American Cyanamid

American Cyanamid was a large American chemical company. In the library's records it appears as a holder of patents on asbestos yarn, paper and molding compounds, as a buyer of asbestos materials, including Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos for resins, and as the owner of plants, such as Bound Brook, New Jersey, where asbestos insulation was used. Courts have heard claims against it as an employer and premises owner.

Draft. The history on this page was written from the documents in our library and has not yet been reviewed by a person.

Asbestos in its products and patents

Asbestos magazine in 1938 called American Cyanamid one of the principal producers and distributors of chemicals in the country, when Keasbey & Mattison named it a distributor in the eastern United States for its magnesium carbonate, oxide and calcined magnesia.¹¹ A 1935 trademark notice in the magazine lists an application for "Plankote" by American Cyanamid & Chemical Corp., for a dry powder used as a base for mastic tile, asbestos tile and linoleum.¹²

Several patents on asbestos products and processes were assigned to the company:

• A 1943 patent to Kurt E. Ripper strengthened asbestos yarn by impregnating it with a melamine-formaldehyde resin.¹
• A 1945 patent to Paul C. Schroy covered a heat-resistant molding composition of a thermosetting resin and heat-treated asbestos fiber.²
• A 1956 patent to L. H. Wilson covered a method of making felted asbestos paper from chrysotile with a tacky bonding agent.¹³
• A 1963 patent to Walter F. Reynolds, Jr., and Norman T. Woodberry of Stamford, Connecticut, covered asbestos paper manufacture.³
• Asbestos reported in 1976 a Canadian patent assigned to the company for a high-asbestos-content yarn made from a water-laid ribbon of asbestos and rayon.¹⁴

One Cyanamid product appears in the library's product records: Cymel 592, which the Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases lists as an asbestos-filled plastic, as of 1962.¹⁵

As a buyer of asbestos

A 1976 customer list from North American Asbestos Corporation, the U.S. seller of Cape Asbestos fiber, names American Cyanamid among its textile customers for 1954 through 1959.⁴

Most of the library's records about Cyanamid as a buyer come from Union Carbide's files on its Calidria asbestos, which Union Carbide's salesmen offered as a thickener (a "thixotrope") for resins.¹⁶ Union Carbide's 1969 business plan for Calidria named American Cyanamid among its key polyester accounts.¹⁷ Its 1980 ship-to list of Calidria customers gives American Cyanamid locations at Azusa, California; Havre de Grace, Maryland; and Wallingford, Connecticut.¹⁸

• 1971. A call report of September 13, 1971, on a Union Carbide form, by Jeff Rittenberg of H&C (Pacific) Inc., records a visit to an American Cyanamid plant that was using about 900 pounds a month of Calidria RG-244.⁵ The report says the plant's safety engineer needed information to satisfy the Los Angeles air pollution control district, and that the Cyanamid staff were told asbestosis and silicosis were equally dangerous if proper safety precautions were not taken.⁵ These are the salesman's notes of what the sales callers told the customer.
• 1972. A Union Carbide list of customers who received a 1972 letter on RG-244 from J. W. Rawlings, a Union Carbide vice president, includes American Cyanamid at Stamford, Connecticut, with the date March 24, 1972.¹⁹ The copy in the file, sent to another customer on March 30, 1972, states Union Carbide's belief that its RG-244 customers could comply with federal asbestos rules "without undue burden," and says asbestosis and excess lung cancer had been recorded only with "massive long term exposures."¹⁹
• 1975. A May 22, 1975, Union Carbide memo from R. E. Byrne, Jr., to J. L. Myers on western sales says: "American Cyanamid appears to be hung up on toxicology at their eastern headquarters and are reluctant to authorize its use on the west coast."²⁰
• 1977. A sample letter of July 6, 1977, from Harrison B. Rhodes of Union Carbide to the purchasing agent of American Cyanamid's Bloomingdale Department at Havre de Grace answers Cyanamid's request for assurance that Calidria RG-144 and RG-244, which Union Carbide sold to it, would be listed under the Toxic Substances Control Act.⁶
• 1978. A Union Carbide call report of February 15, 1978, at the United States Steel research laboratory, notes that none of the technology U.S. Steel had obtained from American Cyanamid contained RG-244 formulations, and suggests this was "possibly" because Cyanamid had not used RG-244 for several years.¹⁶
• 1979 and 1984. American Cyanamid at Havre de Grace is on a mailing list, kept in Union Carbide's files, for an August 1979 Asbestos Information Association health-information mailing,²¹ and a 1984 Union Carbide distributor report lists sales of RG-144 to American Cyanamid at Havre de Grace through Lenape Chemicals.²²

