One morning in 1939, Billy Park and several of his eighth grade classmates found themselves at the Johns Manville Co. plant in Manville, New Jersey, Billy's parents worked at the plant and he was excited to show off to his friends.

Everyone knew Johns Manville was developing cutting edge products for the U.S. military.

After walking through the company's 16 building campus, Billy and his friends approached a building called the Dust House, where his father whipped and cleaned burlap bags to get rid of any asbestos.

When Billy flung open the door, a thick white dust overwhelmed his senses. Windows, cars, streams of light into the factory. Tiny flecks caught the sun, causing them to sparkle faintly. Billy could hardly see 10 feet in front of him.

Later at lunch, Billy's mom asked if he wanted to work at Johns Manville one day, but he said no. He didn't like the dust. His mother didn't disagree. She explained it was an inevitable byproduct of asbestos.

As she did, she leaned away and coughed into her arm, something both she and Billy's father had been doing more often. But their company doctor told them the agitation was caused by his father's cigarette habit and not the dust.

But within decades, the cough killed both of Billy's parents, along with tens of thousands of U.S. asbestos workers.

Johns Manville and other companies like them insisted they hadn't known about the dangers of the mineral used in so many everyday items. But as death counts grew, the public started to question those claims. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify original from past every Monday and Wednesday, we dig into the complicated stories behind the world's most controversial events and search for the truth. I'm Carter Roy. And I'm Molly Brandenberg. And neither of us are conspiracy theorists, but we are open minded, skeptical and curious.

Don't get us wrong. Sometimes the official version is the truth, but sometimes it's not.

You can find episodes of conspiracy theories and all other Spotify originals from our cast for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

This is our first episode on asbestos, a fibrous mineral used in construction for hundreds of years, especially in the 20th century. Countries like England and the United States produced millions of tons of asbestos.

This time we'll explore how the asbestos industry impacted the world for half a century. When inhaled, the fibres can cause lifelong health complications and can even be fatal.

Next time, we'll dive into what really went on behind the scenes of one of the greatest cover ups in modern history. And we'll explore a number of conspiracy theories, including one that suggests the repercussion of the asbestos industry might still be impacting the world's health today. We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. The first known reference to asbestos, the so-called magic mineral, was recorded sometime in 300 B.C., the ancient Romans, Greeks and Egyptians mined the asbestos from quarries throughout Europe and the Mediterranean.

For those unfamiliar, asbestos is the term for naturally occurring crystal fibres formed in certain types of rocks. The long white strands are flexible, pliable and durable, not to mention water, fire and corrosion proof. Which is why the Romans, Greeks and Egyptians used asbestos in products like cloth, building materials and pottery.

Not long after the Romans discovered asbestos benefits, they noticed its potential dangers, they noted that slaves working in asbestos quarries tended to get sick with lung ailments. Roman philosopher and historian Pliny the Elder noted that no man should buy a slave who had ever worked in an asbestos quarry.

According to him, they died young. He referred to the sickness caused by asbestos as the disease of slaves. Whether for health reasons or otherwise, asbestos use dwindled after the Roman Empire fell, then in the eighteen seventies, asbestos had a renaissance. A Canadian farmer named William Jeffrey in Quebec rediscovered the mineral and it changed the industrial world for the next century.

Jeffrey stumbled upon a new chrysotile deposit, a type of asbestos that formed in serpentine rocks, later named the Jeffrey Mine. This quarry would eventually grow to be the largest on the planet, just like the ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians.

Industrialists of the 19th century realized the incredible potential of asbestos. It could be used as a binding agent in building products like cement matchsticks, tile floor coverings, roofing and vinyl walls woven.

The mineral could even be incorporated into household products like ironing boards, curtains and cigarette filters. It was said to help almost anything become fireproof, which became a major selling point for families.

Soon, factories all over the world sprang up to take advantage of the practical trend. In the 1950s, a man named Henry Ward Johns opened a small business in lower Manhattan that made fireproof roofing material out of burlap, tar and asbestos. John's product did so well that his company merged with an insulation, roofing and building materials group called Menville to become the Johns Manville Corporation across the pond.

