Vandiver Brown to M. S. Badollet on Removing a Lung Cancer Bibliography from a Report for Quebec (1944)

A one-page "Pers. & Confid." letter of January 3, 1944, from Vandiver Brown, Johns-Manville's attorney, to M. S. Badollet of the Manville Research Laboratories, with two pages of the report's bibliography attached. Brown understood that Report No. 23-1128 might be given to the workmen's compensation authorities in Quebec to prove "that no silicosis hazard is involved" in mining and handling asbestos from J-M's Canadian mines. "Very little is known at the present time," he wrote, "as to what, if any, connection exists between exposure to asbestos dust and lung cancer," and he asked whether the copies already sent out could be reclaimed and "the report re-written without the appendix or the references thereto."

What it shows

The attached pages of Appendix B summarize published studies, among them an abstract of L. Teleky stating that it is "highly probable" that asbestosis predisposes to lung cancer, and one of Koelsch noting 12 cases of lung cancer in asbestos workers that "must be studied further." Brown judged it "not only unnecessary but also unwise" for this bibliography to go to the Quebec authorities with the report. Copies of his letter went to E. R. Williams and to H. K. Sherry at Asbestos, Quebec, home of Canadian Johns-Manville's mine. Less than a year earlier Leroy Gardner had told Brown that the cancer question "now seems more significant."

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Vandiver Brown in a letter to M.S. Badollet (Manville Research Laboratories), 1/3/44, comments on an appendix to a report which J-M is going to submit to the Quebec workers' compensation authorities as a means of proving that silicosis hazard is involved in the mining and milling of asbestos at J-M's Canadian mines. The appendix is a bibliography of articles which establish that free silica causes silicosis. Some of the articles also address the connection between lung cancer and asbestos/asbestosis. Brown tells Badollet that "[i]n view of the purpose for which the report is intended, I believe you will agree it is not only unnecessary but also unwise that this bibliography be appended and I wonder if it would be possible to re-claim the copies which have been sent out and have the report re-written without the appendix or the reference thereto."

Editor's note: J-M's description says the report was meant to prove that a silicosis hazard is involved in mining and milling at the Canadian mines. Brown's letter says it was meant to prove "that no silicosis hazard is involved."