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 After
More than a Year of Stalling, OSHA Publishes Suppressed Asbestos
Warning — Last week OSHA published a 5-page safety and health information
bulletin warning auto mechanics that many brakes, clutches
and gaskets contain asbestos, which can pose a serious hazard
during normal repair work. The bulletin had been ready for
publication in March 2005, but the White House Office of Management
and Budget ordered OSHA to shelve it, out of concern that
its publication, by informing mechanics of the hazard, could
result in lawsuits against auto and parts manufacturers for
asbestos-related disease. NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health,
August 1, 2006
Off-Site
Asbestos Checks — HAMILTON - The township has begun sampling soil at parks and
residences in the shadow of the W.R. Grace & Co. plant
to determine how much exposure residents and neighboring businesses
may have had to asbestos that spewed from the plant's stacks
during its nearly 50 years in operation. (Trenton Times, March
29, 2005)
Bankruptcy
Put Asbestos Claims on Long-term Hold — W.R. Grace, awash in a sea of litigation over claims of asbestos-contamination
at its vermiculite mining operation in Libby, Mont., joined
a succession of companies since the 1980s to declare bankruptcy
in order to prepare a strategy to deal with those claims.
The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in
2001, putting off all claims against it until the matter is
resolved in court. (Trenton Times, March 28, 2005)
Firms
Seek Asbestos Claim Safety Net — One side calls the tidal wave of asbestos claims by former
industrial workers an epic tragedy caused by a ravaging disease,
while the other side calls it a crisis of litigation. Since
the late 1970s, shortly after workers began suing asbestos-makers
for causing them to become ill, companies defending against
such suits and their insurers have urged lawmakers to create
a federal apparatus to process the claims and remove them
from the courts. (Trenton Times, March 28, 2005)
Outrage
about Hidden Report — Former workers and their families, environmental advocacy
groups and local, state and federal elected officials expressed
outrage yesterday about a newly uncovered report showing federal
officials knew as early as 1985 of the health risk posed by
asbestos from the W.R. Grace plant here. (Trenton Times, March
26, 2005)
1985 EPA Report: 92,000 Residents at Risk — Federal environmental officials
knew employees and neighbors were in danger of asbestos exposure
from the W.R. Grace & Co. Zonolite plant here more than
15 years before they did anything about it, a 1985 report
reveals. (Trenton Times, March 25, 2005)
Hamilton
to Begin Tests for Asbestos — The township will hire environmental consultants to test residential
neighborhoods surrounding the former W.R. Grace & Co.
insulation plant here for asbestos that may have migrated
off plant property during the company's 45 years of operation,
according to Mayor Glen Gilmore. (Trenton Times, March 24,
2005)
Asbestos
Meeting Frustrating — In a meeting that ranged from emotional to numbingly technical,
state and federal health officials fielded questions from
residents concerned about their possible exposure to asbestos
from the former W.R. Grace & Co. plant on Industrial Drive.
Nearly 100 former employees and their families, area residents,
health officials and local, state and federal elected officials
turned out at the meeting that some residents said raised
more questions than it answered. (Trenton Times, March 23,
2005)
Gilmore
Demands W.R. Grace Probes — Mayor Glen Gilmore has called on state and federal law enforcement
officials to hold W.R. Grace & Co. and its executives
accountable for exposing workers to asbestos at the former
Zonolite plant in the township. (Trenton Times, March 22,
2005)
Warnings Are Posted at Asbestos Site — Signs warning of possible
asbestos contamination have sprung up along a line of fence
at the former W.R. Grace & Co. plant on Industrial Avenue.
The yellow signs have been placed along the orange snow fencing
cordoning off the grounds where U.S Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) testing has revealed high concentrations of asbestos.
(Trenton Times, March 22, 2005)
Dreams
Exploited — The sinister side of the American dream for African-Americans
fleeing the Old South in search of a better day in the mid-decades
of the last century surfaced in recent days in reports by
The Times on the former W.R. Grace/Zonolite facility in Hamilton.