Asbestos at its plants

Asbestos reported in July 1980 that American Cyanamid had released a company-sponsored report on workers at its Bound Brook, New Jersey, plant.⁷ Company officials said X-rays of nearly 500 maintenance and administrative employees, examined by doctors from Tulane University, showed "no lung disease problems" attributable to insulation formerly used there.⁷ The magazine reported that the study followed charges by striking workers the year before that Cyanamid had withheld from workers information about lung disease found in periodic physicals.⁷ It added that Cyanamid had used asbestos insulation in many of the 150 buildings at Bound Brook and was removing and replacing it.⁷

In 1979 Asbestos also described respirators and other protective equipment offered by Glendale Optical Company of Woodbury, New York, which it called a subsidiary of American Cyanamid.²³

Lawsuits

The library's court decisions name American Cyanamid mainly as an employer or a premises owner, not as a maker of asbestos products.

• In Sholtis v. American Cyanamid Co. (N.J. App. Div. 1989), two long-time Cyanamid employees sued asbestos makers and suppliers; Cyanamid was a former defendant. The court noted that asbestos products were "clearly present throughout the American Cyanamid facility," and it adopted the "frequency, regularity and proximity" test for tying a worker's disease to a particular maker's product.⁹
• In Zimko v. American Cyanamid (La. App. 2005), the court affirmed a judgment against American Cyanamid for asbestos that, the plaintiff alleged, an employee carried home from its Bound Brook plant during the plaintiff's childhood. The court acknowledged "the novelty of the duty we recognize in this case," a duty owed to members of a worker's household. Several judges dissented in part, and one would have reversed the judgment against Cyanamid.⁸
• In Boudreaux v. Able Supply Co. (La. App. 2009) and Brumley v. Akzona, Inc. (La. App. 2010), insulators' families sued many companies in Louisiana, and American Cyanamid, named as a premises owner in Brumley, moved to dismiss them so they could be heard in Texas; the appeals courts upheld the dismissals.²⁴²⁵¹⁰

American Home Products acquired American Cyanamid in 1994.

References

1. Asbestos Yarn (US Patent 2,318,560, 1943)
2. Heat-treated Asbestos-filled Molding Composition (US Patent 2,385,384, 1945)
3. Asbestos Paper Manufacture (US Patent 3,076,740, 1963)
4. Union Carbide exhibit UC-1118: North American Asbestos Corporation Transmittal of Textile and Fiber Customer Lists, 1954-1975 (1976), p. 2
5. Union Carbide exhibit UC-697: Jeff Rittenberg's Reports of Calls on Customers Using Calidria RG-244 (September 1971), p. 1
6. Union Carbide exhibit UC-808: H. B. Rhodes to Calidria Sales Staff on Toxic Substances Control Act Inventory Compliance, with Sample Letters (1977), p. 3
7. Asbestos, July 1980, p. 14
8. Zimko v. American Cyanamid (La. App. 2005)
9. Sholtis v. American Cyanamid Co. (N.J. App. Div. 1989)
10. Brumley v. Akzona, Inc. (La. App. 2010)
11. Asbestos, February 1938, p. 36
12. Asbestos, April 1935, p. 41
13. Asbestos, December 1956, p. 64
14. Asbestos, June 1976, p. 50
15. Cymel 592 (American Cyanamid) product page
16. Union Carbide exhibit UC-4784: Customer Call Report, G. L. Dickson and R. E. Byrne, Jr. at United States Steel Research Laboratory (1978), p. 1
17. Union Carbide 153: F. D. Dexter to J. Clayton Stephenson Transmitting Calidria Asbestos Business Outline, 1969 Business Plan (1969), p. 14
18. Union Carbide exhibit UC-245: Calidria Shipments to UCC Facilities and Customer Ship-To List (1980), p. 6
19. Union Carbide exhibit UC-2921: John L. Myers to J. J. Sibley Transmitting J. W. Rawlings's March 30, 1972 RG-244 Regulatory Letter and Customer List (1980), pp. 2–3
20. Union Carbide exhibit UC-4463: R. E. Byrne, Jr. to J. L. Myers Transmitting Western States Sales Performance and Prospect List for Calidria Asbestos (1975), p. 5
21. Union Carbide exhibit UC-1600: Mailing List for the August 1979 AIA/NA Health Information Mailing (1979), p. 5
22. Union Carbide exhibit UC-841: J. E. Walsh, 1984 Distributor Activity Report on Calidria Sales (1985), p. 26
23. Asbestos, May 1979, p. 29
24. Boudreaux v. Able Supply Co. (La. App., April 29, 2009)
25. Boudreaux v. Able Supply Co. (La. App., October 7, 2009)

