Document 3JG9wN6QRJDjjqG7q6dk2pyx3

FILE NAME Quebec Asbestos Mining Association QAMA DATE 1980 Apr 20 DOC QAMA015 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION Additional Documents from Albert Donnay RE Canada Asbestos Industry Written Up by Barry Castleman Additional Documents from Albert Donnay Re Canada Asbestos Industry Albert spent some added time at the industry IOEH library and visited Pierre Vennat at La Presse 1 News clippings Montreal Star cover 3/20/75 -- unions finally got wise to Dr. Cartier not telling them when they had asbestosis one guy was rated A by the clinic and died from asbestosis less than two years later Cartier and his assistant j Dussault admitted that they often did not advise the man of their disabilities in order not to upset them and cause insecurity about their jobs Dr. Dussault had been there since 1958 and said that he followed that policy despite uneasiness about its propriety The company officials questioned all denied that they knew anything odd was going on though the article noted their financial interest in avoiding a slew of comp claims One particularly crass response WWOughtred Pres Asbestos Corp. suggested that workmen's comp was really disguised welfare and that he had never met anybody who said he had asbestosis Carey workers had all but stopped using the Thetford Mines Clinic by 1975. The article explains the desparate situation of the mon who were afraid to file for comp and have to lose the income they had from mining Ibid a companion front page story on Cartier is missing in Albart's copy I will get this at Library of Congress and post later on These stories provide numerous leads for further inquiry union officials docs government people The slip from this Cartier story shows that he is now about 72 years old He retired at the Clinic in 1974 I think La Presse 4/25/75 Q Politician H. Lecours blasts the pneumoconiosis committes in the asbestos mining ares as having sold and lost the people's confidence He referetdo Cartier in particular es serving on both the Clinic and the government committee that supposedly enforced provisions of 1938/1956 law re government oversight Corrections it was a legislative hearing but recours is a doctor and a politician Montreal Ster 3/19/75 -- Notes that Mt. Sinai study findings were & surprise in Quebec where embarrassed government officials spoke of renewed efforts to enforce industrial hygiene standards So the cost of the controls and the cost of compensation had been effectively avoided by the companies all this time thanks to Dr. Cartier La Presse 3/22/75 -- only English in story is asbestos warning label 2 GM Wheatley Metropolitan Life Tuberculosis and Asbestosis 1944 -- This report acknowledges that there is a very high rate of TB in Thetford Mines but that the disease is hormon in women as well as the men and that there is one other town with even higher TP rates The report concludes that asbestos does not invite TB as Ivan Sabourin put it wemo of 1966 at end of report Not considered is the possibility that some reported deaths were really asbestosis However there is some interesting news in this unpublished paper which helps explain its obscurity Pedley a whore who published some terrible stuff in 1932 saying there's no lung disease in Quebec from asbestos was a collaborator of Dr. Lanza The published figures on their examinations of asbestos miners in Asbestos and Thetford Mines are offered in Table 1. p 3. They looked at 195 men -- note this is clearly not a subgroup of the 1935 Lanza study which included only 126 subjects -- and broke down the percentage with both 10 and , more years of exposure and the percentage with asbestosis A little arithmetic reduces it to this No. examined Asbestos 141 Thetford 54 w more than 10 yrs exposure No. w 10+ yrs exp 22 31 83.43 45 No. with Asbestosis 18 24 w asbestosis 12.78 44.43 44.43 ( A'sis among yr employees assuming all cases were among this group 58 53 Met Life clearly was the insurer for at least two mines and there were records of death claims used for the study p 7 Ten TB deaths are attributed to unsanitary conditions and poor eating habits There is nothing said about deaths from asbestosis The report closes by thanking Lr Lanza for the vas of his and Padley's unpublished data and for his advise in preparing the final Wheatley report Atteobed to the end of this report 2578 in the QAMA IOEH library is a 1966 nemo from Ivan Sabourin who apparently sort it over from his files to IOEN at that group's founding in 1966. It compares the current prejudice in connection with cancer and asbestos to the earlier one about asbestosic and FB which was disproven by Wheatly and other researchers whose work was pub- lished 3 Todd et al Canad Med Assoc J. 25 757-760 1956 -- Case report of asbestosis and lung cancer in smoking worker with 30 years exposure in asbestos mines SEALED PEDO TEEPE OE Items 1-2 draw a horrid victure of the conditions in the asbestos mining industry The evidence shows that the companies were aware of an extraordinary prevalence of asbestosis in Thetford particularly and also Asbestos H as of 1930. However these findings were never published and only the diversion of TB was tice in published records of these findings Pedley 1930 In fact Pedley Development of Knowledge about Asbestos Disease 1977 p 10 ever paid no- my notes on reflect that he wrote ... our knowledge however no case of pneumoconiosis has ever been reported from asbestos in Canada and the general impression among the minersis that the dust is not hazardous The full meaning of this statement and what it did not state is now clear The sons and grandsons of the men kept ignorant by Pedley were kept in the dark by his successors for the next 45 years Here's another remark from Pedley's 1930 paper From the public health standpoint however it seems hardly likely that asbestosis will become of importance either from the standpoint of morbidity or mortality Can Publ Health J. 21 576-77 1930 April 20 1980