Episode 30: Selikoff’s Warning

S1E30 — Selikoff’s Warning

The Asbestos Podcast · Season 1 · Arc 7: The Truth Emerges (Episode 1)

Episode 30 — Selikoff’s Warning

October 19th, 1964. New York Academy of Sciences. Over 400 scientists in the room. Dr. Irving Selikoff presents two studies. In the clinical examination cohort: 1,522 insulation workers, 1,117 examined, 392 with twenty or more years of exposure. Of those 392, 339 — 86 percent — showed X-ray evidence of asbestosis. In the mortality cohort: 307 deaths. Lung cancer at seven times the expected rate. And mesothelioma — a cancer so rare that some pathologists doubted it existed — ten cases. The industry called it “an extraordinary high incidence.” Then they suppressed the press coverage.

Episode 30 opens Arc 7: The Truth Emerges. It tells the story of the man who broke the silence. Irving Selikoff was born in Brooklyn in 1915 — the same quotas that kept Jewish students out of American medical schools sent him to Anderson’s College of Medicine in Glasgow, Scotland. He arrived on the S.S. Samaria October 12, 1936. He came back, cured tuberculosis with a drug his JAMA paper called “the most potent drug introduced thus far,” and then spent twenty years studying the men dying in the insulation trades. What he found in October 1964 was undeniable. What the industry did next was predictable. And what Congress had done ten weeks earlier — pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution — meant that the proof arrived just as 3.4 million more Americans were being sent into the most asbestos-saturated military in history.

Key Takeaways

• The conference that almost wasn’t covered. The Asbestos Textile Institute mounted immediate opposition to the 1964 NYAS conference. ATI minutes document that member companies’ “protests and threats successfully prevented the distribution of press releases.” The New York Times published one article. The conference “barely registered a blip in the nation’s consciousness.” Not by accident. By design.
• Two studies, not one. Selikoff, Churg, and Hammond presented two distinct datasets at the October 1964 conference. The clinical study (NYAS Annals Vol. 132, 1965) found 86% of workers with 20+ years of exposure had asbestosis on X-ray. The separate mortality study, updated from their April 1964 JAMA paper, tracked 632 workers and found 307 deaths — with 10 mesotheliomas and lung cancer at more than 7 times the expected rate.
• The quota that sent him to Scotland. Yale Medical School’s dean — Milton Winternitz, himself Jewish — had instructed his admissions committee: “Never admit more than five Jews, take only two Italian Catholics, and take no blacks at all.” Selikoff couldn’t get into an American medical school. He boarded a Cunard liner in New York and arrived in Glasgow two weeks later. That detour is why he was available in Paterson, New Jersey in the early 1950s, when the UNARCO insulation workers first walked into his clinic.
• History for hire. In 2003, a British historian named P.W.J. Bartrip published an article attacking Selikoff’s credentials — funded by Turner and Newall, Britain’s largest asbestos manufacturer. Eight prominent researchers from Brown, Manchester, RMIT, and Mount Sinai published a rebuttal calling it “little more than an ad hominem attack.” In 2013, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine stated: “The insulator mortality data stand undiminished by the test of time.”
• The timing. August 7, 1964: Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 88–2 and 414–0. October 19, 1964: Selikoff presents proof at NYAS. March 2, 1965: Operation Rolling Thunder begins. The companies that received scientific certainty in October 1964 continued supplying the military without warnings for the next decade. About 37 percent of all U.S. asbestos ever consumed was consumed after 1965. Peak: 803,000 tons in 1973.
• OSHA’s long road. OSHA didn’t exist in 1964 — it launched in 1970. First asbestos standard: 12 fibers per cubic centimeter. Then 5. Then 2. Then 0.2. Today: 0.1. A 99 percent reduction over 23 years. A full ban didn’t arrive until the EPA’s 2024 rule — sixty years after Selikoff’s warning.

Featured at Danziger & De Llano

Rod De Llano, founding partner. Princeton undergrad. UT Law with honors. Spent four years at Jones Day — one of the largest law firms in the world — defending corporations in product liability cases. Then walked away. “He wanted to direct his energy and talents towards helping people in significant need of representation.” Over a billion dollars recovered. He knows exactly how the other side thinks because he used to be the other side. Free consultation at dandell.com.

Paul Danziger and Rod De Llano founded Danziger & De Llano in 1995. Thirty years of mesothelioma litigation. Nearly two billion dollars recovered for over a thousand families. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed, the consultation is free.

