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As early as the 1930s, the period when beryllium products were being made in a high quantity, there were reports of a beryllium related disease which appeared in the European medical literature. These claims/reports went basically unnoticed or disregarded in the United States supposedly because the findings failed to show a clear and direct relationship of beryllium causing the disease. This may be the sole reason but bearing in mind that the United States was heavily dependent on these beryllium products in their military efforts of World War II, as well as being heavily invested in the beryllium alloys, there may have been other heavily weighing factors which the government did no want to explain so they choose to simply say that the European literature was scientifically unsound.
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