Saranac Laboratories

The Saranac Laboratory was a research facility in Saranac Lake, New York, that conducted some of the earliest experimental studies on asbestos-related disease from the 1930s through the 1950s. Much of its asbestos research was funded directly by asbestos manufacturers, and internal correspondence later revealed that industry sponsors influenced what findings were published and how the dangers of asbestos were described. The lab's altered reports became central evidence of corporate concealment in asbestos litigation.

Origin

The Saranac Lake facility grew out of the Trudeau Sanatorium, founded in 1884 for tuberculosis treatment, and its associated research arm became a leading center for occupational lung disease research under Dr. Leroy Gardner and later Dr. Arthur Vorwald. Gardner began asbestos-cancer experiments in animals in the late 1930s under contract with Johns-Manville, Raybestos-Manhattan, and other manufacturers.

Significance in Asbestos Context

Saranac is one of the most important pieces of historical evidence that the asbestos industry knew about the cancer risks of asbestos decades before warning workers or the public. Gardner's 1943 findings that the majority of mice exposed to long-term asbestos developed lung tumors were communicated to industry sponsors but were edited and softened before publication, with explicit instructions in surviving letters from manufacturers to remove references to cancer. For patients and families, Saranac documents are routinely used in court to show that defendant companies had early knowledge of asbestos hazards, which supports claims for punitive damages and counters defenses that the dangers were unknown at the time of exposure.

Related Terms

State of the Art Defense, Sumner Simpson Papers, Johns-Manville, Punitive Damages, Industry Knowledge, Leroy Gardner, Failure to Warn, Industry Concealment

Notes

• Ask your legal team whether Saranac documents and the related Sumner Simpson Papers will be used to establish industry knowledge in your case. They are often pivotal to defeating a 'state of the art' defense.
• If your exposure occurred at any time from the 1930s onward, the Saranac evidence is generally relevant because it predates most occupational exposures in U.S. workplaces.
• Preserve any employment records, union materials, or product literature from your work history; these connect your specific exposure to the manufacturers that funded Saranac research.
• Saranac evidence is most commonly cited against Johns-Manville, Raybestos-Manhattan, Owens-Corning, and other early industry sponsors. Ask whether the defendants in your case were among the funders.

In the Union Carbide documents

Saranac Laboratories is named in 2 Union Carbide documents dated 1943 (2 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

• General Order No. 2-5, Elimination of Dusty Conditions (1943, revised later), with Information Bulletin 602 on Hazardous Chemicals Used in Paint Manufacture UC-5463 (mentioned)
• Manville Corporation Booklet, The Asbestos Issue: No Cover-up, No Conspiracy UC-1548 (mentioned)

Where this comes from

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