G. P. Reimschussel, Disposable Dust Respirators, J-M Research Center Progress Report No. 2 (1971)

A 25-page progress report (No. 404-77) of May 19, 1971, by G. P. Reimschussel of the Basic Chemistry Research Section at the Johns-Manville Research and Engineering Center, reviewing J-M's work since 1969 on a disposable dust respirator. The need, it says, was greatest "among transient asbestos insulation workers" on construction jobs, where respirator maintenance was not practical. In April 1969 about 100 prototype masks, some of them placebos with no glass fiber, were field-tested at the Dresden Nuclear Power Plant construction site in Illinois with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Local 7 of the asbestos workers' union; the men found them uncomfortable across the nose and said they could not see their feet on scaffolds and ladders.

What it shows

In the summer of 1969, the report says, "it was decided that J-M should not go into the business of manufacturing and selling dust masks." Instead J-M offered its filter method to mask makers for a royalty of $0.03 a mask; Willson Products, Welch, Mine Safety Appliances and American Optical signed agreements, and only Willson pursued it. Much of the report deals with meeting new, stricter U.S. Bureau of Mines specifications for valveless disposable respirators, which J-M's filters at first "fell far short of" in breathing resistance. By 1971 Willson planned to make masks from a J-M Micro-Fiber mat like the one in a Johnson & Johnson surgical mask. The project began with Weeks's first progress report.