Correspondence on Dr. F. V. Meriwether's Reading of Manville Plant X-Rays (1932)

Thirty-five pages of letters and reports, February to June 1932, on the X-ray survey of Johns-Manville's plant at Manville, New Jersey, which employed about 1,200 people. Dr. A. J. Lanza of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company arranged for Dr. F. V. Meriwether, surgeon in charge of the U.S. Bureau of Mines clinic at Picher, Oklahoma, to read the films, calling the survey "a very important experiment on this whole question of physical examination in industry." Meriwether read 1,140 films in three groups and classed 489 as negative. In the first group of 330 he found 118 abnormal, nearly all asbestosis, and warned that "in a number of instances these men will develop asbestosis in a relatively short time."

What it shows

At first the Surgeon General, H. S. Cumming, refused permission, writing that the work "appears to be only for the benefit of one company and can not be considered as research work" and that "the results obtained might be introduced as evidence in court." Lanza, the Bureau of Mines' chief surgeon R. R. Sayers and others then met the Surgeon General, and the readings went ahead "for scientific purposes only, the negatives being identified by number and not by the individual." Vandiver Brown, J-M's attorney, asked Lanza to help "speed up the machinery."

On February 26, 1932, S. A. Williams, J-M's vice president, told Meriwether that former employees had sued the company over dust at the factory and asked that the readings be held "in strictest confidence." The company wished, he wrote, "if possible, to prevent the results of our efforts being used against us either in the pending suits or in any suits which may be brought against us." After the first results, A. MacD. Hughes of J-M's personnel department wrote that "passing an opinion of Asbestosis on a patient who previously worked in dust brings up a medical legal problem," sent dust histories with the next films, and asked Meriwether to follow the plant doctor in calling such cases pneumoconiosis. Meriwether agreed to "conform to the readings of Dr. Sabatelle," and in the later groups most abnormal films are labeled pneumoconiosis. He did not sign the cards, he explained, because he understood "the interpretations were not to be used in any other manner."

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Correspondence between February and June, 1932, concerning the diagnostic reading of Manville, New Jersey plantworker x-rays. A.J. Lanza assisted J-M in arranging for Dr. F.V. Merewether, Chief Surgeon at the U.S. Bureau of Mines Clinic (USPHS) to perform the x-ray readings for this study. Initially, the plan was for 600 out of a total plant work force of 1200 to be x-rayed and also fluoroscoped to test the relative efficacy of the two methods in detecting asbestosis. Ultimately, Merewether appears to have actually reviewed 40 x-rays. Of the first 330 films, Merewether interpreted 118 as "asbestosis," and 212 as "essentially negative," but actually labeled only 163 of the films as entirely "negative". For these initial readings, Merewether was not provided with dust exposure histories and he diagnosed all pneumoconiosis as asbestosis. Thereafter, S.A. Williams (J-M V.P.) advised Merewether of asbestosis civil suits against the company by former workers and of the company's desire to "prevent the results of our efforts being used against us." Williams also promised to provide workers' prior dust histories with subsequent x-rays. Merewether subsequently re-read the 167 films which he had previously interpreted as other than entirely "negative," but we do not have his interpretations.) Of the second shipment of 464 films, 152 were read as negative. Of the third lot of 346 films, 125 were read as negative. Thus, fewer than 39% of the Manville plantworkers x-rayed were found to be entirely negative. Put otherwise, 61% of this work force showed some abnormality of the lungs as of 1932. These documents were designated in the J-M v. U.S. Government indemnity action during 1987, by Eagle-Picher (which has refused to disclose their exact source).

Numerous x-rays of Manville plantworkers taken for Metropolitan Studies on 4/25/32.

Editor's note: J-M's description names the reader as Dr. F. V. Merewether and says he appears to have reviewed 40 X-rays. The letters show that Dr. F. V. Meriwether of the Bureau of Mines clinic at Picher, Oklahoma, read 1,140 films in three groups. The letter about dust histories was from A. MacD. Hughes, not S. A. Williams, and nothing in this file shows the 167 films being re-read.

Related documents

• Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Report on a Dust Survey of the Manville Plant (1929)