Leroy Gardner to Ludvig Hektoen on Asbestosis, Navy Insulation Work and Lung Cancer (1943)

A one-page letter of September 29, 1943, from Dr. Leroy Gardner to Dr. Ludvig Hektoen, executive director of the National Advisory Cancer Council, answering his request for a statement on asbestosis. Gardner wrote that asbestosis "ranks next to silicosis in industrial importance," that most cases had come from asbestos textile plants, and that many people were also exposed in the electrical industries and in insulating work, where "the U. S. Navy has had a real problem." Though he had "always felt that asbestosis probably created no specific predisposition to pulmonary cancer," he wrote, "evidence to the contrary continues to accumulate," and he concluded: "I do not believe that we can afford to neglect the matter much longer."

What it shows

The letter was written for a federal cancer council, not for the asbestos companies that had paid for Gardner's research. In it Gardner names Navy boiler, electrical and other insulating work as a source of asbestos exposure, and cites Homburger's September 1943 article for "a total of 19" cases in which asbestosis and lung cancer were found together.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Gardner advised Hektoen, 9/29/43, of National Advisory Cancer Council of asbestos exposures in electrical industries and U.S. Navy's "real problem" in its insulating work; refers to literature citing 19 cases of asbestosis and pulmonary cancer and concludes "I do not believe that we can afford to neglect the matter much longer."