Episode 22: The Saranac Coverup

In 1936, nine asbestos companies funded research at Saranac Laboratory with a contract clause making all results their "property" — publication only "if deemed desirable." When Dr. LeRoy Upson Gardner discovered an 81.8% tumor rate in asbestos-exposed mice, he couldn't publish. His own scientific integrity — recommending the cancer data be omitted until controlled experiments could confirm it — gave the industry exactly the cover it needed. Gardner applied for independent funding to escape the trap. The NCI rejected him. Six months after writing "I hope, before I die, the opportunity may be afforded us," he was dead at 57. The companies met, voted to delete all cancer references, and buried the findings for 52 years.

Key Takeaways

• November 20, 1936: Nine companies — Johns-Manville, Raybestos-Manhattan, Keasbey & Mattison, U.S. Gypsum, and five others — signed a contract owning Gardner's research before he conducted it.
• February 1943: Gardner documented 8/11 mice with lung tumors, 9/11 total with cancer (81.8%) — 16x higher than controls. He also found 11 human lung cancer cases in Quebec miners, including 2 mesotheliomas.
• Gardner himself recommended omitting cancer from the report pending controlled experiments. After his death, his own words became the industry's "permission slip" for permanent suppression.
• January 1947: Sponsor companies voted that publications "would not include any objectionable material" — defined as "any relation between asbestos and cancer."
• 1995: Dr. Gerrit Schepers finally published the suppressed findings — 52 years after Gardner's discovery (PMID: 7793430).

Expert Source

Anna Jackson — Director of Patient Support, Danziger & De Llano. Lost her husband to cancer. Walked away from advertising to join the fight for mesothelioma families.
dandell.com/about/anna-jackson/

Resources

• Asbestos Exposure: dandell.com/asbestos-exposure/
• Mesothelioma Compensation: dandell.com/mesothelioma-compensation/
• Free Consultation: dandell.com/contact-us/

Next: Episode 23 — The Human Experiments.

Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making is sponsored by Danziger & De Llano Mesothelioma Law Firm, a nationwide practice with over 30 years of experience and nearly $2 billion recovered for asbestos victims. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, the exposure happened somewhere—and Paul Danziger and Rod De Llano know how to trace it back. For a free consultation, visit https://dandell.com.

Resources:

→ Mesothelioma legal rights: https://dandell.com/mesothelioma/

→ Asbestos exposure sources: https://dandell.com/asbestos-exposure/

→ Asbestos trust funds ($30B+ available): https://dandell.com/asbestos-trust-funds/

→ Free case evaluation: https://dandell.com/contact/

Sister Podcast - MESO: The Mesothelioma Podcast:

http://mesotheliomapodcast.com/