Resources

• Free consultation: dandell.com
• Episode notes and sources: mesotheliomalawyersnearme.com/podcast/episode-30-selikoffs-warning/
• Full transcript: wikimesothelioma.com/Asbestos_Podcast_EP30_Transcript
• Previous episode: EP29 — The Shipyard Generation

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 31 — The Conference That Changed Everything. What Selikoff actually presented: the data tables, the pathology slides, the methodology. And what the industry did in the weeks that followed.

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.

Resources:

→ Mesothelioma legal rights: https://dandell.com/mesothelioma/ 

→ Asbestos exposure sources: https://dandell.com/asbestos-exposure/ 

→ Asbestos trust funds ($30B+ available): https://dandell.com/asbestos-trust-funds/ 

→ Free case evaluation: https://dandell.com/contact/ 

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Transcript

S1E30 — Selikoff’s Warning

Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making · Season 1, Episode 30 · Arc 7: The Truth Emerges, Chapter 1 · Period: 1936–1965

Key Takeaways

• October 19–21, 1964: Irving Selikoff presents two studies at the New York Academy of Sciences before 400+ scientists. Clinical study: 339 of 392 workers with 20+ years exposure showed asbestosis on X-ray (86 percent). Mortality study: 307 deaths in 632-worker cohort; lung cancer at 7× expected rate; 10 mesotheliomas.
• The suppression: The Asbestos Textile Institute mounted immediate opposition. ATI minutes document that member companies’ “protests and threats successfully prevented the distribution of press releases.” The New York Times ran one article. The conference “barely registered a blip in the nation’s consciousness.”
• The timing: Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed August 7, 1964 — ten weeks before the conference. Operation Rolling Thunder began March 2, 1965. Between 1964 and 1975, U.S. asbestos consumption averaged 700,000 tons per year (peak: 803,000 tons in 1973). About 37 percent of all U.S. asbestos ever consumed was consumed after 1965.
• Selikoff’s biography: Born January 15, 1915, Brooklyn. Jewish quotas blocked U.S. medical school entry. Sailed on S.S. Samaria October 1936; arrived Liverpool October 12. Trained at Anderson’s College Medical School, Glasgow. TB isoniazid breakthrough 1951–52. UNARCO asbestos workers in Paterson, NJ led to the 20-year investigation.
• Collaborators: Jacob Churg (pathologist, Barnert Memorial Hospital, Paterson NJ) and E. Cuyler Hammond (statistician, American Cancer Society). Both had track records on tobacco and mesothelioma pathology that made the findings bulletproof.
• History for hire: In 2003, historian P.W.J. Bartrip attacked Selikoff’s credentials — funded by Turner and Newall. Eight researchers from Brown, Manchester, RMIT, and Mount Sinai called it “little more than an ad hominem attack.” The 2013 AJRCCM rebuttal: “The insulator mortality data stand undiminished by the test of time.”
• OSHA and the long road: OSHA founded 1970. First asbestos standard: 12 f/cc. Reduced to 5, then 2 (1976), then 0.2 (1986), then 0.1 today — a 99% reduction over 23 years. Full U.S. ban: EPA 2024 rule — sixty years after Selikoff’s warning.
• Peak mortality window: Mesothelioma latency: 20–50 years (49.4 years for shipyard workers). Vietnam veterans (peak deployment ~1968, war end 1973) are in peak mesothelioma mortality now. Veterans are 30% of all mesothelioma diagnoses today.