(Trenton Times, March 20, 2005)
Study
Verifies Fibrous Peril — Health studies of the former W.R. Grace plant that processed
asbestos-tainted vermiculite ore here for decades have concluded
that workers at the plant were exposed to dangerous levels
of the fibers and likely exposed their family members by bringing
it home on their clothes. (Trenton Times, March 15, 2005)
Asbestos-Contaminated Powder Covered Neighborhoods — On July 23, 1971, a group
of Colonial Lakelands residents awoke to a strange sight for
a summer morning in that section of Lawrence. During the night,
a fine white powder had settled over their lawns and cars.(Trenton
Times, March 14, 2005)
Job
Bonanza Came with a Price — Still other former employees said they didn't bother to pick
up the yearly chest X-ray reports until they began worrying
about their health, because they were assured the dust was
harmless, as Curtis Williams of Hightstown, now 76 and breathing
with the aid of a respirator, put it. "The party line
from the company was the stuff was not unsafe," said
Marjorie Egarian, a union organizer with District 65, which
represented the workers. (Trenton Times, March 13, 2005)
EPA: Zonolite in 35M Homes — The U.S Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that
as many as 35 million homes in the United States are insulated
with Zonolite, a small light spongy insulation made from vermiculite
ore. (Trenton Times, March 13, 2005)
EPA's
Investigation Focused on Libby Mine — Six years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched
an investigation of what it called a potential `hazard waste
emergency' in Libby, Mont., caused by asbestos-tainted vermiculite
ore. The source of the contamination, investigators believed,
was a nearby mine that had been in operation for more than
six decades, first under the Zonolite company and then under
W.R. Grace, which bought the mine and many of the plants that
processed its ore in 1963. (Trenton Times, March 13, 2005)
Gray
Area in Asbestos Cleanup — Despite federal and state regulators both having policies
in place to notify municipal officials before an environmental
cleanup is begun, Mayor Glen Gilmore said yesterday his administration
was told nothing before the cleanup of the former W.R. Grace
insulation plant began in 2003. (Trenton Times, March 11,
2005)
Asbestos
No Paper Tiger for Document Shredder — It was five years after the previous owners had moved out
that Stephen Mandarano's paper shredding company moved into
the W.R. Grace insulation plant on Industrial Drive, but the
contamination left on the grounds may cost him dearly. Mandarano,
general manager of Accurate Document Destruction Inc., said
the issues raised recently about the history of the site and
the asbestos contamination that lay hidden for years could
cost his company more than $100,000. (Trenton Times, March
8, 2005)
Haunted
by Childhood Games — Growing up in the 1970s, James Moore remembers jumping into
train cars parked outside the W.R. Grace insulation factory
here and throwing chunks of the spongy black material inside
at his older brothers. He wasn't the only one to consider
the property part of his childhood playground. Three decades
of neighborhood kids romped among the trains and towers of
the Grace plant, never knowing they were flirting with a health
risk that went by the name of vermiculite. (Trenton Times,
March 6, 2005)
Factory
Soil a `Threat' — The soil around the former W.R. Grace & Co. factory here
that produced attic insulation for decades was contaminated
with such high levels of asbestos that federal environmental
regulators recently declared it an "imminent and substantial
threat" to current workers at the site and the surrounding
community. (Trenton Times, March 3, 2005)
Zonolite Asbestos Report Nearly Ready — Less than a year after federal environmental workers quietly
removed more than 9,000 tons of contaminated soil from the
former Zonolite insulation facility here, state health officials
are preparing to release a study on the risk to workers and
the surrounding community from asbestos contained in the ore
processed at the plant for 40 years. (Trenton Times, March
2, 2005)
`There Are Not a Dozen of Those Men Alive' — For the past four years,
Helen McCall has been a widow in mourning, and now she is
a grieving mother as well. Her husband, Jim, died when he
was 66 after a years-long struggle with lung and heart disease.
Her son Bobby Lee, who developed lung cancer in his 30s and
suffered from acute bouts of asthma, died a month ago. He
was just 49. Both men worked for a now-defunct plant in Hamilton
that made attic insulation by processing vermiculite ore from
a mine in Libby, Mont., that contained a rare, naturally occurring
form of asbestos called tremolite. (Trenton Times, February
27, 2005)
Canada's Deadly
Export — The global struggle over asbestos has come a long way. Multinational
corporations that were based on asbestos mining and manufacture
20 years ago are either bankrupt or in other lines of business.
