Re-Inspection Report on Safety and Industrial Health at Defoe Shipbuilding Company, Bay City, Michigan (1944)

Part of a re-inspection report on the Defoe Shipbuilding Company yard in Bay City, Michigan, visited on January 20 and 21, 1944, by Lt. (jg) K. W. Nelson, regional health consultant, and Raymond F. Clow, regional safety consultant, of the U.S. Maritime Commission in Chicago. In a small shop, a woman employed by a subcontractor was cutting batts of Amosite insulation, and the inspectors wrote that dust on the rafters and wires and "conspicuous quantities of dust floating in the air of the room point to dangerous dust hazard." They called for a Bureau of Mines-approved respirator for the cutter, to be "provided and used immediately," and a study of controlling the dust by exhaust ventilation.

What it shows

The report explains that amosite dust, breathed "in sufficient quantity for a prolonged period," could cause "the disabling occupational disease, asbestosis," which it likened to silicosis. The amosite cutting had begun only a few months earlier. The rest of this copy deals with ordinary shipyard matters: unreported minor injuries, welding fumes, fumes from cutting electrical cable insulation, the cafeteria, toilets and washing facilities. It shows federal shipyard inspectors in early 1944 treating dust from cutting amosite insulation as a known asbestosis hazard that called for respirators at once.