Unsigned Draft Letter to Edward C. Ames of Owens-Corning Fiberglas on Fiberglas and a Worker's Lung Condition (1941)

A one-page, unsigned and undated letter from Toledo, Ohio, to Edward C. Ames, public relations manager of Owens-Corning Fiberglas. Answering Ames's letter about a man from Holland, Ohio, the writer regrets any "belief that his condition could have been attributed in any way to handling or exposure to Fiberglas," because the work of Dr. Leroy U. Gardner of Saranac and others had shown that "exposure to glass fibers involves no hazard to the lungs." A note set into the letter asks whether it "be properly added" that the man's condition came from years of exposure to asbestos products, which "have demonstrated themselves to cause asbestosis."

What it shows

The bracketed note reads as a suggested addition to a letter still being drafted, so the page seems to be a text prepared for someone else to sign and send to Owens-Corning Fiberglas. It shows a fiberglass maker's public relations office making its case that glass fiber was safe by setting it against asbestos, which the draft treats as a known cause of asbestosis, with Leroy Gardner's work cited for fiberglass.