In 1871, a cotton cloth company in Manchester, England, called Turner Brothers became the first UK business to weave asbestos into clothing after a surge in sales. They changed the company name to Turner Brothers asbestos company. Over the next decade, the demand for asbestos products exploded, especially in America, where there was a high demand for cost effective, mass produced building materials. Urban construction companies particularly love that it allowed them to build the strongest skyscrapers possible. In 1910, worldwide production of asbestos exceeded 109 thousand metric tons.

That's more than three times what it was just 10 years prior when Johns Manville was first formed.

As far as anyone could tell, the only downside was the level of labor that went into mining and producing it.

Initially, with no industrialized machinery, workers had to manually chip away at asbestos in quarries. Miners without gloves tore apart the rock and separated it like cotton candy in their hands.

This process would send fibers shards into the air, which clung to the clothes, hair and skin of workers as they labored. Every time a miner picked up or set down their bag of asbestos covered rock, a cloud of dust erupted after this initial mining process.

Horses and donkeys carried the Ord in nearby factories where the rock was separated from the fibres.

Initially, this process was also performed by hand.

But eventually factories developed machines to meet demand they needed to make more faster. Although workers were grateful for the less labor intensive jobs, the machines still required constant surveillance and the process produced even more dust. After being separated from the rock, the asbestos would get bagged and sent to product factories across North America. Film records show workers pushing asbestos into the bags to create as much room as possible. Some would step into the containers and jump up and down to compact the mineral as dust plumed around them.

Next, freight trains delivered the refined asbestos to factories that focused on commercializing the mineral. They're the fibers would get spun into yarn to be incorporated into whatever product the manufacturer desired. Every step of the way, the production of dust was thick and constant. As a result, many workers developed wheezing coughs. But medical research into potential side effects didn't exist.

Then in 1897, an Italian study correlated dust from asbestos to an outbreak of lung disease among weavers and their families. Slowly, more reports of asbestos related pulmonary disease began to emerge, but none could directly link asbestos as the cause.

A series of inspections in England resulted in a study that also correlated asbestos manufacturing to lung injury. In fact, an English factory inspector later wrote that laborers who worked with a mineral were the single most at risk workers he'd ever seen. But a medical breakthrough didn't happen until the year 1899, when Dr Montagu Murray in London performed an autopsy on a 33 year old deceased asbestos worker. Ten of the man's co-workers had also died, and Dr. Murray found evidence of severe pulmonary fibrosis, meaning a scarring of the lungs.

What's more, he found an incredible number of sharp, tiny fibres in the young man's chest. The doctor officially ruled that asbestos was the cause of death.

But as far as asbestos manufacturers were concerned, Dr. Murray's autopsy only connected one death to the fibrous mineral. There was no hard scientific evidence that asbestos was the cause for any deaths beyond this isolated incident.

That is until Nellie Kershaw. Next, a young woman prompts factory regulations, then asbestos becomes the unexpected hero of World War Two. Listeners, do I have a mystifying new show for you, it's called Superstitions, and it explores the varying beliefs people around the world fear and follow. It's so eerie. I know you'll love it.

Every Wednesday, step inside stories that illustrate the horror, weirdness and truth behind humanity's strangest codes of conduct. Why shouldn't you say Macbeth in a theater? What evil gets triggered when you walk under an open letter? And how come certain films seem cursed and others don't? Each new episode of Superstitions presents a story that unlocks the mysteries of unorthodox traditions and surreal phenomena.

They may seem cryptic or illogical or completely insane, but then again, do they follow the Spotify original from perkiest superstitions free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts?

Now back to the story, Nellie Kershaw was born in Rochdale, England, in 1891. Her family was not well-off. So at 12, Nellie left school to work. After a brief stint at a cotton mill, she switched to a job at Garside asbestos mill. Nellie worked as a rover, meaning she spun and twisted raw fibres into yarn. Like all other workers, Nellie worked with no gloves or mask.

