Vandiver Brown to John F. McMahon of the Industrial Hygiene Foundation on the Kansas Ordnance Plant and Wet Shingles (1942)

A two-page letter of September 24, 1942, from Vandiver Brown, secretary of Johns-Manville, to John F. McMahon, managing director of the Industrial Hygiene Foundation of America in Pittsburgh. Most of it answers a report by a Mr. Mallette, who had visited the Kansas Ordnance Plant at Parsons, Kansas, about a job as industrial hygienist there; Brown replied that "we have eight doctors in our employ" at the plant and that it followed the practices of the permanent U.S. ordnance plants. At the end he noted that a separate letter about "alleged infections attributable to the handling of wet asbestos shingles" was "being processed," adding: "in my humble and unprofessional opinion, it sounds like a mare's nest."

What it shows

A "mare's nest" is a supposed discovery that turns out to be nothing. Brown, by his own description not a medical man, gave this opinion of a health complaint about asbestos shingles while it was still being looked into. The letter is also friendly in tone and shows the close working ties between J-M and the Industrial Hygiene Foundation.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Vandiver Brown writes to John F. McMahon on 9/24/42, addressing "alleged infections attributable to the handling of wet asbestos shingles is, as the saying goes, being processed, and you may expect to hear from me further. However, in my humble and unprofessional opinion, it sounds like a mare's nest."