Named Entities

CategoryEntityRole / ContextPeople | Irving Selikoff | Physician-researcher, Mount Sinai Hospital. Born January 15, 1915, Brooklyn. Conducted landmark 1964–65 asbestos studies. Died May 20, 1992.
| Jacob Churg | Pathologist, Barnert Memorial Hospital, Paterson NJ. Born Dolhinow (now Belarus) 1910. Fled Europe 1936. Co-author of both Selikoff studies. Uncle: Louis Chargin, chief physician Mt. Sinai skin clinic.
| E. Cuyler Hammond | Statistician, Director of Statistical Research, American Cancer Society. First author on 1965 NYAS mortality update. Co-authored landmark 1952 study proving cigarettes cause lung cancer.
| Milton Winternitz | Dean, Yale School of Medicine, 1920–1935. Himself Jewish. Instructed admissions: “Never admit more than five Jews, take only two Italian Catholics, and take no blacks at all.” (Oren, Joining the Club, Yale UP 1985, p. 148)
| P.W.J. Bartrip | British historian. Published 2003 article attacking Selikoff’s credentials, funded by Turner and Newall. NYT called it “history for hire.”
| Carl Gelman | Paterson NJ attorney, workers’ compensation specialist. Widely credited with bringing asbestos workers to Selikoff’s attention (early 1950s). Specific numbers unverified to primary documentation.
| Philip Drinker | Harvard professor, Chief Health Consultant, U.S. Maritime Commission. 1944 classified survey found dust 6–10× above safe limits in shipyards.
| Richard Doll | British epidemiologist. Proved smoking-asbestos connection in Britain, 1955.
| Chris Wagner | South African researcher. Linked asbestos to mesothelioma, 1960.
| Paul Danziger | Co-founding partner, Danziger & De Llano. Co-founded firm 1995.
| Rod De Llano | Co-founding partner, Danziger & De Llano. Princeton/UT Law. Former Jones Day corporate defense attorney. Over a billion dollars recovered.
Institutions | New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) | Host of October 19–21, 1964 conference, “Biological Effects of Asbestos.” Proceedings published as Annals of the NYAS Vol. 132, December 1965.
| Mount Sinai Hospital / Icahn School of Medicine | Selikoff’s institutional base. Renamed facility in his honor.
| UNARCO (Union Asbestos and Rubber Company) | Paterson, NJ plant. Asbestos Workers Union members formed core of Selikoff’s early cohort.
| Asbestos Textile Institute (ATI) | Industry trade group. Minutes document suppression of press releases at the 1964 NYAS conference via “protests and threats.”
| Johns-Manville | Major asbestos manufacturer. ATI member. Cited Navy’s 1944 classified Drinker report in 1983 litigation to deflect blame to government.
| Raybestos-Manhattan | ATI member. Asbestos product manufacturer.
| H.K. Porter | ATI member. Asbestos manufacturer.
| Owens-Corning Fiberglas | 1965 memo sought “to find some way of preventing Dr. Selikoff from creating problems and affecting sales.”
| Turner and Newall | Britain’s largest asbestos manufacturer. Funded Bartrip’s 2003 attack on Selikoff credentials.
| Anderson’s College Medical School | Glasgow, Scotland. Selikoff trained here; no religious bar to Jewish students. Famous alumni: David Livingstone. Scottish Triple Qualification pathway.
| Barnert Memorial Hospital | Paterson, NJ. Jacob Churg: Chief of Pathology.
| American Cancer Society | E. Cuyler Hammond’s institutional base.
| Sea View Hospital | Staten Island. Site of 1951–52 isoniazid TB trials with Dr. Edward Robitzek.
| Yale School of Medicine | Dean Winternitz’s institution. Jewish quota policy documented 1920–1935.
| Jones Day | Major law firm where Rod De Llano worked in corporate product liability defense before co-founding Danziger & De Llano.
| Danziger & De Llano | National mesothelioma law firm. Founded 1995. Nearly two billion dollars recovered for over a thousand families. dandell.com
Vessels | S.S. Samaria (RMS Samaria) | Cunard liner. Selikoff sailed New York to Liverpool, October 1936. Arrived Liverpool October 12, 1936. (UK BT 26 passenger manifests)
Locations | Paterson, New Jersey | Site of UNARCO plant and Selikoff’s early practice at 707 Broadway. Churg also at Barnert Memorial here.
| Glasgow, Scotland | Anderson’s College Medical School. Selikoff 1936–1939.
| Brooklyn, New York | Selikoff’s birthplace, January 15, 1915.
| Liverpool, England | S.S. Samaria arrival port, October 12, 1936.
| Gulf of Tonkin | Site of August 1964 incident leading to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
Documents / Studies | JAMA April 6, 1964 | Selikoff, Churg & Hammond. “Asbestos Exposure and Neoplasia.” 632-worker cohort; 255 deaths; 4 mesotheliomas. DOI: 10.1001/jama.1964.03060270024004
| NYAS Annals Vol. 132, pp. 139–155 (1965) | Selikoff, Churg & Hammond. Clinical asbestosis study. 1,522 workers; 339/392 = 86% asbestosis. DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1965.tb41097.x
| NYAS Annals Vol. 132, pp. 519–525 (1965) | Hammond, Selikoff & Churg. Mortality update. 632 workers; 307 deaths; 10 mesotheliomas; lung cancer 7×. DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1965.tb41132.x
| Gulf of Tonkin Resolution | August 7, 1964. Senate 88–2; House 414–0. Authorized Vietnam military escalation.
| USGS Circular 1298 | Virta, 2006. Primary source for U.S. asbestos consumption statistics. 803,000 metric tons peak (1973); 37% after 1965.
| Oren, Joining the Club | Yale UP, 1985. P. 148: source for Winternitz quota quote.
Medical / Technical | Asbestosis | Chronic lung disease caused by inhaled asbestos fibers. X-ray detectable. 86% prevalence in workers with 20+ years exposure (Selikoff 1965 clinical study).
| Mesothelioma | Rare cancer of mesothelial lining; strongly linked to asbestos. Subtypes: pleural (lungs/chest wall), peritoneal (abdomen). Latency 20–50 years.
| Isoniazid | Antibiotic used in tuberculosis treatment. Selikoff and Robitzek ran first clinical trials at Sea View Hospital 1951–52. JAMA: “the most potent drug introduced thus far.”
| Scottish Triple Qualification | Medical licensing pathway through Scottish Royal Colleges. Available to Jewish students excluded from U.S. and some English schools.
| Operation Rolling Thunder | U.S. bombing campaign, Vietnam. Began March 2, 1965. Massive military buildup with asbestos-intensive equipment and construction.

