Philip E. Enterline, Asbestos and Cancer: The First Thirty Years (1978)

A 144-page typed manuscript, "Asbestos and Cancer: The First Thirty Years," by Dr. Philip E. Enterline of the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health, "with the assistance of" Nancy Sussman and Gary M. Marsh, with a preface dated November 29, 1978. Enterline wrote that the Asbestos Information Association had asked him in the spring of 1976 for a literature review to determine "how, at different points in time, the medical profession interpreted the research literature then available to it." The review traces the medical writing on asbestos and cancer from 1934 to 1964, with tables of authors' opinions, conclusions, a bibliography and abstracts of the original articles. It concludes that in Germany the lung cancer question "seemed to have been settled by the early 1940's," and that in the United States it "was definitely settled" at the 1964 New York conference on the biological effects of asbestos.

What it shows

In the preface Enterline thanked the Asbestos Information Association, the industry's trade group, "who provided financial support with the understanding that information regarding the development of knowledge about asbestos and cancer might seriously weaken the asbestos industry's position in litigations against it." He found that "many writers were convinced of a relationship long before epidemiological and experimental evidence was available," and that Gloyne, "to whom credit for the discovery should really have gone," reported lung cancer in asbestosis cases in 1934 and 1935. The Association's lawyers used the study in preparing its state of the art materials for defense counsel. The tables of authors' opinions also appear in Sussman and Marsh's review.

In Johns-Manville's index

Johns-Manville's legal department indexed the Motley 1,000 in 1984. Its index describes this document as follows:

Article entitled "Asbestos and Cancer - the First 30 Years," by Dr. Philip E. Enterline, 11/78. This article traces the development of medical knowledge regarding the health effects of asbestos.

Related documents

• Nancy Sussman and Gary M. Marsh, Occupations Associated with Asbestosis (1900-1964): A Literature Review (1978)
• Asbestos Information Association Board of Directors Minutes on the State of the Art Defense (1977)
• Dr. Philip E. Enterline to Guy Gabrielson on the Asbestos Literature Review for the Asbestos Information Association (1977)
• Philip E. Enterline to Guy G. Gabrielson, Jr. on Barry Castleman's Request for the Literature Review (1977)

About this copy

This is document 724 of the Motley 1,000, from the set the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust's records facility certified as true copies, pages CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-002946 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-003089.