Dr. Paul Gross to Dr. Kenneth W. Smith with a Tentative Opinion on Garfield Goins (1964)

A two-page letter of May 15, 1964, from Dr. Paul Gross of the Industrial Hygiene Foundation of America to Dr. Kenneth W. Smith, Johns-Manville's medical director, giving an "unofficial, tentative report" on the slides of Garfield Goins, a former J-M worker whose widow had filed a compensation claim. Gross writes that "There is very little evidence of occupational disease in these sections" and that "Only one asbestos body was found." He questions the hospital's finding of emphysema, notes that the tuberculosis is atypical and raises other possible causes, and asks to do acid-fast stains and incineration studies. He offers to write to the pathologist who did the autopsy, with Smith getting "blind copies of the correspondence," and says he will not write up the formal report until he hears from Smith.

What it shows

Gross treated J-M's medical director as his client: he held back his formal report until Smith had seen the tentative findings, and offered to let J-M follow his correspondence with the hospital pathologist without that pathologist knowing. The letter also mentions photomicrographs of asbestos bodies found in smears of "lung juice" at Presbyterian Hospital, where a Dr. Caunas had records of 96 autopsies and was comparing them with lung fibrosis. The case began with J-M's letter of May 1, 1964 and ended with Gross's report of October 1964.