Series I Sub-series 1: AHR Source Files

According to a Trust memorandum, (see notebook labeled Background Information re Document Depository), AHR and its attorneys began collecting, reviewing, and copying these documents, later known as the Source Files, as early as 1975. In 1976 when the Multi-District Litigation Panel was set up, the range of documents was expanded to include information on Robins' international sales, and on its interactions with Hugh Davis, Robert Cohn, Thad Earl, and Irwin S. Lerner. Plaintiffs involved in the MDL proceedings were allowed access to all documents that were not privileged. The copies, held in Richmond in the custody of McGuire, Woods, were made from the original documents.

The Law Library completed a project begun sometime ago to convert the Source Files to microform. Documents 1 through 171, 245 are available on microfiche; and 171,246 through 211, 892, on microfilm. Researchers may gain access to the Source File documents through any of its four indexes: document number, document date, name of document writer, and document type and date. The indexes are in three-ring notebooks, and on microfilm reels 1 to 6.

Two types of materials in the Source Files, numbers 189,673 through 207,502, are not in microform (4 cartons, 5 linear feet). The first are computer printouts of names and addresses of the 200,000 doctors to whom AHR wrote in the early 1980s, requesting removal of the Shield. Box 1 contains names and addresses for physicians in Colombia, Sweden, The Netherlands, South Africa, and Australia; Box 2, for Mexico, Philippines, Germany, Denmark, Finland, France, and Venezuela; and Box 3, for the United States. Second, in Box 4, is a collection of used Dalkon Shields sent back to AHR by Thad Earl, David Ostergard, and other doctors.