But very high levels of asbestos use persist in many countries,
including those, such as Brazil and India, where valiant campaigns
are being waged by public health workers and unionists to
ban asbestos. In fact, it will take unprecedented efforts
to stop the use of asbestos products in poor countries, where
vast amounts of it continue to be utilized.  (Washington Post, November 19, 2004)
Asbestos Compensation
Bill, Undercut by New Medical Report, Probably Dead for the
Year — U.S. companies
that use or used asbestos, which anticipate having to pay
the victims of asbestos-related disease at least $140 billion
in compensation, appear to have failed in their latest effort
to pass a law that would cap their liability. On October 8
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), the bail-out
bill’s chief supporter, acknowledged that Congress did
not have time to complete work on the legislation before a
new Congress is installed on January 21. (NYCOSH Update on
Safety and Health, October 18, 2004)
Bill
Would Save Firms Billions — As Congress
returns to work, the White House is cranking up pressure for
legislation that would save major corporations billions of
dollars by barring thousands afflicted with asbestos disease
from suing for damages.(St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 31,
2004)
Hatch
Flogs Asbestos Legislation Past Doubting Specter and Judiciary
Democrats Onto Senate Floor —
July 10, 2003, Washington, D.C. -- Around nine p.m., the Senate
Judiciary Committee on a near party line 10 to 8 vote passed
to the full Senate's consideration S. 1125, the Orwellian-titled
"Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act" (FAIR).
Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) spent the long
day flogging S. 1125 to a final vote out of the Committee,
past cries that his Bill -- what he called "the most
important piece of legislation of this century" -- violated
the Constitution and fundamental fairness. Often imperious
and at times downright rude to his fellow Committee members,
Sen. Hatch made clear at the outset that the day's conclusion
would be foregone, that S. 1125 would be voted out of Judiciary
and onto the Senate floor, come hell or high water. (From a detailed set of notes about the Senate Judiciary Committee's
July 10, 2003, hearing, by attorney Trey Smith)
EPA
and NIOSH Warn Homeowners and Workers About Asbestos Hazard
from Vermiculite Insulation — After a 25-year delay,
the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute
for Occupational Safety and Health have each issued a warning
that vermiculite from a mine in Libby, Montana, may be contaminated
with enough asbestos to make it extremely hazardous. The contaminated
mineral is used as an insulting material in tens of millions
of homes and other buildings. The NIOSH and EPA warnings break
with a long-standing U.S. government policy of asserting that
the hazard posed by bulk materials contaminated with less than
one percent asbestos is too low to require workers to wear respirators
for protection from asbestos dust. The new NIOSH recommendation
is, "When working with vermiculite that is known or presumed
to be contaminated with asbestos, proper respiratory protection
should be used." According to the NIOSH warning, "bulk
sampling is reliable only when over 1% of the material is asbestos.
Negative results from bulk samples can therefore be falsely
reassuring when less than 1% of the sample is asbestos. However,
disturbing contaminated vermiculite with less than 1% asbestos
can still result in hazardous concentrations of airborne asbestos
fibers." (NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health,
May 27, 2003)
U.S. Contractor Publishes
Final Version of Study Calling for Banning Asbestos — The final version of the report, "Asbestos Strategies:
Findings and Recommendations on the Use and Management of Asbestos,"
prepared by a non-profit think tank under a contract with the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), was published last week.
The report concludes that the federal government should ban
all importation and use of asbestos and do a better job of enforcing
the laws that are supposed to protect people from the deadly
mineral. (NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health,
May 27, 2003)
National
Consumer Awareness Campaign Launched on Vermiculite Insulation
Used in Some Home Attics —
The federal government today launched a national consumer awareness
campaign to provide homeowners with important information on
vermiculite attic insulation, which may contain asbestos. This
new campaign, coordinated by EPA and the Agency for Toxic Substances
and Disease Registry (ATSDR), instructs homeowners on how to
identify vermiculite attic insulation and recommends that people
make every effort to not disturb it. Since some vermiculite
attic insulation can contain very low levels of microscopic
asbestos fibers, it is important that consumers are aware of
the precautions they can take to protect against disturbing
and inhaling the asbestos fibers. (EPA press release, May 21, 2003)
Deep 'Deception': Placerville
Author Puts Human Face on Deadly Effects of Asbestos Exposure —Gazing at
a blue-sky day while perched above the American River in Folsom,
Michael Bowker frets about a danger lurking in the shadows.
