Asbestos Textile Institute General Meeting Minutes Rejecting an Autopsy Study, with the Asbestosis Research Proposal (1955)

Two pages of minutes of the Asbestos Textile Institute's general meeting of June 9, 1955, in Philadelphia, presided over by F. J. Wakem of Johns-Manville, with the two-page Air Hygiene Committee "Proposal for Asbestosis Research" signed by H. M. Jackson of J-M as chairman. The committee had proposed a heart and lung study of workers at a Philadelphia hospital and an autopsy study by Dr. G. W. H. Schepers of the Saranac Laboratory. The members thought the first desirable but hard to carry out, and the second "was considered ill-advised at this time due to its implication that a relationship existed between asbestosis and carcinogenic development, a condition which, to date, has not been established although it has been given rather wide-spread publicity in the press."

What it shows

The attached proposal describes the value of both studies to member companies partly in claims terms: the heart and lung study would help determine "the validity of the claim and the extent of the disability and therefore, the liability," and the autopsy reports would have "important bearing on Workman's Compensation liability." The committee had reviewed a Saranac proposal on lung cancer and asbestosis that spring (Air Hygiene Committee minutes of March 1955). Saranac had already reported a trend toward more lung tumors in mice breathing Quebec chrysotile (interim report of 1952). At this meeting the textile makers, J-M among them, turned down the autopsy work because of what it might imply about cancer.

About this copy

The same minutes and proposal (the same pages, CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-001698 to 001701) are also published in the Motley 1,000 collection as Asbestos Textile Institute Minutes Calling an Autopsy Study Ill-Advised (1955).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Minutes dated 6/9/55, ATI Board decides against research into relationship between asbestos and cancer is "ill advised at this time due to its implication that a relationship existed . . . ."