast.com/

6. juli 202618 min

Episode 31 — The Conference That Changed Everything

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