Passion fills his voice, his blue eyes bursting with intensity
as he hammers home a major message of his latest book. Don't
ignore the dangers of asbestos. (Sacramento Bee, May 12, 2003)
Panel Urges U.S. to Ban Asbestos
Imports — A
blue-ribbon panel funded by the Environmental Protection Agency
has issued a surprising recommendation calling on Congress to
ban the import, production and distribution of products containing
asbestos. The deadly mineral is no longer mined in the United
States, yet the government says about 30 millions pounds of
the lethal fibers are being imported into the country each year. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 4, 2003)
Asbestos is the focus of much activity in Washington —
In the weeks since mid-February, when the American Bar Association
(ABA) published a proposed draft of federal asbestos liability
legislation, there has been intense activity on the issue in
Congress and the Supreme Court. Just
days after the ABA’s action, Senator Don Nickles (R-Okla.)
introduced a bill (S.413) that is modeled on the ABA’s
draft legislation. If adopted, it would establish a detailed
technical definition of asbestos-related disease, and take away
the right of anyone with an asbestos injury that does not meet
the definition to sue for damages. On
March 5 the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on what
the committee described as “the asbestos litigation crisis.”
Even though many observers expected the hearing to be used as
a platform for the backers of the ABA-Nickles proposal, what
unfolded was quite different. Four of the eight witnesses gave
compelling testimony against any bill like Nickles’, stating
that they favored a law setting up a trust fund, which would
make awards for asbestos damages on a no-fault basis. (NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health,
March 14, 2003)
Hidden Exposure: Do You Have Zonolite
In Your Attic? Investigative Report Tells You How To Find Out,
What To Do — Inside millions
of attics across America is a substance that is out of sight
and usually out of mind for homeowners -- a substance that,
even though it was sold to protect the home, now poses a threat
to those who live there. (NBC5.COM, February 20, 2003)
EPA Will Relent, Warn Public about
Asbestos in Insulation —
Amid continued debate, the federal government appears ready
to warn millions of home and business owners about the dangers
of potentially lethal asbestos-contaminated insulation in their
walls and attics. After almost two years of first ignoring and
then playing down the risk from vermiculite insulation, called
Zonolite, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would
launch a nationwide consumer information program. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 18,
2003)
Asbestos Suit Decision
Sparks Furor: Bar Association Tightens Medical Criteria for
Claims — In a move that outraged some
in the legal community, the American Bar Association yesterday
voted to accept new medical criteria that would eliminate the
vast majority of asbestos cases. (Seattle Post Intelligencer, February
12, 2003)
Rare Lung Cancer Is Leaving Sorrowful
Legacy among Working Class: Mesothelioma, Caused by Asbestos,
May One Day Strike Rescuers and Survivors of World Trade Center
Attacks — For
more than 40 years, people who contracted a deadly form of cancer
caused by inhaling asbestos fibers had no hope of survival.
Still, Nancy Buszinski and Alice Steigerwald, both of the Pittsburgh
area, remained hopeful as they tried everything to save their
second husbands whose love had given them another chance for
lifelong companionship. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 21,
2003)
White House Budget Office Thwarts
EPA Warning on Asbestos-Laced Insulation —
The Environmental Protection Agency was on the verge of warning
millions of Americans that their attics and walls might contain
asbestos-contaminated insulation. But, at the last minute, the
White House intervened, and the warning has never been issued.
The agency's refusal to share its knowledge of what is believed
to be a widespread health risk has been criticized by a former
EPA administrator under two Republican presidents, a Democratic
U.S. senator and physicians and scientists who have treated
victims of the contamination. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 29,
2002)
Asbestos Victims Feel Betrayed — Jerry and Edna Oikle sit
motionless, side by side in their daughter's Kirkland, Wash.,
home, conserving energy to breathe. Both suffer from illnesses
triggered by asbestos from years of living in Libby, Mont.,
where W.R. Grace & Co. operated a vermiculite mine that
spewed contaminated dust over an unsuspecting town for decades.