Timeline

DateEventJanuary 15, 1915 | Irving Selikoff born, Brooklyn, New York.
1920–1935 | Dean Milton Winternitz enforces Jewish admissions quotas at Yale School of Medicine. Columbia Medical drops Jewish enrollment from 47% to 6% (1920–1940).
September 27, 1936 | Selikoff marries in the Bronx.
October 1936 | Selikoff boards S.S. Samaria in New York, bound for Liverpool.
October 12, 1936 | S.S. Samaria arrives Liverpool. Selikoff proceeds to Glasgow.
October–December 1936 | Selikoff enrolls at Anderson’s College Medical School, Glasgow. Entered UK Medical and Dental Students Register December 28, 1936.
September 1939 | Germany invades Poland; WWII begins. Selikoff cannot return to Scotland. Education interrupted.
1944 | Dr. Philip Drinker (Harvard) conducts classified survey for U.S. Maritime Commission: dust 6–10× safe limits in Navy shipyards.
1945 | Selikoff completes Scottish Triple Qualification (roll no. 8761).
Early 1950s | Selikoff opens practice at 707 Broadway, Paterson NJ. Asbestos Workers Union asks him to serve members. Meets asbestos workers at UNARCO plant nearby.
1951–1952 | Sea View Hospital, Staten Island. Selikoff and Dr. Edward Robitzek run first clinical trials of isoniazid for tuberculosis.
November 1952 | JAMA publishes isoniazid results. Journal calls it “the most potent drug introduced thus far” — “a colossal breakthrough.”
1955 | Richard Doll proves smoking-asbestos link in Britain.
1960 | Chris Wagner links asbestos to mesothelioma in South Africa.
April 6, 1964 | JAMA publishes Selikoff, Churg & Hammond: “Asbestos Exposure and Neoplasia.” 632-worker cohort; 255 deaths; 4 mesotheliomas.
August 7, 1964 | Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passes: Senate 88–2, House 414–0. Vietnam escalation authorized.
October 19–21, 1964 | NYAS conference, “Biological Effects of Asbestos.” 400+ scientists. Selikoff, Churg, Hammond present clinical and mortality studies. ATI immediately moves to suppress press coverage.
1965 | ATI warning letters to NYAS and Selikoff. Owens-Corning memo: find way to prevent “problems and affecting sales.”
March 2, 1965 | Operation Rolling Thunder begins. Sustained Vietnam bombing campaign. Military buildup with asbestos at scale.
December 31, 1965 | NYAS Annals Vol. 132 published: full proceedings including clinical study (pp. 139–155) and mortality update (pp. 519–525).
1964–1975 | Vietnam War years. U.S. asbestos consumption: average 700,000 metric tons/year.
1970 | OSHA created. First asbestos fiber standard: 12 f/cc.
1973 | U.S. asbestos consumption peaks: 803,000 metric tons.
1976 | OSHA reduces asbestos standard to 2 f/cc.
1978 | Motley et al. obtain Simpson Papers. Internal corporate documents enter plaintiff hands. (Episode 34: The Asbestos Papers)
1983 | Johns-Manville cites 1944 classified Drinker survey to blame Navy in litigation.
1986 | OSHA reduces asbestos standard to 0.2 f/cc.
May 20, 1992 | Irving Selikoff dies. Age 77. Mount Sinai renames facility in his honor.
1995 | Paul Danziger and Rod De Llano found Danziger & De Llano.
2003 | P.W.J. Bartrip publishes attack on Selikoff credentials, funded by Turner and Newall. NYT: “history for hire.”
2003–2004 | Eight researchers (Brown, Manchester, RMIT, Mt. Sinai) publish AJIM rebuttal: “little more than an ad hominem attack.”
2013 | AJRCCM states definitively: “The insulator mortality data stand undiminished by the test of time.”
Current OSHA standard | 0.1 f/cc — a 99% reduction from the 1971 starting point of 12 f/cc.
2017–2024 | Peak mesothelioma mortality window for Vietnam-era veterans (49.4-year latency from peak deployment).
2024 | EPA bans chrysotile asbestos — sixty years after Selikoff’s warning.

