John F. McMahon of the Air Hygiene Foundation to Vandiver Brown on the Dollar Value of Industrial Hygiene (1941)

A one-page letter of March 12, 1941, from John F. McMahon, executive secretary of the Air Hygiene Foundation of America in Pittsburgh, to Vandiver Brown of Johns-Manville, asking what industrial health had meant to J-M "on an economic basis" and whether its membership in the Foundation had contributed. "Many feel that this lack of 'cost figures' has retarded the progress of health programs in industry," McMahon wrote, "that we will never be able to 'sell' top management generally until we can interpret industrial hygiene in terms of cost." Brown passed it to a colleague initialed JPW, whose handwritten answer says J-M had no data at the time that would serve, though there might be some "proof" over a longer term.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

J.F. McMahon of the IHF writes to Vandiver Brown, 3/12/41, asking for data showing the economic value of industrial hygiene. "Many feel that this lack of 'cost figures' has retarded the progress of health programs in industry; that we will never be able to 'sell' top management generally until we can interpret industrial hygiene in terms of cost." Marginalia from JPW (?) states that J-M does not have this data at the present time. There may be some "proof on a longer term basis."