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WARNING: This site deals only with the corporate corruption of science, and makes no inference about the motives or activities of individuals involved.
    There are many reasons why individuals become embroiled in corporate corruption activities - from political zealotry to over-enthusiastic activism; from gullibility to greed.
    Please read the OVERVIEW carefully, and make up your own mind.

OPINION ONLY

Faustin Solon was the head of public relations at Johns-Manville during the worst of the asbestos-crisis years. He oversaw the activities of Matt Swetonic (Hill & Knowton) who ran the Asbestos Information Association.

Some key documents

• Johns-Manville, Denver Colorado

1963 Feb 8: Jack Solon, Jr., named vice president and director of advertising and public relations for Johns-Manville Corporation. Mr. Solon was former president of Solon Associates, Inc., an advertising and public relations firm that handled the Johns-Manville Fiber Glass Division account.

1968 Nov 7: Wall Street Journal Medical Researchers Study Role of Asbestos as Cause of Ailments

Johns-Manville Corp. the largest company in the field, last month announced it was entering a joint asbestos safely effort wlth the U.S. Public Health servlce, the AFL-CIO International Association of Heat and Frost Insulation and Asbestos Workers, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine of City University of New York.

    The main aim is to develop improved metheds for reducing the exposure to asbestos dust of the estimated 200.000 workers in the industry.

    But the scope of the research proJject could turn out to be broader. "If asbestos in the air is found to be generally harmful, we will want to protect the public from it, too," says FJ Solon Jr. a Johns-Manville vice president. The company adds that one new device being planned is a sprayer that won't unloose an aspestos-particle snowstorm when used out of doors on construction jobs.

The most chilling statistic is that asbestos workers who are cigaret smokers have been found to die of all types of lung cancer at a rate 92 times that of non-smokers in the general population. By comparison, smokers who aren't asbestos workers die of lung cancer at a rate 12 times that of non-smokers.

1972 Oct 16: Leonard Zahn reports to Faustin J Solon at Johns Manville on a Selikoff press-conference/announcement on asbestos.

"Being in an beneficent mood and also irritated at the obvious manipulation of the press by Selikoff et al, I tried to reach Matt Swetonic to inform him about the impact, I knew would result from Selikoff's charges, Failing to get him, I called you and ended up talking with Walter Goodwin in your department.

1973 Jan 21: New York Times magazine "Asbestos, the saver of lives, has a deadly side."

To some high officials at the U.S. Department of Labor and to many high officials in the asbestos industry, these two doctors and their colleagues represent a kind of reform plague.

    Indeed, Selikoff is seen by some leaders of the asbestos industry as a cruel showman. F. J. Solon Jr., vice-president for environmental affairs of Johns-Manville Corp., the nation's largest producer of asbestos, says, "To terrorize people who worked in shipyards 30 years ago, and now can't do a god-damned. thing about it —that's something 1 couldn't square with my conscience."

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