In 1917, when she turned 26 years old, Nellie transferred to a much larger textile factory, Turner Brothers asbestos company. Although the reasons for this move are not clear, we know Turner Brothers had become the biggest asbestos business in the UK.

Even before she arrived, Nellie knew about the working environment at Turner Brothers. How dark, dirty and crowded it was. And of course, she'd heard rumours about the clouds of dust. Those rumours proved true. Within three years of working for Turner Brothers, Nellie developed a cough.

In 1920, Nellie started experiencing pulmonary symptoms, but she couldn't afford to stop working. She and her husband Frank, had a baby girl to care for. So Nellie continued to work at the asbestos mill until 1922, when her illness rendered her unfit for work.

According to a local physician, her official diagnosis was asbestos poisoning.

Unfortunately, medical studies had only recently established a link between asbestos and fatal lung issues, and asbestos poisoning wasn't a verified disease. As a result, Turner Brothers refused to pay for Nelisse treatment or time away. They claim that asbestos was not poisonous and no definition or knowledge of any related disease existed.

Nellie grew sicker. She felt pain in her chest that spiked whenever she coughed. Within months, she could hardly get out of bed. Her family fell into poverty.

Then on March 14th, 1920, for Nellie Kershaw died at the age of 33. Afterwards, her grieving husband approached her and her brothers again in the hopes of receiving compensation, if only to help pay for funeral expenses. But again, the company refused.

Like so many others, Nellie's death might have been in vain had her coroner not known of her physicians asbestos poisoning diagnosis. But the knowledge prompted him to order a formal inquest, a medical examination to determine if Nellie's death was natural or not.

Dr WTT Cooke completed Nellie's autopsy and he found evidence of extensive pulmonary fibrosis.

Pulmonary fibrosis occurs when the lungs become so damaged from Scar's that a person can no longer breathe. The disease is not always painful, but it's almost always uncomfortable, marked by a shortness of breath and muscle aches from lack of oxygenated blood flow.

Once someone develops pulmonary fibrosis, they typically die within three to five years.

Dr Cooke found the sharp, visible particles of matter that caused the scarring on Nellie's lungs, and he determined they were in fact asbestos fibres when his study was published later in the British Medical Journal.

Dr Cooke used the term pulmonary asbestosis. This was likely the first time the disease was given a name. It would not be the last.

Dr Cook's study set off reactions in the UK from both the asbestos corporations and the government. Turner Brothers asbestos company tried to mitigate the bad press, assuring their workers that asbestos was safe to be around.

But as Turner Brothers tried to soften the sharp edges of the truth, British Parliament ordered the lead physician for the factory department of the Home Office to gather more information on asbestos. Dangerous effects. Dr E. R. a. MERIWEATHER.

Using a sample pool of 363 people, Dr Merriwether found that more than 25 percent of asbestos workers showed evidence of pulmonary fibrosis for those who worked in an asbestos textile mill for more than 20 years. Eighty percent showed evidence of pulmonary fibrosis.

His research definitively proved that asbestos cause sickness. Medically, asbestosis was now officially considered a disease after Meriweather study was published in 1930, England enacted laws to regulate asbestos levels in factories. Legislators amended the Factory and Workshop Act of 1981 to include asbestos as a job hazard, which made companies responsible for any injuries related to the mineral.

However, for the most part, news of England's developments didn't make their way to the United States, even as the number of American asbestos workers getting sick steadily rose.

The American Medical Association hadn't run any studies, and neither had any other U.S. health agencies. As a result, there were no substantial changes in factory regulations, and demand for the mineral only grew.

Throughout the late 1920s, the American asbestos industry ramped up production in Johns. Manville emerged as one of the most powerful companies in the Western Hemisphere. As they did, small scale manufacturers merged with large corporations to more widely produce and market their product.

For example, in 1929, Ray Bastos Manhattan Co. was formed by two smaller businesses merging together.

