Saranac Laboratory Application to the American Cancer Society to Extend Its Asbestos and Beryllium Lung Cancer Grant (1955)

An application of September 23, 1955, from Dr. G. W. H. Schepers, director of the Saranac Laboratory, asking the American Cancer Society to renew for another year its $14,000 grant for "Environmental Cancer of the Lung," the study of inhaled asbestos dust and beryllium in rats. It reports that work had been under way only since July 1955: new exposure chambers had been built, and after "some delay in obtaining the correct grade of asbestos fibre," Johns-Manville had "taken a tremendous interest in our project" and undertaken "to furnish a type of chrysotile fiber of proven pulmonary pathogenicity."

What it shows

The plan set out six groups of 50 rats each: chrysotile alone, beryllium sulfate alone, each followed by the other, and two control groups kept in normal air, with animals killed at intervals to follow tissue changes over 12 to 21 months. The application shows Johns-Manville supplying the fiber for an outside study of whether asbestos helps cause lung cancer. It follows the 1954 application; the 1956 progress report is here.

About this copy

The last page (3-a) has two photographs of the exposure chambers, poorly reproduced.