Document YG2MNn9mVB4NVGZOo6ENJx7ak

COPY October 30, 1936 Julian Mitchell, Esq., Mitchell and Horlbeck Charleston, S. C. Dear Mr. Mitchell:- LAINTIFF'S exhibit MET-1091 It was a great pleasure to hear from you this morning and I have read your letter with much interest. I knew something of this mat ter because it comes under the jurisdiction of Dr/ R. R. Sayers of the Public Health Service, who is in charge of the Office of Industrial Hy giene in the Service, which whom I have worked in close cooperation for over twenty years. I happened to meet him in Harrisburg the other day and ha told ms that the State of South Carolina had asked his assistance in making a survey of industial plants in that State* I think this will be very much, to your advantage. Dr. Sayers has had wide industrial experience and enjoys the highest favor and confidence of industrialists end employers all over the United States. Whether he will make Z-ray examinations of employees, I do not know, but Iwill ask Dr. Sayers, when he goes to Charleston, to get in touch with you. The Public HealthService Reports rigorously follow a standard form, that is, their reports are published without mention of the firms or localities surveyed so that the identities of plants stud ied are not revealed. Thinking you may be interested, I enclose a copy of the report that Dr. Sayers made on Anthro-silicosis in the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania. This study was made at the joint request of the mine operators1 association and the labor organizations. You will remem ber that when our asbestos study was published in the Public Health Re ports, we simply referred to Plants, A, B, C, D, therein following the standard procedure of the Public Health Service. No indivuduals* records are ever divulged by the Government, You may recollect that the Picker Clinic in Oklahoma was run jointly by t Public Heelth Service, the mine operators, and the Metropolitan. We had in pur files the physical examination r cords of more than 50,000 individ uals. We were often solicited by interested parties to permit them to have access to our records and our reply was always the same,namely, thfct they were Government records and not available for any purpose what soever, with the single exception of the United States Marshall in the performance of his duty in trying to apprehend criminals. I am sure that the Federal Department would not make available individual records to the State Boarc of Health. As a rule, the Public Health Service studies are published but I believe that this is not an invariable custom, depending upon theiz number and their general interest. CH 0480