Transcript

HOST 1 October 19th, 1964. A Monday. New York City. The New York Academy of Sciences headquarters on the Upper East Side. Over four hundred scientists filling the conference room. The title of the session: “Biological Effects of Asbestos.”

HOST 2 What were they expecting?

HOST 1 Some expected confirmation. Richard Doll had proven the smoking-asbestos connection in Britain in 1955. Chris Wagner had linked asbestos to mesothelioma in South Africa in 1960. But what Dr. Irving Selikoff was about to present? No one was ready for those numbers.

HOST 2 Which were?

HOST 1 1,522 insulation workers. 1,117 examined. 392 with twenty years or more of exposure. And of those 392? 339 showed X-ray evidence of asbestosis.

HOST 2 That’s 86 percent.

HOST 1 86 percent. Nearly nine out of ten workers had visible lung disease. Half of those cases were moderate or extensive. That was the clinical study — who’s already sick.

HOST 2 And the dead?

HOST 1 A separate mortality study — same research team, different cohort — had been tracking 632 workers since 1943. By 1964, 307 of them were dead. Lung cancer at more than seven times the expected rate. And mesothelioma — a cancer so rare that some pathologists doubted it existed — ten cases among those 307 deaths. The researchers called it “an extraordinary high incidence for a tumor generally so rare.”

HOST 2 So the room knew the industry was finished.

HOST 1 Except it wasn’t. Because two months earlier, Congress had passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. And for the next decade, the same companies that received this proof would supply asbestos to the United States military — with full knowledge of what they were selling.

HOST 2 Episode 30: Selikoff’s Warning.

HOST 1 The opening chapter of Arc 7: The Truth Emerges.

HOST 2 When the science finally caught up — and the industry kept running.

HOST 1 Before we go further — let’s remember how we got here. Arc 6 was called “Burying the Bodies.” We covered the largest industrial mass-exposure event in human history.

HOST 2 The WWII shipyards.

HOST 1 Episode 25: The Navy classified asbestos as a strategic material in 1939. By December 1943, 1.7 million Americans were building ships — working in dust so thick they couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces.

HOST 2 Episode 26: The shipyards never slept. Three shifts, around the clock. Pipefitters. Boilermakers. Welders wearing protective gear made of asbestos.

HOST 1 Episode 27: The women. 13.3% of the workforce. And then — when they went home — their husbands’ work clothes. Take-home exposure. Wives dying of the same cancers.

HOST 2 Episode 28: The betrayal. The war ended. Production didn’t. Between 1945 and 1955, asbestos consumption increased 107 percent.

HOST 1 And Episode 29: The reckoning. Veterans are thirty percent of all mesothelioma diagnoses today. Navy veterans 6.47 times more likely to die from mesothelioma than the general population. The workers Selikoff studied in 1964? They’d started employment by 1943 or earlier. They WERE the shipyard generation.

HOST 2 Arc 7. Walk me through it.

HOST 1 Five chapters. Fifteen years. 1963 to 1978.

HOST 2 From the beginning.

HOST 1 Episode 30 — this one. The man who broke the silence and the conference where the proof finally went public. Four hundred scientists in a room. Numbers so devastating that the industry immediately moved to suppress press coverage.

HOST 2 Which we’ll cover.

HOST 1 Episode 31: The Conference That Changed Everything. What Selikoff actually presented — the data tables, the pathology slides, the methodology that made the findings bulletproof. And what followed: ATI warning letters, suppressed press releases, “protests and threats” — their words, from their own minutes.

HOST 2 While the exposure continued.

HOST 1 Episode 32: Every Ship, Every Base. 3.4 million Americans in the Vietnam theater. What that exposure actually looked like — engine rooms, aircraft brakes, barracks insulation, Seabee construction battalions.

HOST 2 And then who bore the worst of it.

HOST 1 Episode 33: Project 100,000. 354,000 men who’d previously failed military standards — disproportionately Black and Hispanic — assigned to the highest-exposure jobs. Agent Orange got the headlines. Asbestos affected more servicemembers.

HOST 2 Episode 34?

HOST 1 The Asbestos Papers. The documents. How they surfaced. The discovery process that turned internal corporate memos into courtroom exhibits — and made the cover-up undeniable because the paper trail was in the plaintiff’s hands.

HOST 2 Proof in 1964. Documents public in 1978.

HOST 1 The arc isn’t just about truth emerging. It’s about how long the gap lasted between the truth existing — and the truth mattering.

