Physician's Letter to Edward Ames of Owens-Corning Fiberglas on a Pipe Coverer with Asbestosis (1944)

A one-page letter of November 21, 1944, from a Toledo physician (the copy is unsigned) to Edward Ames, public relations manager of Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation, about a longtime patient who had worked most of his adult life as a pipe coverer handling magnesia, asbestos and mineral wool insulation. The doctor writes that in August 1944 he had hospitalized the man, who "was suffering from asbestosis, a condition that results from exposure to asbestos dust," diagnosed by X-ray. In his opinion the disease was not caused by Fiberglas, which the man had handled only briefly, but by "his exposure to asbestos dust over a long period of years."

What it shows

The doctor calls asbestosis "a well recognized form of lung pathology" that causes shortness of breath. The letter shows that by 1944 a physician treating an insulation worker, not a factory hand, recognized asbestosis from long exposure to asbestos insulation products. It follows an earlier letter to Owens-Corning about the same worker.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

An unsigned letter to E.C. Ames (P.R. Manager, Owens-Corning Fiberglass Corporation) on 11/21/44 discusses A. Bumgardner, expressing the view that Mr. Bumgardner's condition is due to exposure to asbestos products. An attached letter with the same date from "TSR" to H.T. Williams estimates that "100-to-l chances are it is asbestosis and cannot be hung on fiberglass or mineral wools."

Editor's note: J-M's description quotes an attached letter of the same date from "TSR" to H. T. Williams ("100-to-1 chances are it is asbestosis"). That attachment is not in this file, which is a single page. The worker's name is spelled "Baumgardner" on the page.

Related documents

• Unsigned Draft Letter to Edward C. Ames of Owens-Corning Fiberglas on Albert Baumgardner (1944)