During the war, virtually all the laboratories at the NIH redirected their research toward war-related problems. Research for the home front primarily focused on medical problems among workers in the war industries--those that produced airplanes, ships, tanks, munitions, synthetic rubber, plastics, and the like. Research on the toxicity of various products with which workers came into contact resulted in more than eighty-five scientific publications. One commentator noted that, "as a direct result of this work conditions of employment for more than 300,000 workers in defense industries definitely have been improved."