SEASON'S GREETINGS from

Asbestos Risk Gover-Up Alleged

An alleged cover-up, dating back to the 1930s, is being charged by asbestos disease victims against the asbestos industry.

Workers at two Southern California shipyards filed a class action lawsuit in October seeking all the profitsestimated at $1 billionmade since 1938 by l5 of the nation's major asbestos manufacturers.

"Their claim is that the asbestos industry conspired to conceal the hazards of working with asbestos for over 40 years and that it made conscious choice of profits over the health of its workers," said David Epstein, attorney for the shipyard workers.

The story, which first appeared in the Washington Posr, said that the industry set up research projects at a Saranac, N.Y., laboratory in the 1930s and 1940s and that, when it was found that there were possible asbestos health dangers to humans, the industry prevented findings from being published.

Bill Johnson

John Polach

Larry Hansen

Walt Hiort

Bill Robinson

Ruby Spoor

Sonia Mastriana

Claudia Ramponi

Penny Webb and

Ron Motley, a South Carolina attorney handling some 350 claims cases, was quoted as saying, "Until now, we have been fighting our lawsuits on the grounds of what industry should have known and done. Now we know what they knew and did, and that was to try to put a lid on the whole thing and keep on making money."

Last April, the Health, Education and Welfare Department said that about 4006 of the people who have worked with asbestos over the past 30 years may die of cancer and that about 7%r may die of asbestosis, so called "white lung disease," which can result from exposure to asbestos.

The Post account said the documents uncovered in a series of recent lawsuits contradict industry claims that dangers ofexposure were not known until 1964.

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