Sumner Simpson to H. D. LaMont of Asbestos Manufacturing on Funding Gardner's Asbestos Research (1936)

A two-page letter of November 10, 1936, from Sumner Simpson, president of Raybestos-Manhattan, to H. D. LaMont of Asbestos Manufacturing Co. of Huntington, Indiana. It is the same letter Simpson sent that day to the heads of Thermoid Rubber, Keasbey & Mattison and Russell Manufacturing: after a conference with Vandiver Brown of Johns-Manville, Dr. Leroy Gardner of Saranac and Drs. Lanza and McConnell of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Simpson proposed that four or five asbestos manufacturers share the $5,000 a year cost of three years of animal experiments with asbestos dust at Saranac. He invited LaMont to a meeting at The Biltmore in New York on Tuesday, November 17.

What it shows

Simpson wrote that Johns-Manville and Raybestos-Manhattan could now eliminate a large part of the dust "but as yet have no definite information as to what Asbestosis will lead into," and that "We do know that Asbestos Fibres can, and do, get into the lungs." Because he expected compensation laws to become "more rigid," with asbestosis becoming "one of the Compensation cases," the companies should gather all the information they could for the state compensation commissions. The sponsors would "determine from time to time after the findings are made, whether we wish any publication or not," and Simpson favored sharing findings with doctors "providing it is of the right type and would not injure our companies." LaMont answered on November 12. The same letter to F. H. Schluter of Thermoid and A. S. Blagden of Keasbey & Mattison is published from Johns-Manville's knowledge chronology.

In Johns-Manville's index

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

Proposes meeting between J-M, RM, Thermoid Rubber, Asbestos Mfg., Russell Mfg and Keasby & Mattison to discuss sponsoring studies by Dr. Gardner at Saranac, N.Y. Informs that J-M, RM and Metropolitan studied dust levels and found they could be greatly reduced. Not yet known if asbestosis leads to tuberculosis. Must know more about asbestosis because compensation laws seem to be getting more rigid. Gardner will conduct experiments on effects of asbestos on animals.

Related documents

• H. D. LaMont of Asbestos Manufacturing to Sumner Simpson Proposing Shares by Size of Company (1936)
• Sumner Simpson to F. H. Schluter of Thermoid Rubber on Funding Gardner's Asbestos Research (1936)
• Sumner Simpson to A. S. Blagden of Keasbey & Mattison on Funding Gardner's Asbestos Research (1936)
• Sumner Simpson's Secretary to Dr. A. J. Lanza Confirming the Meeting with Dr. Gardner (1936)

About this copy

This is document 03006-03007 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.