Document GZEbp8Ja9YmkkQG2N4yYL6gq

IMPERIAL CANCER RESEARCH FUND Cancer Epidemiology and Clinical Tnais Unit UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD Acting Director: Emeritus Professor Sir Richard Doll, D.M., F.R.S TtUphoot: I0*651 3)7*2 Gibson Building The Radcliffe Infumary Oxford 0X2 6HE 1 October 1987 J.M. Atkinson, Esq., T & N pic. Legal Department, Bowdon House, Ashburton Road Vest, Trafford Park, Manchester M17 ISA. ^ 5 OCT 1987 I enclose a note of the meeting I had yesterday with Mr Barker and will send him a copy as well if I find I have kept his address In my records end c (S J WJ O - - 'v: ' -si o' ^sl iW.^.i^Ayy.li'; .- .-ote ot a meeting with Mr Barker on 30.9.87 V In response to questions about the date when It was first realized that asbestos might cause cancer, RD stated that, to the best of his belief, nobody . had given any consideration Co the possibility that asbestos night cause mesothelioma until the report by Wagner, Sleggs, and Marchand In 1960 of an association between the development of the disease and exposure to asbestos In the mines of the Cape Province, S. Africa. Until that report. It had indeed been doubted by many pathologists whether mesotheliomas contstltuted a specific type of cancer or whether they were just an unusual mode of presentation of cancers of the lung. Wagner's findings were rapidly confirmed by Newhouse In this country and Sellkoff In the USA and by the late sixties It was generally accepted that most mesotheliomas were caused by asbestos. Cases of mesothelioma associated with exposure to asbestos were soon described In the absence of classical asbestosls and at no time was It seriously considered that mesothelioma was secondary to asbestosls. It has subsequently become clear that blue and brown asbestos are much more likely to cause mesothelioma than white asbestos (chrysotlle) and the possibility la now seriously considered that the Inhalation of chrysotlle may not cause the disease at all. The position with regard to cancer of the lung was different. Individual cases of lung cancer in association with asbestos had been reported before the second world war, but these had not generally been Interpreted as Implying a causal relationship and RD did not consider asbestos was a potential cause of lung cancer in 1948 when he began research Into the causes of the disease. tcancero f" the,"lWg'"W3'5"TB4' finding, by - Cloyne (published - In the-Lancet In- 1951) "tHST*TiStf1f6psles oa men with pneumoconiosis showed that lung cancer was present In a higher proportion of cases If the pneumoconiosis was due to silicosis than If It was due to asbestosls. This evidence was considered so Impressive that an International symposlisa on cancer of the lung organized by the Council for International Organization of Medical Sciences listed asbestos as one of the causes of the disease in its 1954 report. This report was not, however, widely read and RD 1; not aware that much notice was taken of It by anyone. OI ffiejtteved^bjaao-a^^ifop ^esfclgate .th tKaf'Re association that had been. ( 'NTeported"wa*rWP*ffe?Sci RD and the firm's doctor (Dr J.F. Knox) then designed the study which wss published under RD's name ln*W^ which reached the conclusion that cancer of the lung had been an occupatlonal~fiazard of some asbestos textile workers, M!tHat_/' tlWKHlD-'thoughb that- asbestos^ttlghfWell cause the disease only by first pausing asbFffnjSl^nd-rfii'C6ft|Tai'fe'a'TFKat the measures the flffl'had taken might weli hive el4mlnacod-che-d)azard"*~It>|waB'-nofruntl'l-thfc`,cafryr i970g that Ke eattd' to accept M^^'dT?l^r?ff'<l''Wilfei'ther t'i5k 6f thr d ldesse was ~itieeiytcrbryttjjgftlfltmal' to the amount of asbestos to which individuals had been -xpoBed'"'dOWn:-`tO'*'fifiWISrT.'5PJeI7r" RD stated, in response to a question, that at no time to his knowledge would anyone have considered that the term asbestosls would have been taken to imply a range of diseases other than the specific type of pneumoconiosis to which the term had been given. * Sometime between 1951 and 1953 <