This new conglomerate quickly climbed the ranks to join Johns Manville as one of the most dominant players in the market in the late 1920s to ambitious brothers from Iowa, Lewis and Vandiver Brown took over Johns Manville, likely because of the news breaking out in Europe. They made small changes to improve the quality of life in their factory. For example, they cut workweeks down to 40 hours and implemented physical exams for workers, including chest x rays. As a result, the Brown brothers called a considerable amount of goodwill and respect.

Their actions, though minimal, undoubtedly helped shape the public's view of the U.S. asbestos industry. In the early part of the 20th century, factories stayed open during World War One and the Great Depression, employing as many people as possible. And they were known to hire immigrants who otherwise couldn't find work.

Asbestos was considered necessary. It kept buildings, cars and everyday items safe from fire, water and erosion. For all intents and purposes, it was seen as good.

Now it probably helped that Americans were preoccupied with another lung disease that started in factories known as silicosis. Silicosis was caused by a dust byproduct of courts.

Many people with asbestosis likely mistook their symptoms for silicosis and asbestosis. American reputation continued on, relatively unmarred.

For a brief moment in the mid 1930s, it seemed like things might change, that the American asbestos industry might start to wither under the threat of asbestosis. Medical experts hypothesized that in addition to pulmonary fibrosis, asbestos workers might have an increased chance of getting lung cancer. After this news broke, America's asbestos giants took a gamble. In 1936, Sumner Simpson, the head of Ray Bastos Manhattan Co., allowed the U.S. Public Health Service to take chest X-rays of employees at a plant in South Carolina.

Likewise, Johns Manville funded a company called Saranac Laboratories to perform studies on the effects of asbestos on animals.

Both companies believed asbestos was safe and expected the experts to prove it.

But for reasons unknown to the public, neither study published their results.

Saranac Laboratories ultimately claimed the studies weren't finished due to budget concerns. The workers that had X-rays taken were not allowed to see their X-rays. Once again, advancements to benefit the health and well-being of asbestos workers reached a standstill.

Then, in 1941, the U.S. joined World War Two and the asbestos industry boomed.

Asbestos lining greatly reduced the risk of fires on military ships, which would save countless lives if the ships fell under fire.

The U.S. Navy ordered more of this flame resistant material in the manufacturing of its vessels.

The Navy grew from 400 to a total of 60 800 ships between 1939 and 1945. And the majority of them were manufactured with as. Business workers, insulated pipes, boilers, engines, turbines and other parts all over the boat's asbestos was woven into uniforms used as a waterproof seal on truck engines and sprayed on ships in the shipyards run by the U.S. Navy, working conditions were often worse than in the plants run by private companies.

4.5 million workers were thrown into cramped, dirty conditions while receiving minimal pay for long hours.

But a significant percentage of those laborers didn't mind the sacrifice. For those who weren't drafted manufacturing. The equipment that would help America defeat Hitler was akin to serving like the soldiers overseas, they were suffering for a cause even after the war.

Patriotic sentiments kept the U.S. government from imposing regulations on asbestos factories that in the general public feared government mandates.

After Hitler's terrifying rise to power by 1945, Johns Manville became the world leader in asbestos sales, with 12000 employees and 17 plants in North America. Lewis and Vandiver Brown were among the most powerful businessmen in the world.

At the same time, well-known businesses like Ford Motors, Johnson and Johnson and General Electric continue to manufacture asbestos for their own use.

Then, in 1949, a local physician named Dr. Kenneth Smith sent a memo to the executives of Johns Manville about seven patients who showed signs of asbestosis. The doctor suggested that the company not inform the workers about their condition.

He wrote, As long as the man is not disabled, it is felt that he should not be told of his condition so that he can live and work in peace and the company can benefit by as many years of experience. Dr. Smith would eventually be hired as John's man Bill's medical director.

But while American ad companies preach the benefits of asbestos, controversy over the asbestos flared in Canada, as we mentioned, the country contained the largest mineral mines in the Western Hemisphere.

In fact, they even had a town named Asbestos located just east of the Jeffrey mine, the largest chrysotile quarry in the world. Winds from the west, blue dust from the pit into the city, exposing the residents to the sharp fibres.

