Asbestos Textile Institute Air Hygiene Committee Minutes Rejecting a Lung Cancer Study (1957)

Two pages of minutes of the March 7, 1957, meeting of the Asbestos Textile Institute's Air Hygiene and Manufacturing Committee, signed by its chairman, D. R. Holmes of Asten-Hill Manufacturing, with members from Raybestos-Manhattan, Keasbey & Mattison, Johns-Manville (W. C. Atkinson, attending for the first time) and others. After about a year of discussion, six of the eight members voted against a proposed "Epidemiological Study of Lung Cancer in Asbestos Workers," estimated to cost $17,000 to $30,000. One of the reasons recorded: "There is a feeling among certain members that such an investigation would stir up a hornet's nest and put the whole industry under suspicion."

What it shows

The other reasons given were that the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association had a similar study under way whose results would be shared, and that "we do not believe there is enough evidence of cancer or asbestosis, or cancer and asbestosis, in this industry to warrant this survey." The whole committee also voted down a proposed dust survey of member plants, at $7,500 to $8,000, as not worth the cost. The chairman was told to inform the Industrial Hygiene Foundation that both proposals were withdrawn (Holmes to Braun, April 1957). That August the Foundation's medical director wrote that the literature pointed to lung cancer mainly among factory workers rather than miners (Braun to Jackson).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

According to minutes dated 3/7/57, ATI decided against IHF asbestos-cancer research on basis QAMA study essentially the same, insufficient evidence to warrant study, and "there is a feeling among certain members that such an investigation would stir up a hornet's nest and put the whole industry under suspicion." J-M testifies it voted in favor of research. Braun had written Jackson of need for plantworker study. ATI also decided against dust survey.

Editor's note: J-M's description says J-M voted in favor of the research. The minutes do not record how any member voted, only that six of eight voted against; the statement about J-M's vote comes from later testimony, not this document.

Related documents

• Industrial Hygiene Foundation, Proposed Epidemiological Study of Lung Cancer in Asbestos Workers for the Asbestos Textile Institute (1956)