Document b5QKwvpbEyRqZp88VONDKMyZ1

'ct /it i /a s c^cosai cc : C. A. D'Alonzo, M.D. J. W. Clayton, Jr. MEMORANDUM TO: J . A. Zapp, Jr 'V\> PROM: G. J. Stopps J. \' November 2, 1964 - TRIP REPORT Conference on Biological Effects of Asbestos held Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, October 19, 20 and 21, 1964 under the auspices of the New York Academy of Sciences, _the Section of Biological and Medical Sciences Although this was a well-conducted and well-attended meeting there being some three to four hundred persons present at almost every session, there was also a feeling that there were several ghosts present at the banquet of information presented. No doubt this feeling largely stemmed from the fact that out of some 53 papers given, only two of them were given by people connected with the asbestos industry in the United States and Canada, whereas there were seven given by representatives of the asbestos industry in Britain and a further three or four papers were given by persons connected with the asbestos industry in South Africa. From the point of view of the Du Pont Company as a whole, the main interest of the meetings was in drawing attention to the fact that asbestosis and complications of asbestosis have now been found in persons who would not in the ordinary way come to mind as being exposed to asbestos; that is to say, they do not work in asbestos mines, asbestos mills, or asbestos textile factories. Underlining this relatively wide exposure of persons to asbestos was the work of I. J. Selikoff, from the Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York, who has been studying the workers in the insulation trades in New York City. The investigation reported concerned 1522 members of the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area. The study included every individual who was a member of this union on December 31, 19^2, or who Joined by December 31, 1962. Two hundred 3ixty-four men were dead on January 1, 1963, and 43 have died since. Each death was studied. One thousand two hundred fifty-eight men were still alive and 1117 of these were examined. This represents 89.956 of the population at risk. Clinical, radiological and pulmonary function examinations were also made of these men. X-ray ranking of the degree of asbestosis present in four grades ranging from 0 to 3 indicated that in those having 0 to 9 years of exposure to asbestos, 89.6JS had no asbestosis present, while 3656 had grade 1. Whereas with 40 or more years of exposure, 9^*2# had grade 2 asbestosis and only 5.8# had none. In an analysis of 307 consecutive >U12 PUP 0900333