Johns-Manville, "History of Johns-Manville Health Research" (1970)

A 21-page Johns-Manville paper, stamped as received by a library in August 1970, tracing the company's part in research on the health effects of asbestos, diatomaceous earth, perlite and fiber glass. It begins with J-M's sponsorship, from 1928, of animal studies at the Saranac Laboratory under Dr. Leroy Gardner and later Dr. Arthur Vorwald, and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company dust study published in 1935. It ends with a list of twelve current asbestos projects, among them Dr. Irving Selikoff's Insulation Industry Hygiene Research Program, a U.S. Public Health Service study of asbestos workers, and a McGill University study of Quebec miners and millers.

What it shows

This was J-M's account of its research record, prepared for the press and the public. J-M's September 1970 report on asbestos and health attached it, and in December the board of the Asbestos Information Association called it the "rather extensive paper" in J-M's Media Source File and agreed to prepare an industry version. It says Vorwald recommended a limit of 1.0 million fibers, 10 microns or longer, per cubic foot of air (see Jackson's 1951 request). It also reports that a University of Pittsburgh study of J-M retirees found some causes of death higher than in the general population, and that in the McGill study the most heavily exposed tenth of 12,000 Quebec workers had a death rate about 12 per cent higher than the rest, "mainly due to asbestosis, lung cancer and other respiratory diseases."

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Paper entitled "History of J-M Health Research," prepared by J-M, 8/70. Traces J-M's participation in research into the health effects of asbestos, diatomaceous earth, perlite and fiberglass.