★ SPONSOR BREAK 1 ★

HOST 1 Let me tell you about a doctor who shouldn’t have been there. Irving Selikoff was born January 15th, 1915, in Brooklyn, New York. Jewish family. Early 20th century America.

HOST 2 And medical schools had a problem.

HOST 1 Jewish students faced quotas. Yale Medical School’s own dean — Milton Winternitz, himself Jewish — instructed his admissions committee: “Never admit more than five Jews, take only two Italian Catholics, and take no blacks at all.” Columbia dropped Jewish enrollment from 47 percent to 6 percent between 1920 and 1940.

HOST 2 So where did they go?

HOST 1 Scotland. The University of Glasgow and its affiliated schools had no religious bar to Jewish students. In October 1936, Irving Selikoff — twenty-one years old — boarded the S.S. Samaria in New York and sailed to Liverpool. He arrived October 12th.

HOST 2 No quotas in Scotland.

HOST 1 Anderson’s College Medical School in Glasgow. A real institution — famous alumni include David Livingstone. Selikoff pursued what was called the “Triple Qualification” — a licensing pathway through the Royal Colleges.

HOST 2 But?

HOST 1 September 1939. Germany invades Poland. Britain is at war. Selikoff can’t return to Scotland. His education is interrupted. He eventually completes his training through an unconventional route — a school in Massachusetts that later lost its accreditation.

HOST 2 And the industry used this against him.

HOST 1 Forty years later. In 2003, a British historian named P.W.J. Bartrip published an article attacking Selikoff’s credentials. Title: “Irving John Selikoff and the Strange Case of the Missing Medical Degrees.”

HOST 2 Who funded Bartrip’s research?

HOST 1 Turner and Newall. Britain’s largest asbestos manufacturer. He also visited the Johns-Manville archive at the behest of defense lawyers. The New York Times called it “history for hire.”

HOST 2 What about the science?

HOST 1 Eight prominent researchers — from Brown, Manchester, RMIT, and Mount Sinai — published a rebuttal in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. They called Bartrip’s article “little more than an ad hominem attack.” And in 2013, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine stated definitively: “The insulator mortality data stand undiminished by the test of time.”

HOST 2 The science stands. Regardless of his educational path.

HOST 1 339 of 392. Seven times the lung cancer rate. Ten mesotheliomas in 307 deaths. Those numbers don’t care where Selikoff went to medical school.

HOST 2 Before asbestos —

HOST 1 Tuberculosis. 1951 to 1952. Sea View Hospital on Staten Island. Selikoff and Dr. Edward Robitzek ran the first clinical trials of isoniazid. Results published in JAMA November 1952. The journal called it “the most potent drug introduced thus far” — a “colossal breakthrough.”

HOST 2 He was a researcher who saved lives.

HOST 1 The asbestos work wasn’t an anomaly. It was who he was.

HOST 2 So how did he get to asbestos workers?

HOST 1 According to widely repeated accounts, a Paterson, New Jersey attorney named Carl Gelman brought asbestos workers to Selikoff’s attention in the early 1950s. Gelman specialized in workers’ compensation cases.

HOST 2 What do we know for certain?

HOST 1 Selikoff opened a practice at 707 Broadway in Paterson — near the UNARCO plant, Union Asbestos and Rubber Company. The Asbestos Workers Union asked him to add their members to his practice.

HOST 2 And what can’t we verify?

HOST 1 The specific numbers. Some accounts say Gelman retained Selikoff to examine 17 workers, and 15 died within a few years. We couldn’t trace that claim to primary documentation.

HOST 2 So what do we say?

HOST 1 Something happened in Paterson in the early 1950s that alarmed Selikoff enough to launch a twenty-year investigation. He saw men dying of rare cancers at extraordinary rates. And he decided to find out why.

HOST 2 Which brings us to 1964.

HOST 1 October 19th through 21st. The New York Academy of Sciences. Over 400 scientists. Selikoff wasn’t alone. He had two collaborators who made the study bulletproof.

HOST 2 Who?

HOST 1 Jacob Churg. Pathologist. Born in Dolhinow — a town in what’s now Belarus — in 1910. Jewish. Fled Europe in 1936 as political violence spread. His uncle Louis Chargin was chief physician at Mount Sinai’s skin clinic, which brought Jacob to the hospital.

HOST 2 And he was also in Paterson.

HOST 1 Chief of Pathology at Barnert Memorial Hospital Center — the same city where Selikoff saw those early asbestos workers. Geographic proximity created scientific collaboration. Churg reviewed every tissue sample and autopsy slide.

HOST 2 And the other?

HOST 1 E. Cuyler Hammond. Statistician. Director of Statistical Research at the American Cancer Society. Hammond had co-authored the landmark 1952 study proving cigarettes caused lung cancer.

