Asbestos Textile Institute Dust Control Sub-Committee Minutes on Member Companies' Dust Methods (1946)

Three pages of minutes of a sub-committee of the Asbestos Textile Institute's Dust Control Committee, meeting on June 13, 1946, at the Engineers' Club in Philadelphia, signed by its chairman, Ernest Muehleck of Keasbey & Mattison Company. Also present were F. J. Armstrong and P. D. Cannon of Johns-Manville, B. W. Luttenberger of Raybestos-Manhattan, J. G. Tyson of Philadelphia Asbestos Co. and Harris D. McKinney, the Institute's manager. Having read the member companies' reports on dust in their plants, the sub-committee found "the importance of the dust control problem to all member companies, and the need for immediate cooperative action," and noted "wide variance" in how companies measured, exhausted and collected asbestos dust.

What it shows

The sub-committee recommended contacting the U.S. federal government, the states where member plants were located, the Mellon Institute and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company to prepare a program bringing members "the assistance of qualified technical and medical counsel." Meanwhile it recommended "Pre-employment and periodical chest X-Rays" read by a reputable roentgenologist, dust counts by the standard Greenburg-Smith impinger method, and measurement of particle size and quartz content. It urged reducing dust at its source by dampening yarn in weaving and braiding, and said each firm's management should convince its sales divisions of "the necessity, economy and health advantages"; members agreed "that many of the present sales objections to moisture-controlled products really have no foundation." Cannon offered to test every type of respirator named in the reports at a J-M plant.

The full Institute took up the dust problem six days later (minutes of June 19, 1946), and the Dust Control Committee followed up on these contacts in September (minutes of September 5, 1946).

About this copy

Each page is stamped "Produced JM - 83," and the first bears an exhibit sticker. The letter from J. W. Fehnel described as attached is not in this copy.