Thomas M. Durkan of Saranac to J. P. Woodard Sending the Asbestos Report Without Its Cancer Section (1948)

A one-page letter (a copy) of October 12, 1948, from Thomas M. Durkan, assistant director of the Saranac Laboratory, to J. P. Woodard of Johns-Manville, sending fifteen copies of the report on Saranac's experimental studies with asbestos, carried out under the sponsorship of J-M "and other companies of the Asbestos Association." The report was complete "with the exception of a minor section devoted to lung cancer." Because of "some ambiguity in the terminology in Doctor Gardner's notes on cancer in animals exposed to asbestos dust," Saranac would finish that section after Dr. Arthur Vorwald returned from Europe, and would next prepare the part on human asbestosis.

What it shows

This is the draft that Vandiver Brown circulated to the sponsors later that month as "Part I" (his memorandum of October 22). Even without its cancer section, it reported tumors in mice exposed to long-fiber asbestos, and at their November 11 meeting the sponsors agreed that all references to cancer and tumors must go (Brown to Kelly).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Letter from Thomas Durkan, assistant director of Saranac laboratory, dated 10/12/48 to J.P. Woodard. The letter refers to the enclosure of fifteen copies of the draft Saranac report and to Saranac's plan to draft an additional final version of the report dealing with human asbestosis.

Related documents

• Vandiver Brown and Manfred Bowditch Letters on Lung Cancer in Gardner's Mice (1947)