HOST 2 So they had a pathologist who’d fled European persecution —

HOST 1 And a statistician who’d already taken on the tobacco industry. When this team presented data, no one could dismiss it as amateur hour.

HOST 2 So what did the industry do?

HOST 1 The Asbestos Textile Institute — Johns-Manville, Raybestos-Manhattan, H.K. Porter, and others — mounted immediate opposition. ATI minutes document that member companies’ “protests and threats successfully prevented the distribution of press releases at the historic asbestos conference.”

HOST 2 They suppressed press coverage. At a scientific conference.

HOST 1 ATI lawyers sent warning letters to the New York Academy of Sciences and to Selikoff personally about “damaging and misleading news stories.”

HOST 2 Which explains why this wasn’t front-page news.

HOST 1 The New York Times published ONE article about the conference that year. Almost no local papers picked up the story. The conference — quote — “barely registered a blip in the nation’s consciousness.”

HOST 2 Four hundred scientists. Devastating findings. And silence.

HOST 1 Not by accident. By design. A 1965 Owens-Corning Fiberglas memo sought “to find some way of preventing Dr. Selikoff from creating problems and affecting sales.” An ATI representative described Selikoff as a “disturbing sore thumb.”

HOST 2 They couldn’t dispute the science.

HOST 1 So they attacked the messenger. Suppressed the coverage. And kept producing asbestos.

★ SPONSOR BREAK 2 ★

HOST 1 Let me give you three dates.

HOST 2 Okay.

HOST 1 August 7th, 1964. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The vote is 88 to 2 in the Senate, 414 to 0 in the House. President Johnson signs it three days later. America is going to war.

HOST 2 Two months later.

HOST 1 October 19th through 21st, 1964. Dr. Irving Selikoff presents before 400 scientists. 339 of 392. Seven times the lung cancer rate. The proof is undeniable.

HOST 2 And five months after that.

HOST 1 March 2nd, 1965. Operation Rolling Thunder begins. Sustained bombing campaign. Massive military buildup. Every ship, every aircraft, every base — built with asbestos.

HOST 2 The manufacturers received scientific proof in October 1964.

HOST 1 They continued supplying the military without warnings for the next decade.

HOST 2 How much asbestos are we talking about?

HOST 1 Between 1964 and 1975 — the Vietnam War years — the United States consumed an average of 700,000 tons of asbestos per year. Peak consumption was 803,000 tons in 1973.

HOST 2 And about 37 percent of all U.S. asbestos ever consumed was consumed after 1965.

HOST 1 After the proof went public. After the industry knew with scientific certainty.

HOST 2 What did the Navy know?

HOST 1 More than anyone. 1944. Dr. Philip Drinker — Harvard professor, Chief Health Consultant to the U.S. Maritime Commission — surveyed shipyard conditions. His finding? Dust counts six to ten times higher than known safe exposure limits.

HOST 2 A secret survey.

HOST 1 Classified. Johns-Manville itself cited this survey in 1983 — accusing the Navy of allowing “gross exposure to asbestos fibers.”

HOST 2 The industry blaming the government.

HOST 1 While both kept quiet. Court documents describe it as “official connivance at a coverup.” The Navy knew since 1944. Selikoff proved it publicly in 1964. And between 1964 and 1975, the military consumed 700,000 tons per year.

HOST 2 The average mesothelioma latency —

HOST 1 Twenty to fifty years. For shipyard workers specifically, 49.4 years. Add 49 years to 1968 — peak Vietnam deployment — and you get 2017. Add it to 1973 — the war’s end — and you get 2022.

HOST 2 We’re in the peak mortality window.

HOST 1 Right now. The veterans who survived the war, survived the homecoming, survived decades of normal life — are dying now. From fibers inhaled fifty years ago. On ships supplied by companies who had received Selikoff’s proof in October 1964.

HOST 2 What happened after the conference?

HOST 1 OSHA didn’t exist yet. Wouldn’t until 1970. When they finally set standards: 12 fibers per cubic centimeter in 1971. Down to 5. Then 2 in 1976. Then 0.2 in 1986. Today’s standard: 0.1 fibers. A 99 percent reduction over 23 years.

HOST 2 And a full ban?

HOST 1 2024. The EPA ban. Sixty years after Selikoff’s warning.

HOST 2 Selikoff himself?

HOST 1 Continued research through the 1990s. Died May 20th, 1992. Age 77. Mount Sinai renamed the facility in his honor. The “father of occupational medicine.”

★ SPONSOR BREAK 3 ★

HOST 2 Next episode.

