D. R. Holmes to Dr. Daniel C. Braun on Dropping the Lung Cancer and Dust Survey Proposals (1957)

A one-page letter of April 26, 1957, on Asten-Hill Manufacturing Company letterhead, from D. R. Holmes, chairman of the Asbestos Textile Institute's Air Hygiene Committee, to Dr. Daniel C. Braun, medical director of the Industrial Hygiene Foundation of America at the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh. Holmes reports that at its March 7 meeting the committee decided to drop two proposals from the Foundation that it had been studying for about a year: an "Environmental Dust Survey" and an "Epidemiological Study of Lung Cancer in Asbestos Workers." Both, he writes, "were rejected at this time for various reasons," which he does not give.

What it shows

The reasons the letter leaves out are recorded in the committee's own minutes, including the fear that a lung cancer study "would stir up a hornet's nest" (the March 7 minutes). Holmes adds only that Braun would be told if the committee wanted to reopen either proposal.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

D.R. Holmes, Chairman of the Air Hygiene Committee of the Asbestos Textile Institute, letter to Dr. Braun, dated 4/26/57. Holmes states that the Air Hygiene Committee of the Asbestos Textile Institute has received two written proposals for study from the Mellon Institute: one entitled "Environmental Dust Survey for the Asbestos Textile Institute" and the second entitled "Epidemiological Study of Lung Cancer in Asbestos Workers" and has studied these proposals for a year. Holmes states that at the last meeting of the Air Hygiene Committee in Philadelphia on March 7, it was the opinion of the committee that both of these proposals were to be rejected at this time for various reasons. None of these reasons were mentioned in Holmes' letter.

Related documents

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