Industrial Hygiene Foundation of America, 1968 Annual Report (1968)

The 22-page 1968 annual report of the Industrial Hygiene Foundation of America, with a president's message by Dr. Robert T. P. deTreville, a report of research programs, the move to new headquarters at 5231 Centre Avenue, Pittsburgh, the financial summary, photographs of the 33rd annual meeting, minutes of the members' meeting of October 15, 1968, and the list of member companies. DeTreville writes that the Foundation's "experimental studies of asbestosis, bronchogenic cancer and mesothelioma production, in collaboration with U. S. Public Health Service scientists, have shed much light on false rumors, which had been widely disseminated," and that studies of fibrous glass had "provided data to refute" claims that it was as hazardous as asbestos, so that the Foundation was recommending it be treated as an "inert" dust.

What it shows

The research report says Dr. Paul Gross had found that 28 ferruginous bodies taken from the lungs of Pittsburgh city dwellers all had cores that were "shown not to be chrysotile asbestos," in a study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the Public Health Service, Johns-Manville, PPG Industries, Pittsburgh Corning and Raybestos-Manhattan (see Ferruginous Bodies). Gross also reported that attempts "to modify pathogenicity of natural asbestos" had so far been unsuccessful. The fibrous glass work was sponsored by Certain-teed, Johns-Manville, Owens-Corning Fiberglas and PPG, and Gross, a member of the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists' threshold limits committee, was to present the findings to it in 1969 (see Threshold Limit Value (TLV)). The 1968 accounts show $15,500 for asbestos dust work and $52,600 for the fibrous dust study. Members included the Asbestos Textile Institute, Johns-Manville, Raybestos-Manhattan, Owens-Corning, Owens-Illinois, the National Insulation Manufacturers Association and the Sprayed Mineral Fiber Manufacturers Association.