Almost all of them got sick and then got mad enough to take action. In 1949, Canada's National Federation of Mining Industry Employees went on strike demanding the elimination of asbestos dust as a direct result of the strike. The Jeffrey Mine, the primary source for Johns Manville, was shot down.

Union supporters and protesters blocked the entrance to the mines. Then, on May 5th, physical fights broke out between laborers and the police. After a day of conflict and injuries on both sides, peace resumed, but the strike continued.

Johns Manville was willing to settle some of their demands, like pay raises and decreased hours. But they refused to implement new regulations or to clean the dust. Their argument, which was detailed in a public report, stated that they had already spent over one million dollars to eliminate the dust. Whether this was actually true or not is unclear.

Regardless, the report claimed that dust in the town of asbestos was no greater than dust in other North American industrial centers, a statement that the company knew was conclusively untrue.

They'd run their own study. Out of 708 miners in the town of asbestos, only four were found to have healthy, functioning lungs, and they chose not to make the results public.

Eventually, the union miners settled for a pay raise and the laborers went back to work. Johns Manville lived to see another decade, but a misstep in their company's strategy was about to put the future of the asbestos industry at risk. Next, a conference in New York changes the asbestos industry forever. Now back to the story. Despite labor unrest over poor working conditions and a growing number of sick workers, asbestos factories managed to curate and maintain a positive reputation in America during World War Two and beyond.

In 1931, the Lewis brothers who managed John McCain's bill funded the first sponsored asbestos studies in America. But by funding the research, Johns Manville could negotiate terms. And they included a clause that stated the results could not be published without the permission of the Johns Manville board.

For years, other asbestos companies followed suit. They realized workers wanted assurance that their working conditions were safe. Many companies even hired in-house doctors to maintain the appearance that they took health concerns seriously.

In 1952, Saranac Laboratories even held a conference to discuss the damaging effects of industrial materials the world's leading asbestos experts attended, which included medical directors, insurance representatives and officials from the U.S. Health Department.

Everyone at this conference knew the deadly truth about asbestos, but they kept it buried.

All attendees were either profiting from asbestos production or were legally prohibited from going public for the most part.

The conference was a charade. But by conducting studies and holding conferences, asbestos corporations opened the door for whistleblowers like Dr. Wilhelm S. Whooper. Dr. Hooper was chief of the Environmental Cancer Branch at the National Cancer Institute. He understood the risks of asbestos and load. That information was being withheld from the public in the early 1950s. He tried his best to warn the world of the dangers of the asbestos industry and advocated for protection for workers.

In response, the asbestos businesses and their insurance companies spent years attacking Dr. Hoopers reputation. But he didn't stop.

Dr. Whooper loudly proclaimed that asbestos could be causing lung cancer. He was consistent in his protests and even accused the industry of a cover up.

Well, Dr. Whooper was one of the few outliers in the medical field willing to speak up. He was not alone. Other teams of physicians worked for years building evidence, waiting for the right moment to present their case.

Then in 1955, a British doctor, Dr. Richard Dahl, ran a study on lung cancer among workers at one factory. He found that lung cancer rates were 10 times higher in those workers who handled asbestos. Dr. Dalle published his results and added to the few public studies that mentioned cancer. Does publication caught the attention of other physicians, including Dr. Hooper. In response, Johns Manville published a film in 1959 that celebrated all of the amazing uses of asbestos called asbestos.

A matter of time unaffected by fire, unchanged by whether untouched by times. Dark captains, rust, rot and decay. Asbestos possesses rare qualities for which it stands alone.

But the propaganda couldn't prevent the inevitable. In October 1964, a group led by Dr. Irving Celecoxib scheduled an international asbestos conference in New York. Just before the event, three medical professionals, Dr. Silico, Dr. Jacob Weisberg and Dr. Cayler Hemen published a study in the Journal of American Medical Association about long term effects of asbestos exposure.

They found that over 80 percent of asbestos workers with 20 or more years of experience had asbestosis of those who had died. The rate of lung cancer was seven times higher than average.