Now they're concerned that Grace, which had promised to pay
the medical expenses of those who got sick, may not pay for
Edna's care. Since January, the company administering Grace's
medical plan has turned away at least 17 people who, according
to their doctors, are suffering from asbestos disease. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 16,
2002)
Asbestos Victims Win Landmark
Case in U.K. —
Three people affected by asbestos cancer have won a groundbreaking
case for compensation in the House of Lords. The Law Lords were
examining test cases brought by a man who has mesothelioma -
asbestos cancer - and two widows whose husbands died of the
disease. They were appealing against previous rulings by the
Court of Appeal and the High Court denying them compensation
on the basis that they were exposed to the deadly dust by more
than one employer. (BBC News, May 16, 2002)
Asbestos Targeted For Trade Controls — A United Nations Environment Programme committee of government-appointed
experts has concluded that three widely-used pesticides and
all forms of asbestos should be added to an international list
of chemicals subject to trade controls. (UNEP Press Release, February 21, 2002)
'One
in seven' damaged by asbestos —
As many as one in seven people in western society may have been
damaged by exposure by asbestos, say researchers. Tests on a
random sample of autopsy corpses found the tell-tale signs of
asbestos in 13% of them. Approximately the same proportion had
a thickening of a lung membrane which suggests damage. This
is a worryingly high figure, and experts say that the number
of fatal cancers in industrialised countries caused by exposure
to the fireproofing material will continue to rise until 2020.
This rise is likely to be outpaced by deaths in the developing
world, where asbestos is still in widespread use. — BBC
News, September 24, 2001
Senate
Told of Asbestos Dangers: Panel Is Urged to Ban its Use — Listening to testimony that was both clinical and intensely
personal, a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday confronted the dangers
of asbestos and the failure of regulators to protect workers
and consumers alike from a carcinogen that is well known to
researchers but not the public. — Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
August 1, 2001
(For the text of statements at the hearing by witnesses and
members of Congress, click
here.)
PROTECTING
THE PRODUCT / A special report. W.R. Grace's Silence Countered
Safety Fears About Asbestos — When asbestos was
labeled a killer 30 years ago, one company moved to cash in.
W. R. Grace and other chemical makers had long been adding asbestos
to their fireproofing sprays, because the silky-white fibers
helped insulate steel. But as competitors ceased production
on the news that those fibers could lodge in the lungs and cause
cancer, Grace reported a "research breakthrough."
Grace said it had devised a "completely asbestos-free"
fireproofing spray. "The health and environmental aspects,"
its news release announced, "are overpowering." The
financial aspects were certainly impressive. Before long, W.
R. Grace & Company went from minor player to giant in the
fireproofing business. For nearly two decades, the new formula
was sprayed onto the skeletons of office buildings, schools
and hotels across America. Only one thing: Grace's new product
was not completely asbestos-free. A little-known kind of asbestos,
tremolite, laced the ore used in the spray. And while Grace
knew this, for years it kept that knowledge largely hidden from
workers who applied the fireproofing and clients who wanted
their buildings asbestos-free, according to confidential company
documents. — New York Times, July 9, 2001
.
Reports
that asbestos is banned are frequent, wrong and dangerous — The media have lately been doing the public a huge
disservice by publishing the "news" that the asbestos-injury
crisis is sure to abate because "asbestos was banned in
the U.S. more than a decade ago" -- a shockingly erroneous
assertion that has appeared in two insurance industry publications
during the last month, following the same report in the Wall
Street Journal on February 7, 2001. — NYCOSH
Update on Safety and Health, June 28, 2001
Recovery
Lessons From an Industrial Phoenix — Venerable
industrial companies like Owens Corning, W. R. Grace and Armstrong
World Industries, a division of Armstrong Holdings, have all
sought bankruptcy protection in recent months because of lawsuits
from workers sickened by asbestos. But these companies have
one common consolation: 18 years ago, another company blazed
the asbestos-bankruptcy trail and survived. The experience of
the Johns-Manville Corporation, the building products maker
that became synonymous with the health hazards of handling asbestos
fibers, has provided a kind of map. — New York Times,
April 29, 2001
E.P.A.
Is Faulted on Asbestos Hazard — The Environmental Protection Agency did not
adequately respond to evidence that asbestos-contaminated ore
from a Montana mine operated by W. R. Grace & Company posed
a health hazard, the agency's inspector general said yesterday.
The announcement came a day after Grace filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection, citing hardships from asbestos lawsuits.
The ore, vermiculite, was used in an array of building products
until Grace closed the mine in Libby, Mont., in 1990. With large
numbers of residents now showing signs of asbestos-related disease,
the agency is trying to clean up the area and examine sites
throughout the country where the ore was processed. (New York
Times, April 4, 2001)
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