T. J. Weeks, Throwaway Mask for Fibrous Dusts, J-M Research Center Progress Report No. 1 (1969)

A 16-page progress report (No. 404-42) of March 21, 1969, by T. J. Weeks of the Basic Chemistry Research Section at the Johns-Manville Research and Engineering Center, on developing "an efficient, disposable, and comfortable mask for fibrous dusts." Construction workers exposed to fibrous dust, Weeks wrote, moved from job to job, so "these men generally wear no respirator and have little or no protection"; after talks with the American Industrial Hygiene Association, the insulators' union, the U.S. Bureau of Mines and Mount Sinai, J-M set out to make a throwaway mask that would retail for under a dollar. The report describes the face piece, the glass-fiber and rayon filter, and a chrysotile test dust (Plastibest 20, from the Jeffrey mine) made because no suitable fibrous test dust existed.

What it shows

The report expected that the mask "should be possible to sell at least one million a year." Its conclusions record that "It was decided at a meeting a Mt. Sinai that a fiber count is meaningless and impossible," so results were measured by weight, and that J-M pilot plant workers who wore the mask liked it. Among the recommendations was to "Test the mask against amosite and crocidolite." The Bureau of Mines results are in memorandum M404-66, and the asbestos tests were published in 1970 (Weeks and Burns, 1970). The work ran alongside J-M's project with Dr. Irving Selikoff on a respirator workers would accept.