Document jB8Yarwo6N68daxkEVv7Kekek

FILE NAME Corning OC DATE 1941 June 12 DOC OC356 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION Draft - Safety Information on Health Aspects of Fiberglass MOA Piece V T L 190 190 105 Malling Piece on Health Aspects of Fiberglas oo ECA - 6/12/41 Fiberglas is a new basic material When a new basic material is offered to industry it is right and proper that workmen personnel directors safety engineers plant physicians insurance underwriters and representatives of governmental agencies devoted to protecting the welfare of workers should ack Does the manufacture and use of this material introduce new we unknown or uncontrollable health hazards It is right and proper that this question be aske about Piber- glas Those who ask it are entitled to a complete authoritative , doou- mented answer They will recognize too that those who are engaged in the manufacture of Fiberglas necessarily must have reassured themselves about the health aspects of the material before offering it for sale two reasons 1. From a humanitarian point of view no company can afford to subject its employees to an unknown hazard 2. From a cold business point of view no company can afford to jeopardize its own existence by subjecting itself to the liability of unknown hazards that may be encountered by those to whom it supplies the material Thus sound business reasons dictated years long before Corning Fiberglas Corporation was formed to manufacture and sell glass in fibrous or filmment form careful scientific investi- gations be carried out by impartial research experts to determine whether Fiberglas introduced any hazards not known The Corporation's attitude in undertaking these investigations is expressed in the words of its president = = If there is any unknown or uncontrollable industrial hazard in the manufacture or application of this material we want no part of it 01 501 0849 Reassuring are the results of that original research and of Search undertaken subsequently to supplement the scientific investigations carried out years ago Fiberglas has been given a clean bill of health the health record of employees in the plants where Fiberglas is manufactured as well as wide field experience of applicators and rehandlers throughout the country /justifige the conclusion that Fiberglas introduces no new industrial hazards Here is the evidence- Dr. Leroy U. Gardner Director of the Saranac Laboratory for the Study of Tuberculosis has investigated the biological activityactivity of glass wool dust He injected finely powdered glass wool irto animals He put it in the ear veins of rabbits and the stomachs of guinea pigs He made these tests because he writes Experience in this laboratory and elsewhere has demon- strated that these methods are adequate to demonstrate the capacity of a mineral dust to produce fibrosis Investigation of over 20 different types of dust has indi- cated that if no reaction occurs in organf's other the the lungs it will not occur in the respiratory tract and that conversely dusts like silica and asbestos that are known to produce fibrosis of the lungs also cause fibrosis in other tissues when injected in sufficient quantities And here is Dr. Gardner's conclusion embodied in his siz- page report dated May 5 1936 Neither plain nor oiled glass wools have caused fibrous or any chronic progressive reaction by injection and there- fore it is a reasonable conclusion that their inhalation would likewise fail to produce such effects 01 01 501 0850 Dr. Gardner reports further that he injected glass wool dust into the veins of rabbits which showed no gross evidence of reaction These results he says are in every way comparable to to those observed with inert dusts Uncombined silica on the other hand produces acute inflammation followed by progressive fibrosis The general conclusion that both oiled and plain glass wools are incapable of exciting progressive fibrosis in the . tissues Dr. Gardner adds is warranted from these observations -- . > in view of the wide experience in this laboratory with these methods of testing the biologic activity of inorganic dusts Dr. Gardner concludes the report with this statement Trusting these findings may allay any skepticism as to theoretical hazard involved from the handlinogf glass wool am coeefi Dr. Gardner has supplemented his ingestion experiments with inhalation experiments in which he compelled test animals to live in an atomosphere with a high concentration of glass fiber dust In a progress report dated December 17 1940 he wrote .... animals exposed to glass wool dust are showing little or nothing There are plenty of wool fibers in the atmosphere but they are not penetrating the lungs to an appreciable degree and I don't believe uver will The fibres tend to matt on rafters and other objects in the room I presume it does so in the nostrils of exposed guinea pigs so that little of it reaches their lung tissue I feel certain that the same must be true of human beings who work where this material in being handled 01 501 0851 And on January 17 he added animals exposed to Fiberglas for a year's time fail to inhale any glass in fibrous form A little of the granulated material produced in fracturing this material gets into the lungs in the form of particulate matter and there sets up very slight amounts of benign chronic inflammatory reaction However I feel quite positive that we are notgt oing o encounter any evidence of an asbestos reaction because none of the fiber reaches the interior of the lungs " Dr. For Gardner's findings are supported by other authorities * example in an article on Response of Peritoneal Tissue to Industrial Dusts by J. W. Miller and R. R. Sayers published in U.S. Public Health Reports 56 7 264 - 72 1941 and excerpted in the May 1941 publication of the American Ceramic Society Vol 20 No. 5 glass wool is listed among twenty dusts causing an inert reaction Another reference of interest is in the Questions and Answers Section of Occupational Hazards and Safety Volume 1 Number 4 January 1938 page 40. In response to an inquiry about possible sili- cosis hazard in handling glass wool the editor replies Careful investigation of the possible silicosis in the handling of glass wool indicates that there is no silicosis hazard involved Extensive tests and studies have been conducted both in the laboratory and field and results indicate that the inhalation of glass wool PARTICLES will not cause silicosis 01 501 0852 In his Interim Report on Glass Wool Inhalation Experiment dated May 16 1941 Dr. Gardner opens with this statement Experiments still in progress at the Saranac Laboratory lead to the tentative conclusion that there can be little no injury to the lungs from exposure to glass wool dust because the material is not inhalable The complete report follows 01 501 0853