Kenneth Smith to F. G. Lippert on Workers Handling Bags of South African Blue Fibre (1944)

A one-page letter of December 19, 1944, from Dr. Kenneth Smith, the physician at Canadian Johns-Manville in Asbestos, Quebec, to F. G. Lippert at J-M's general headquarters in New York, headed "South African Blue Fibre." A shipment of 10,000 jute bags marked "Blue C & G" had arrived from California, and because much of the fiber remained in the jute, the men in the bag-sorting department who handled them were troubled with almost constant attacks of bronchial asthma and "experienced great difficulty in breathing." Smith cut their time on the work to a few hours a week, supplied respirators, and asked whether similar cases had occurred at other J-M plants using the blue fibre.

What it shows

Smith notes that the same men had handled small lots of these bags before with no apparent effect, and had no such symptoms with bags of other kinds of fiber. "Blue" fibre is crocidolite, South African blue asbestos. The letter shows a company doctor reporting acute breathing trouble from one particular fiber to headquarters; Lippert's reply and the later proposal to stop cleaning the bags follow.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Dr. Kenneth Smith writes to F.G. Lippert (Headquarters), 12/19/44, and notes problems experienced by workers when cleaning large quantities of jute bags which contained South African blue fiber. "All the men experienced great difficulty in breathing." As soon as the problem was brought to Dr. Smith's attention, he issued respirators and had the men work for shorter periods of time. Dr. Smith asks Lippert if he knows of similar problems occurring elsewhere.

Related documents

• F. G. Lippert to Kenneth Smith on Cleaning Bags of South African Blue Fibre (1945)