Asbestos products

3 products our documents name American Cyanamid as making or selling. Each product's page says what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

• Cymel 592 (American Cyanamid)
• Fm-37 Core Splice Adhesive (American Cyanamid)
• Plankote (American Cyanamid)

Court cases

5 court decisions in our case-law library name American Cyanamid as a defendant, newest first.

• Brumley v. Akzona, Inc. (2010)
• Boudreaux v. Able Supply Co. (2009)
• Boudreaux v. Able Supply Co. (2009)
• Zimko v. American Cyanamid (2005)
• Sholtis v. American Cyanamid Co. (1989)

In the Union Carbide documents

American Cyanamid is named in 13 Union Carbide documents dated 1967 to 1980 (13 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

• Union Carbide Coatings Materials Technology Information Sheet F-41541, Pigments, Colorants, and Extenders for Latex Paints (1967) UC-1016 (mentioned)
• Jeff Rittenberg and Tom Fletcher Call Reports on Calidria RG-244 Customer Visits in California (1971) Union Carbide 174 (mentioned)
• Jeff Rittenberg's Reports of Calls on Customers Using Calidria RG-244, with Safety and Asbestosis Discussions (September 1971) UC-697 (mentioned)
• Jeff Rittenberg and Tom Fletcher Calidria RG-244 Call Reports on California Customers, Including Respirator and Asbestosis Discussions (1971) UC-4592 (mentioned)
• Union Carbide 1977 Customer/Application List by Product Grade (1977) Union Carbide 17 (mentioned)
• H. B. Rhodes to Calidria Sales Staff on Assuring Customers of Toxic Substances Control Act Inventory Compliance, with Sample Letters (1977) UC-808 (mentioned)
• G. L. Dickson Call Report on United States Steel Research Laboratory, Monroeville, Review of RG-244 Status (1978) UC-602 (mentioned)
• Customer Call Report: G. L. Dickson and R. E. Byrne, Jr. at United States Steel Research Laboratory on RG-244 Asbestos Thixotrope (1978) UC-4784 (mentioned)
• Mailing List for the August 1979 AIA/NA Health Information Mailing to Customers, Distributors and Warehouses (1979) UC-1600 (mentioned)
• Calidria Shipments to UCC Facilities and Customer Ship-To List (GLV, 1980) Union Carbide 538 (mentioned)
• John L. Myers to J. J. Sibley Transmitting J. W. Rawlings's March 30, 1972 RG-244 Regulatory Letter to Cargill and Customer List (1980) UC-2921 (mentioned)
• Plastics Trade Newsletter Column Reporting a Union Carbide Spokesman's Views on Chrysotile Safety at an SPE Conference (undated) UC-371 (mentioned)
• Alphabetical List of Calidria Customer Names and Ship-To Locations, A through Z, with Montello Drilling-Mud Shipments (undated) UC-4115 (mentioned)

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for American Cyanamid, OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: American Cyanamid Corp · American Cyanamid Company · American Cyanamid Company, Bloomingdale Department.

Where this comes from

This page brings together every document in our library that names American Cyanamid, across collections. Titles and affiliations are taken from the documents themselves, and units and subsidiaries are grouped under the company they belong to.