Episode 27: The Women Of The Shipyards

Description

Episode 27 — The Women of the Shipyards By May 1943, 45,174 women worked in U.S. Navy yards alone. They held welding torches. They cut asbestos cloth with their hands. They sewed insulation blankets. They filled sewn forms with loose asbestos fiber. The Women’s Bureau documented 189 different occupations — including, in official government classifications, “asbestos filler and sewer” and “asbestos layer-out and cutter.” Nobody told them what asbestos was. When the war ended, one in four women factory workers was fired in the first three months. By January 1946, four million women had left the industrial workforce. Portland Kaiser collapsed from 97,000 workers to 2,000. The records went with them — because the same word that justified their lower pay also obscured their exposure history. They weren’t welders. They weren’t asbestos layers. They were helpers. And decades later, when they or their children got sick and their families went looking for documentation of what they’d breathed — the records said helper. Key Takeaways * 189 occupations documented. Among them: “asbestos filler and sewer,” “asbestos layer-out and cutter.” Official government classifications for women working in spaces white with asbestos fiber. No warnings. Instructions, not information. * The “helper” classification did two things. It justified paying women less than half the rate of the men beside them. It also meant they weren’t recorded in exposure categories that would matter 40 years later on a trust fund claim form. * Lucille Kolkin, Brooklyn Navy Yard tack welder, 1942. She wrote home to her husband Al every week. Her letters are at the Center for Brooklyn History. Her oral history, recorded in 1989, is in the same collection as 48 other women who built the ships. Jennifer Egan read them to research Manhattan Beach. “Nobody ever asked for a hammer,” Kolkin wrote. “They asked for a fuckin’ hammer.” * Dr. Muriel Newhouse, 1965. Colonel in the British Army. Landed in Normandy after D-Day. Her colleagues called her a “fearsome ferret.” Her 1965 study found 9 of 83 mesothelioma patients had household-only asbestos exposure — 7 wives, 2 sisters. The most common history: washing a worker’s dungarees. A meta-analysis across studies: 5.02x increased mesothelioma risk from household contact. * The industry knew in 1940. Metropolitan Life Insurance internal report: “asbestos is the type of toxic substance that requires changing clothes when leaving an area of exposure.” OSHA’s separate-laundry mandate: 1972. Thirty-two years. * The Jeanette Franklin case. Born during the war. Both parents worked at Western Pipe and Steel Shipyard. She never set foot in the yard. Diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma in 1996. The jury awarded $6.5 million. The appellate court reversed on a 1948 purchase agreement’s fine print. The California Supreme Court declined review. Jeanette Franklin received nothing. * Female latency is 29% longer. Median 43.7 years versus 33.8 for men. Cases from 1940s shipyard exposure are still emerging today. Featured at Danziger & De Llano Anna Jackson, Director of Patient Support at Danziger & De Llano. Nearly fifteen years of experience helping mesothelioma families navigate what comes after the diagnosis. She lost her own husband to cancer. She knows what this conversation costs. Michelle was diagnosed with mesothelioma at age ten — secondary exposure through her father’s work clothes. Given three to six months. She survived thirty-five years. During those years, she counseled over two hundred newly diagnosed families. Her story is in Beating the Odds: Surviving Mesothelioma, compiled by Dave Foster, available free from Danziger & De Llano. Resources * Mesothelioma help: dandell.com [https://dandell.com/] * Episode notes and sources: mesotheliomalawyersnearme.com/podcast/episode-27-women-of-the-shipyards/ [https://mesotheliomalawyersnearme.com/podcast/episode-27-women-of-the-shipyards/] * Full transcript: wikimesothelioma.com/Asbestos_Podcast_EP27_Transcript [https://wikimesothelioma.com/Asbestos_Podcast_EP27_Transcript] * Previous episode: EP26 — The Shipyards Never Sleep [https://mesotheliomalawyersnearme.com/podcast/episode-26-the-shipyards-never-sleep/] Next: Episode 28 — Wartime Production, Peacetime Deaths. The men came home. Production didn’t stop. 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 27: The Women Of The Shipyards

Description

Comments

1 month for 9 kr.

All episodes