Vandiver Brown to Leroy Gardner on Separating-Mill Dust and a Medical Director (1945)

A one-page letter of August 13, 1945, from Vandiver Brown, Johns-Manville's secretary, to Dr. Leroy Gardner of the Saranac Laboratory. Brown thanks Gardner for his August 9 letter and its theory of why dust from the separating mill "is relatively inert in such striking contrast with that produced in connection with the spinning and weaving operations," which Brown links to the fact that asbestos "has to be opened up and fluffed out" before weaving. He also notes Gardner's suggestion to Page Woodard that Dr. Vestal might be available, writing that J-M had "never heretofore had a 'Medical Director.'"

What it shows

The letter shows that in 1945 the company and its researcher were working from the premise that dust in J-M's textile spinning and weaving rooms was far more harmful than dust from the mill. It also shows that J-M had no medical director at the time. Dr. Vestal had joined Gardner in reviewing the Quebec X-rays in 1944 and later ran a health program for the asbestos textile industry (1946). Woodard, Brown notes, had just been made Director of Industrial Relations.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Letter from Vandiver Brown to Gardner dated 8/13/45 refers to Gardner letter of August 9 (possibly to J.P. Woodard) in which Gardner attempted to hypothesize why the dust in the vicinity of the separating mill appeared relatively inert as compared with that in the spinning and weaving operations. Apparently, Gardner's theory had to do with the fiber lengths. [There is later correspondence suggesting that analysis failed to confirm this hypothesis.] In addition, Gardner apparently suggested that Dr. Vestal should be considered as a "medical director" for J-M.