Dr. Zelikow's study definitively linked American asbestos factories to asbestosis on a large and long term scale.

The 1964 October conference alerted a large scale audience to the dangers of asbestos. It also gave a platform to other studies that highlighted the damaging effect the minerals could have on consumers as well as workers.

It wasn't just asbestos workers that were getting sick. Any actions that disturb the material could expose a person to the dust. As a direct result, the number of people who filed legal cases against companies like Johns Manville increased exponentially.

National newspapers like The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, as well as countless local papers started regularly featuring asbestos health hazards.

In their reporting, the asbestos industry scramble to develop new messaging. Turner and Newell claimed it had already implemented federal regulations so they weren't responsible for their workers health problems.

Johns Manville denied liability as well, falsely claiming that they didn't know about the dangers of asbestos.

Meanwhile, news of the 1964 New York conference traveled to South Africa, where researchers J.S. Wagner, Christopher Sledge's and Paul Martian discovered a lung disease called mesothelioma.

Individuals with mesothelioma would develop a malignant tumor in the lining of the lungs, abdomen or heart. It was an incredibly painful disease. After diagnosis, individuals typically don't live for more than a year.

The researchers believed asbestos caused the tumor since they found inhaled asbestos fibres in the patients. By 1965, experts identified mesothelioma as a disease caused by asbestos exposure and the likely killer of thousands of people.

So by the late 1960s, asbestos exposure was publicly and undoubtedly linked to three health conditions asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. But asbestos continued to be widely circulated and found in millions of products. In fact, in 1973, American companies produced 840000 tons of it more than ever before.

In addition to items like ironing boards, ashtrays, curtains, clothing, cookware, asbestos could be found in the roofing of every home and skyscraper. It covered joints in boiler rooms, ran through electric wiring and interconnected machinery. The mineral was the invisible vein, running through the homes, machines and clothes of the industrialized world.

Now that they realized the true consequences of the fibres, labor and trade unions demanded safer working conditions. Some businesses switched to alternatives to save themselves from potential lawsuits.

After 1973, asbestos use sharply declined. Companies like Johns Manville and Ray Best's Manhattan couldn't afford the onslaught of personal injury claims. So they tried to place blame on the U.S. government for their failure to study or federally regulate their businesses.

But when they did, they opened a can of worms. An investigation ensued that ultimately unveiled the true severity of the situation, and it was worse than anyone could have imagined.

Next week, we'll continue our deep dive into the 20th century asbestos industry by examining a trail of memos, letters and correspondence that held the real secrets of asbestos dust. And, of course, we'll discuss three leading conspiracy theories related to the Asbestos Cover-Up conspiracy theory.

Number one, the asbestos industry illegally kept employees health. Records from them paid off researchers to conceal damning reports on asbestos and knowingly misinformed the public about the dangers of the mineral conspiracy theory.

Number two, the United States government had a hand in the Cover-Up. They intentionally overturned regulations and bans on asbestos and conspiracy theory.

Number three, to this day, asbestos continues to impact the health of the global population. But the extent of the ongoing damage is overlooked, buried or concealed by state and federal powers to save face.

Do you know what's in your walls? Join us next time to find out the truth.

Thanks for tuning into conspiracy theories, we'll be back Wednesday with a new episode you can find all episodes of conspiracy theories and all other Spotify originals from podcast for free on Spotify.

Until then, remember, the truth isn't always the best story, and the official story isn't always the truth.

Conspiracy Theories is a Spotify original from podcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, Sound Design by Scott Stronach with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden and Freddie Beckley.

This episode of Conspiracy Theories was written by Kit Fitzgerald with writing assistance by Ali Whicker, Fact Checking Bacara McAloon and research by Brad Klein and Brian Peatross. Conspiracy theory stars Molly Brandenberg and Carter Roy.

Bad omens, good fortune, pure luck. Take a closer look at what you believe in and follow the Spotify original from Past Superstitions, new episodes, Air Weekly every Wednesday. Listen free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast.