Vandiver Brown to H. B. Meller of the Air Hygiene Foundation on Describing Asbestosis (1936)

A two-page letter of October 5, 1936, from Vandiver Brown, Johns-Manville's general attorney, to H. B. Meller, managing director of the Air Hygiene Foundation of America in Pittsburgh. Brown approves a revised report of the foundation's Preventive Engineering Committee and comments on Meller's draft paper for the National Safety Congress. The paper said that asbestos dust "causes a serious type of fibrosis, which is not accompanied by an unduly high incidence of tuberculosis." Brown "would have preferred" the phrase "a distinctive type of fibrosis," because asbestos dust, compared with silica dust, "presents a much less 'serious' hazard," though he called the point "a small one."

What it shows

The letter shows J-M's lawyer reading and commenting on the wording of an industry-funded foundation's public paper on dust disease, and preferring language that made asbestosis sound less serious. Two months later Brown urged other companies to support the foundation as a source of experts "who understand and sympathize with Industry's viewpoint" (letter to Union Asbestos & Rubber).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

In a memorandum dated 10/5/36, V. Brown writes to H.B. Keller acknowledges receipt of a draft paper for the National Safety Congress. He suggests a "distinctive" type of fibrosis rather than a "serious" type of fibrosis due to his understanding that asbestos dust, when compared with silica dust, presents a much less "serious" hazard.

Editor's note: J-M's description names the recipient as H. B. Keller. The letter is addressed to H. B. Meller, managing director of the Air Hygiene Foundation of America.