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Public Health Bulletin No. 241, published by the U.S. Public Health Service in August 1938: an engineering and medical study of asbestos textile plants, made at the request of North Carolina's State Board of Health and Industrial Commission. The authors measured the dust in three plants and examined 541 workers (423 men and 118 women). Because clear-cut cases of asbestosis were found only above 5 million dust particles per cubic foot of air, they proposed that "5 million particles per cubic foot may be regarded tentatively as the threshold value for asbestos-dust exposure until better data are available."
- Author
- Waldemar C. Dreessen, J. M. DallaValle, Thomas I. Edwards, J. W. Miller, R. R. Sayers
- Published by
- U.S. Public Health Service
- Agency
- Public Health Service
- Date
- August 1938
- Library no.
- ACL Doc 11365 · asbestosclaims.law/library/11365
- Rights
- US government work, in the public domain.
Read or download
Read online Download the PDF Public Health Bulletin No. 241, August 1938 · 134 pages · 5.0 MB
What it shows
This is the first published working limit for asbestos dust, the beginning of what became the Threshold Limit Value (TLV). The study found that asbestosis increased with the dust level, that its symptoms included breathlessness, cough, chest pain and clubbed fingers, and that only three doubtful or borderline cases were found below 5 million particles, while cautioning that very few workers had long exposure at low levels. J-M's attorney was told of the bulletin within weeks (Batchelor's letter); in 1939 Leroy Gardner measured his animal-room dust against this limit (the interim report). See also Metropolitan Life and the Public Health Service on different limits.
In Johns-Manville's chronology
Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:
USPHS Dreessen Report involving study of textile industry proposes tentative safe
standard of 5 mppcf. Notes vast recent improvements by industry.
Related documents
Cited by Barry Castleman
In Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects (5th edition, 2005), which cites it in:
- Chapter 4 (Thresholds and Standards), p. 226
- Chapter 4 (Thresholds and Standards), p. 258
- Chapter 4 (Thresholds and Standards), p. 282
- Chapter 4 (Thresholds and Standards), p. 236, note 65
- Chapter 5 (Asbestos Product Use), p. 338
- Chapter 5 (Asbestos Product Use), p. 320, note 13
- Chapter 9 (Company Knowledge), p. 561
- Chapter 9 (Company Knowledge), p. 608
- Chapter 10 (Historical Research on Toxic Substances), p. 665 (a related source)
- Chapter 10 (Historical Research on Toxic Substances), p. 696
- Appendix 2 (Prepared Statement of Francis H. May, Johns-Manville), p. 842
- Appendix 2 (Prepared Statement of Francis H. May, Johns-Manville), p. 841, note 5
Cited on this site
- A. S. Rossiter to Sumner Simpson Sending a Journal of the American Medical Association Review of the Dreessen Study (1939)
- American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists Adopts Its 1947 Limits, Including Asbestos (1947)
- Asbestos History
- Asbestos Timeline
- Bronson Batchelor to Vandiver Brown on the Public Health Service Asbestosis Study (1938)
- Fleischer, Viles, Gade and Drinker, "A Health Survey of Pipe Covering Operations in Constructing Naval Vessels" (1946)
- J. E. Begert to Vandiver Brown on Dust Counts at the Manville Factory (1947)
- Leroy Gardner, Interim Report on Experimental Asbestosis at the Saranac Laboratory (1939)
- Reading Castleman, Appendix 2
- Reading Castleman, Chapter 4
- Reading Castleman, Chapter 5
- Reading Castleman, Chapter 9
- Reading Castleman, Chapter 10
- The Johns-Manville Knowledge Chronology
- Threshold Limit Value (TLV)
- W. C. L. Hemeon, Report of Preliminary Dust Investigation for the Asbestos Textile Institute (1947)
Cite this document
Waldemar C. Dreessen, J. M. DallaValle, Thomas I. Edwards, J. W. Miller, R. R. Sayers. “Dreessen and Others, A Study of Asbestosis in the Asbestos Textile Industry.” August 1938. U.S. Public Health Service. AsbestosClaims.Law Library, ACL Doc 11365. https://asbestosclaims.law/library/11365.
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