News Coverage
Report Cites U.S. Asbestos Disease 'Epidemic'
Published March 8, 2004
The United States is facing an epidemic of asbestos-related diseases, with 100,000 Americans expected to die from exposure over the next decade, according to a new study by an environmental research and advocacy group.
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Already, 27 Americans die every day, the group said, citing government data.
Between 1979 and 2001, an estimated 43,000 Americans died from the signature asbestos cancer, mesothelioma, and from an often-fatal, noncancer disease of the lungs called asbestosis, said the study published by the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group.
"The highly politicized controversy in Washington over asbestos litigation has overshadowed a quiet and directly related crisis in public health: an epidemic of asbestos-caused diseases in the United States that claims the life of one out of every 125 American men who die over the age of 50," the group concluded.
The Asbestos Alliance, a coalition of asbestos makers, users and insurers, called the report "inaccurate and misleading," and noted it was partially funded by the American Trial Lawyers Association.
"Members of Congress (Democrats and Republicans), the AFL-CIO, defendant companies and insurers all agree -- the status quo on asbestos litigation is absolutely unacceptable," said Jan Amundson, senior vice president of the alliance. "It's bad for companies, bad for workers and bad for our economy," Amundson said. "Most importantly, the current system is hurting those who it should be helping the most -- asbestos victims."
On its Web site, www.ewg.org , the Environmental Working Group said that the report was done by its related project, the Environmental Work Group Action Fund.
The group said that a $176,000 grant from the Trial Lawyers Association supported its analysis of government mortality data for the asbestos report. The group also noted that "numerous lawyers, law firms and independent experts with intimate knowledge of asbestos litigation provided us with documents and expertise."
From its analysis of mortality data, the Environmental Working Group concluded that asbestos kills thousands more people than skin cancer each year, and nearly the number that are slain in assaults with firearms. The death toll is likely to increase, the group's researchers said.
Asbestos-caused cancers and other diseases take at least 20 years and often 50 years or more after initial exposure to appear. Exposures from the 1960s to the 1980s -- when asbestos was more widely used -- are just beginning to kill.
Most importantly, the group said, the common perception that asbestos is banned is simply false.
In 1991, a federal appeals court threw out an effort by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to phase out and ban virtually all products containing asbestos.
"It remains heavily used in brake shoes and other products, directly exposing auto mechanics and others who work with the materials, and indirectly exposing consumers and workers' families," the Environmental Working Group report said.
"In addition, millions of people are exposed at home or in their workplace by the monumental quantities of asbestos that remain in the built environment -- the attic insulation in 30 million American homes, for instance -- following decades of heavy use."
Late this month or in early April, Congress is expected to take up the asbestos issue again.
The Bush administration and Republicans in Congress, along with asbestos makers, users and insurers, want to limit or eliminate future lawsuits over asbestos exposure.
Currently, proposals call for creating a $110 billion federal trust funded by corporate money. The fund would be used to pay claims for future asbestos injuries.
Asbestos victims and their lawyers have criticized the proposed legislation as a bailout for companies with asbestos liability.
In its report, the Environmental Working Group said that "The asbestos tragedy is so enormous that a national trust fund may indeed be part of a solution."
But, the group added, the fund proposed "is grossly insufficient." An independent analysis of a 2003 study commissioned by the insurance industry, the group said, found that the fund may need to be tripled to more than $300 billion to provide for all people injured by asbestos over the next 50 years.
In West Virginia, asbestos is a major public health and political issue. Thousands of boilermakers, ironworkers and others who toiled in the state's power plants, steel mills and chemical factories are potential victims.
In its report, Kanawha County ranked 66th among U.S. counties in terms of total number of asbestos deaths between 1979 and 1991. During that period, at least 132 deaths in the county were caused by asbestosis. An estimated 28 to 42 deaths in the county were attributed to mesothelioma, the group said.
West Virginia ranked 27th among states, with 585 to 697 total asbestos deaths during that same period.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court set a major asbestos precedent in a case that started in Kanawha County. The justices, by a 5-4 vote, said that workers with noncancer asbestos-related illnesses could recover damages for their fear of eventually contracting cancer.
West Virginia business leaders had cited that case as evidence that the state's courts were too friendly to asbestos victims and created a judicial climate that was bad for business.
On its Web site, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce says, "American asbestos litigation is becoming an entanglement of bureaucracy and bankruptcy."
"A bureaucracy of countless asbestos claims floating in the American court systems, forcing more and more companies into unnecessary bankruptcies and more and more employees to unemployment lines," says the commentary by Chamber President Steve Roberts.
In its report, the Environmental Working Group said that asbestos-related bankruptcies have not resulted in job losses or poor economic performance for the companies involved.
"When most people hear that a company is going bankrupt, they think of liquidation of assets, massive layoffs, and shutting down the business," the group said. "With asbestos bankruptcies, this is the very rare exception."
For example, the group said, Halliburton has called its asbestos bankruptcy "good news." The company said that no facilities would close, no jobs would be lost and no pension or benefit programs would be reduced.
In its report, the Environmental Working Group also included numerous corporate records that detail the long history of asbestos makers and users attempting to conceal the dangers of asbestos exposure from workers and consumers.
"Company after company was willing to let workers suffer and die long after it was clear that asbestos was killing them," the report said. "It is precisely the callous behavior evidenced by these documents that is at the core of all asbestos litigation."
The Asbestos Alliance said that the report "is yet another attempt to divert attention and focus on history."