Kenneth W. Smith to K. V. Lindell on Reporting Asbestosis Under Quebec's New Health Regulations (1950)

A one-page confidential memo of January 28, 1950, from Dr. Kenneth W. Smith, the doctor at Canadian Johns-Manville's operations in Asbestos, Quebec, to K. V. Lindell, headed "Notification of Occupational Diseases." Quebec's new health regulations required doctors to report all cases of occupational disease, asbestosis included. Smith told the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association that asbestosis should be diagnosed only with a history of dust exposure, typical X-ray shadows and physical disability. When the province's director of industrial hygiene, Dr. F. J. Tourangeau, asked him to report even early X-ray cases, Smith objected "because the information could easily get into the hands of a group in Quebec with the result that the Company would be faced with claims for compensation."

What it shows

"My recommendation for the present," Smith wrote, "was to do nothing about these notifications." He and Dr. Paul Cartier of Thetford agreed: the company had "only 12 or 15 cases which might be notifiable," while Thetford had more than 60, and they would not report cases "unless all industries in the Province are doing the same thing." The company's own clinics, he argued, controlled asbestosis better than the government could, and reporting every case could leave the industry "unjustly penalized." The memo shows J-M's medical director weighing a public health reporting rule against the risk of compensation claims.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Letter from K.W. Smith to K.V. Lindell dated 1/28/50. Informs that new Provincial Health Regulations require physicians to report all cases of occupational disease among patients. Asbestosis is included as an occupational disease. Smith gives opinion that asbestosis should be diagnosed only in the presence of (a) history of exposure to dust; (b) positive and typical x-ray shadows; and (c) physical disability. Smith objects to the notification system because the information could result in compensation claims against the Company. Smith recommends, that for the present, J-M do nothing about these notifications.