Document 0G1Gn6ev0M83eNE9gw4Ky40m

FILE NAME: WR Grace (WRG) DATE: December 13, 1937 DOC#: WRG191 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: 1937 Duplicate Letter from Metropolitan Life Insurance (WRG024) with Additional Annotation regarding Absence from WR Grace Files. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company 1 FREDERICK H .E C K K K . f AtllMldK tkf Lew A .L incoln, wnbni ANTHONY J. lA N ZA .Y U k ^ fssu tton t fftid tra f N E W Y O R K CITY Decem ber 13, 1937 * Mr. Manfred Bowditch, Director, Division of Occupational Hygiene, 23 Joy Street, Boston, Mass. Dear M anfred: A recent number of the Public Health Reports had a survey of an asbestos plant made by Bloomfield and one of his staff. They state that everything considered they think five million particles is a pretty fair threshold limit for the asbestos industry and I agree vita-them. I do not know what to say about Mr. Dewey's opinion and I can not imagine upon what the opinion is based. Of course, the asbestos people in Canada have advanced that idea for some time as an explanation of why as bestos seems to be more clinically severe in England than in this country-but I have always had the feeling that their argument was motivated by self-intere rather than to make a scientific contribution. I have had the feeling for son time that asbestosis is pretty much of a mare's nest anyway. I do not doubt that asbestos dust in sufficient quantity will cause a pulmonary fibrosis. X am not sure that asbestosis alone will produce disability or death. I think that i n T E S reported cases of fatal asbestosis they have put tha cart before the hor$e - that is to say, these individuals have died of heart disease and because they worked in an asbestos plant and had some pulmonary fibrosis, the! deaths were charged to asbestosis. In the complicated cj s e . death was due tc tuberculosis. Tuberculosis and heart disease are tee two^Leading causes of death among industrial workers and it is to be expected that the asbestos work, would have their quota. However, this is just an opinion of mine. I am engaged now in running down all our death claims from as bestosis. Some time in January or February, I want to go up to Boston because in this series which we have, the only post-mortems were thoae done in Boston by Dr. Timothy Leary and, incidentally, I may rise your good offices to get an introduction to Dr. Leary as I want to discuss these cases with him. Best regards. ' W. R. Grace & Co. received this document on July 27, 1985, from the plaintiff as a trial exhibit in Greenville County School Dist. v. q. s. Gypsum Co., et al.. C/A No. 82-3142-14 (U.S.O.C. south Carolina). No copy of this document has been found in Grace's own files. Sincerely yours, '/ A. J. Lanza, M*D. Assistant Medical Director