HOST 1 “The Conference That Changed Everything.” What Selikoff actually presented — October 19th through 21st, 1964. The data tables. The pathology slides. The methodology that made the findings bulletproof.

HOST 2 And what happened after.

HOST 1 The Asbestos Textile Institute moved within weeks. Warning letters. Suppressed press releases. “Protests and threats” — their words, from their own minutes. That’s Episode 31.

HOST 2 The proof on the record. And the machinery working to bury it.

HOST 1 Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making is produced by Danziger and De Llano — a national mesothelioma law firm.

HOST 2 For over thirty years, they’ve represented families affected by asbestos exposure. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed, visit Dan-Dell dot com. That’s D-A-N-D-E-L-L dot com.

HOST 1 Nearly two billion dollars recovered. Over a thousand families helped.

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HOST 1 Until next week.

End-of-episode banter omitted from LLM-optimized version. Full audio available at dandell.com and on all major podcast platforms.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did Selikoff present his asbestos findings?

October 19–21, 1964, at the New York Academy of Sciences conference titled “Biological Effects of Asbestos.” The proceedings were published in Annals of the NYAS, Vol. 132, December 31, 1965.

What did Selikoff’s 1964 studies find?

Two distinct studies were presented. The clinical study found that 339 of 392 workers with 20+ years of asbestos exposure (86%) had X-ray evidence of asbestosis. The separate mortality study tracked 632 workers and found 307 deaths: lung cancer at more than 7× the expected rate and 10 mesothelioma deaths.

Why couldn’t Selikoff attend an American medical school?

Jewish students faced formal and informal quotas at U.S. medical schools in the 1930s. Yale Medical School’s own dean Milton Winternitz instructed his admissions committee never to admit more than five Jews. Selikoff trained instead at Anderson’s College Medical School in Glasgow, Scotland, arriving October 12, 1936 aboard the S.S. Samaria.

How did the asbestos industry respond to the 1964 conference?

The Asbestos Textile Institute (ATI) deployed “protests and threats” (their own words from ATI minutes) that “successfully prevented the distribution of press releases.” ATI lawyers sent warning letters to NYAS and Selikoff personally. Only one New York Times article covered the conference. A 1965 Owens-Corning memo sought to prevent Selikoff “from creating problems and affecting sales.”

How much asbestos did the U.S. use after the evidence was public?

Between 1964 and 1975, U.S. asbestos consumption averaged 700,000 metric tons per year. Peak consumption was 803,000 metric tons in 1973. The USGS reports that about 37% of all U.S. asbestos ever consumed was consumed after 1965 — after Selikoff’s findings were on the public record.

Why are Vietnam veterans at risk for mesothelioma now?

Mesothelioma has a latency period of 20–50 years (49.4 years for shipyard workers). Peak Vietnam deployment was approximately 1968; adding 49 years yields 2017. The war ended in 1973; adding 49 years yields 2022. Veterans exposed to asbestos in ships, aircraft, barracks, and military equipment are in peak mortality window right now. Veterans represent 30% of all mesothelioma diagnoses today.

Who attacked Selikoff’s credentials and who funded it?

British historian P.W.J. Bartrip published a 2003 article titled “Irving John Selikoff and the Strange Case of the Missing Medical Degrees,” funded by Turner and Newall, Britain’s largest asbestos manufacturer. Eight researchers from Brown, Manchester, RMIT, and Mount Sinai published a rebuttal calling it “little more than an ad hominem attack.” The 2013 AJRCCM concluded: “The insulator mortality data stand undiminished by the test of time.”

When was asbestos finally banned in the United States?

The EPA issued a ban on chrysotile asbestos in 2024 — sixty years after Selikoff’s 1964 conference. OSHA’s current fiber standard is 0.1 fibers per cubic centimeter, down from 12 f/cc in 1971 — a 99% reduction over 23 years.

Production Notes

Transcript accuracy: This transcript was prepared from the production script. Phonetic notations (isoniazid, Dolhinow) have been replaced with standard English spellings. Sponsor reads summarized as break markers only — full sponsor copy in the audio.

Host identification: Host 1 is the primary narrator; Host 2 is the interrogator/co-host. Production names are not used in public transcripts.

Primary sources: JAMA 1964 (DOI: 10.1001/jama.1964.03060270024004); NYAS Annals Vol. 132 pp. 139–155 (DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1965.tb41097.x); NYAS Annals Vol. 132 pp. 519–525 (DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1965.tb41132.x); USGS Circular 1298 (Virta, 2006); Oren, Joining the Club, Yale UP 1985, p. 148.

Episode card: mesotheliomalawyersnearme.com/podcast/episode-30-selikoffs-warning/
Free consultation: dandell.com