Asbestos Textile Institute Minutes on the Conklin Cancer Article (1949)

Three pages from the minutes of the Asbestos Textile Institute's general meeting of April 7, 1949, at the Bismarck Hotel in Chicago, attended by representatives of Johns-Manville (S. V. Dillon), Raybestos-Manhattan, Keasbey & Mattison, Union Asbestos & Rubber and other members. The secretary read excerpts from "Cancer and Environment" by Graff Conklin in Scientific American (January 1949), and members felt it had "unjustifiably incriminated asbestos as a carcinogenic material"; G. W. Marshall of Raybestos-Manhattan was directed to confer with Dr. A. J. Lanza of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company about clarifying the subject. In the Air Hygiene Committee discussion, members noted that many English manufacturers were ahead of American ones in dust control, partly because of stricter legislation in England.

What it shows

The same spring, J-M's own medical director in Quebec recommended asking the Saranac Laboratory for an expert opinion on asbestos and cancer (Smith to Foster). The minutes also record a report that there was no basis for an early settlement of the Canadian mine strike (the strike notices).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

Excerpt from Conklin article re asbestosis-cancer link read during ATI meeting of 4/7/49. Conclusions deemed "unjustifiably incriminating" by members.