Industrial Hygiene Foundation of America, 1966 Annual Report (1966)

The 1966 annual report of the Industrial Hygiene Foundation of America, the industry-supported research body at the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh. It has the chairman's message, the managing director's report by Dr. Robert T. P. deTreville, committee reports, the board of trustees (including Dr. Kenneth W. Smith of Johns-Manville), a financial summary, a list of publications and the member companies. Under "Asbestos Bioeffects," a Public Health Service-sponsored study of chrysotile dust in animals had found that its fibrogenicity "approximates that of quartz dust," that asbestosis in hamsters is "a progressive, nonhealing, and fatal disease," and that "26 per cent of the asbestotic rats developed primary lung cancers," one of them "a malignant primary pleural mesothelioma."

What it shows

A "Fibrous Dust Study" sponsored by the Public Health Service, Johns-Manville, Owens-Corning Fiberglas, Pittsburgh Corning and PPG Industries was looking at so-called asbestos bodies, which the Foundation proposed to rename "ferruginous" bodies because they formed around other fibers too (see Ferruginous Bodies); a further phase comparing chrysotile, amosite and crocidolite had been "developed at the request of the asbestos industry." The study of synthetic chrysotile rested on "the assumption that the crystalline hydrated magnesium silicate of which chrysotile is composed, is not carcinogenic." The members listed include the Asbestos Textile Institute, Johns-Manville, Raybestos-Manhattan, Owens-Corning Fiberglas, Owens-Illinois and H. K. Porter, and the publications list a legal bulletin titled "A Serious Threat to Workmen's Compensation" and a medical bulletin, "Asbestos Bioeffects Research for Industry."

About this copy

The copy carries J-M's "PRODUCED JM-83" stamp. Three pages of 1966 newspaper clippings about the Foundation's annual meeting (from the Pittsburgh papers) are left out because they are copyrighted newspaper articles, and a blank last page is left out; pages 1-12 and 16-20 are shown.