News Coverage
Poison among us
Published March 12, 2004
The man with whom Joan O'Keefe loved and lived for 36 years died after a 10-month battle with an asbestos-related cancer.
Through his work as a plumber, Richard Girman was exposed to pipes wrapped with asbestos. Little did his family know that the time he spent supporting them eventually would rob them of his presence.
The government and environmental groups are battling over how asbestos claims should be treated. A new study by an environmental group takes aim at the issue.
But 14 years after Girman's death, O'Keefe recalls with a wave of pain the radiation treatments, oxygen tanks and hospice care her husband needed.
"When he got sick, it got really hard to manage," said O'Keefe, who has since remarried. "When he wasn't working it was hard. My children were so good to help us keep our heads above water."
The couple raised six children together. Shortly after their youngest daughter's wedding, Girman was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare cancer.
In 1989, doctors gave Richard three months to live. He lived 10 months.
The Girmans sued and after Richard's death, Joan was awarded a $94,000 settlement from the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust.
The $72,000 that was left after the attorney fees barely buoyed the homemaker through the financial storm that followed.
The money wasn't the point.
"We got a settlement," O'Keefe, 53, said. "It was nothing compared to losing him."
A bill pending in the U.S. Senate would protect companies from lawsuits brought by Americans harmed by asbestos, the Environmental Working Group said.
Proponents of the bill say asbestos claims jam up the court system, bankrupt companies and that the legislation would establish a trust fund for compensating victims.
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, supports reforms to the way asbestos claims are handled, Lugar press secretary Nick Weber said.
The language of the current bill is likely to change as it makes its way to a Senate vote, Weber said.
"He's interested in striking a balance between individuals who suffered from asbestos-related illness, employees and employers," Weber said.
In a report released last week, the Environmental Working Group said more than 43,000 people have died of asbestos-related illnesses since 1973.
An estimated 100,000 Americans will die over the next decade from diseases caused by exposure to asbestos 20 to 40 years ago when commercial use of the material was at its height, the report states. Asbestos also was used in some residential building products.
The study estimated that from 1979 to 2001, roughly 550 Indiana residents died from asbestos exposure.
According to the Indiana State Department of Health, 49 people in 2002 died from mesothelioma, a rare, asbestos-related cancer.
Ten of those people lived in Lake County.
Asbestos use and exposure crested in the United States in the late 1970s, when more than 3,000 consumer and industrial products contained asbestos, and remained high through the early 1980s.
Northwest Indiana wove its own legacy of asbestos exposure from the industry it relied upon to provide jobs and bolster its economy.
Last year, the family of a Gary steel worker received the largest settlement ever for an asbestos claim. A jury awarded the family a $250 million verdict - $50 million in compensatory damages and $200 million in punitive damages - from U.S. Steel.
The company eventually settled with the family for less than the $50 million award, a spokesman said.
Valparaiso personal injury attorney Kenneth J. Allen sees a dozen clients each year walk into his office with asbestos-related illnesses.
"Asbestos has poisoned thousands of people in Northwest Indiana," Allen said. "It was a great secret in the (asbestos) industry for 50 years. Now we have this legacy of people dying."
The Environmental Working Group's estimates are based on an analysis of government mortality records and epidemiological studies.
Asbestos diseases have a 20- to 50-year latency period, which means that a substantial portion of individuals exposed from the 1960s through the early 1980s are just now showing up as disease or mortality statistics, the study said.
About half the funding for the study came from the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.
Industry documents uncovered in court cases show many companies knew about the risks of asbestos, some as early as the 1920s, but continued to use the material and hide the risk from its workers and the public.
The Environmental Protection Agency banned all use of asbestos in 1989, but manufacturers took the agency to court and the ban was overturned on the grounds that its economic consequences had not been fully considered. The administration of then-President George H.W. Bush chose not to appeal the decision.
Reporter Scheffie Sarver can be reached at 477-6019 or at ssarver@post-trib.com.
Scripps Howard News Service contributed to this report.
What is asbestos?
Asbestos is the name of a group of highly fibrous minerals with separable, long, thin fibers. The fibers are heat resistant, making them useful for many industrial purposes. Because they are lighter than air and durable, microscopic asbestos fibers can get into lung tissue and remain for decades, causing escalating irritation and ultimately resulting in disease.