Saranac Laboratory Application to the American Cancer Society for a Grant to Study Asbestos Dust and Lung Cancer (1954)

A 15-page application of September 28, 1954, from the Saranac Laboratory to the American Cancer Society (through the National Research Council's Committee on Growth) for a grant to study "Environmental Cancer of the Lung: An investigation of the co-carcinogenic activity of inhaled asbestos dust in experimental beryllium neoplasia." The principal investigator was Dr. G. W. H. Schepers, the laboratory's director. The application says "the role of inhaled asbestos in contributing to the growing problem of lung cancer needs experimental exploration," and proposes exposing strain C mice and rats to asbestos dust, alone and after beryllium sulphate, which Saranac already used to produce lung cancer in rats.

What it shows

The background appendix states that "the strongest evidence for the carcinogenicity of asbestos is the official British governmental statistics," and reports that an earlier Saranac study had found that inhaled Canadian chrysotile "produced significantly increased occurrence of neoplasms" in a tumor-prone strain of mice; Saranac now wanted to test the "very much suspected" African crocidolite and amosite. On why the work mattered, Schepers wrote that if asbestos were shown to cause lung cancer, industrial hygienists would have to seek "ever lower dust levels than are currently considered compatible with the absence of risk of asbestosis," doctors would have to watch exposed patients for cancer longer, and "much medico-legal interest also devolves on this issue." If the finding were negative, "there should be further reassurance to asbestos industrialists and employees." The appendixes give the budget, staff, facilities, biographies and Schepers's bibliography. Saranac made a similar proposal to the Asbestos Textile Institute in February 1955 (Saranac's proposal to the Asbestos Textile Institute), and the American Cancer Society grant went ahead (the 1955 extension application).