Leroy U. Gardner to Vandiver Brown on the Asbestos Experiments Nearing Completion (1941)

A one-page letter of November 5, 1941, from Dr. Leroy U. Gardner, director of Saranac Laboratory, to Vandiver Brown of Johns-Manville, answering Brown's inquiry of November 3. Gardner agreed the asbestos experiments "should be nearing completion" and said he would bring the matter up to date "for your own information and that of the contributing companies." He reported that "The tentative conclusion as to the inactivity of short fibre asbestos apparently stands," and asked permission to continue part of the dust exposures a few months longer.

What it shows

Dr. Leroy Gardner gave Vandiver Brown the main findings of five years of animal work at Saranac Laboratory in a few lines. The laboratory had not found why "different species react as they do," short fibers still looked inactive, "probably the most important conclusion we have to offer," and he expected "to demonstrate quite definitely that asbestosis does not progress after cessation of exposure." He reported first to the sponsoring companies, through Johns-Manville's attorney, and promised a fuller account after the first of the year. Brown agreed to the extension two days later (Brown's reply).

In Johns-Manville's index

Johns-Manville's attorneys indexed the Sumner Simpson Papers. Their index describes this document as follows:

Informs that asbestos studies at Saranac Lake are nearing completion. States that it has not been determined why different species react to asbestos the way they do. Informs that experiments should yield results which prove that asbestosis does not progress after cessation of exposure. "The tentative conclusion as to the inactivity of short fibre asbestos apparently stands."

Related documents

• Vandiver Brown to Sumner Simpson on Asbestos Magazine's Review of a Book on Pneumoconiosis (1941)
• Vandiver Brown to Leroy U. Gardner Agreeing to Extend the Dust Exposures (1941)
• Vandiver Brown to Sumner Simpson on Dr. Gardner Completing the Asbestos Experiments (1942)
• Vandiver Brown and Leroy Gardner on the Status of the Asbestos Dust Experiments (1941)

About this copy

This is document 04737 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.