Dr. Paul Gross to Dr. Kenneth W. Smith on Lung Slides Showing Asbestosis and Cancer (1957)

A one-page letter of June 10, 1957, from Dr. Paul Gross, a research pathologist, to Dr. Kenneth W. Smith, J-M's medical director, reporting on slides of lung and lymph node tissue from an unnamed patient. Gross found "severe diffuse fibrosis consistent with asbestosis," a few asbestos bodies, and "metastatic adenocarcinoma" in the lymph nodes and the lung's lymph vessels. He could not find where the cancer started: it might be elsewhere in the lung or "in some other organ for all I know."

What it shows

By 1957 J-M's medical director was sending tissue from a case with asbestosis to an outside pathologist and receiving back a finding of cancer alongside the asbestosis. Gross asked about the case again eleven days later (Gross to Smith, June 21). Handwritten marks show the letter was later an exhibit at Dr. Daniel Braun's deposition.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Gross (IHF) correspondence with K. Smith re diagnosis of cancer in lung tissue submitted by a J-M doctor. (Individual's name omitted)