Dr. Kenneth W. Smith to C. M. McGaw on Waiting for Cancer Results Before Publicizing the Saranac Report (1951)

A confidential one-page memorandum of June 11, 1951, from Dr. Kenneth W. Smith, at the hospital in Asbestos, Quebec, to C. M. McGaw, on whether to publicize the Saranac Laboratory report on experimental asbestosis. Smith writes that the report had already been widely circulated among doctors, the Quebec Silicosis Board and members of the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association. On the idea of a news story, he would prefer to wait for Dr. George Wright's examinations of J-M's men, and "we would be wise to wait until we have proof of no causal relationship between asbestosis and pulmonary cancer," since "we might not wish to bring attention to the asbestos industry if the cancer research is not entirely favorable."

What it shows

Smith, J-M's leading medical officer in Quebec, treated publicity as something to time around the outcome of the cancer research. He suggested that the animal studies, the examinations of workers and the cancer research might later be compiled as a booklet to "serve as a standard text in all medical centres." The memo was copied to J. P. Woodard and H. M. Jackson at headquarters and is stamped as seen by Vandiver Brown. The cancer research he was waiting on is reported in his October 1951 report to McGaw and in Saranac's first interim report of May 1952.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Smith writes McGaw on 6/11/51 to defer publicity on Gardner report pending results of George Wright's examinations of mine X-rays, stating: "we would be wise to wait until we have proof of no causal relationship between asbestos and pulmonary cancer. Dr. Vorwald's report and Gardner data and favorable findings might be tempered by Dr. Wright's work and we might not wish to bring attention to the asbestos industry if the cancer research is not entirely favorable."

Editor's note: J-M's description quotes Smith as waiting for proof of no causal relationship "between asbestos and pulmonary cancer." The memo reads "between asbestosis and pulmonary cancer."