The Cruel Saga of Asbestos Disease

What the president and the Republicans fail to appreciate is how far the ripples of asbestos disease have spread. For example, in the small town of Libby, Mont., where W.R. Grace & Co. mined asbestos-contaminated vermiculite, hundreds of the company's employees have died of asbestos disease, as well as many residents who never worked for Grace but were merely exposed to asbestos fibers in wind-swept dust coming from the mine. Grace not only knew about the asbestos hazard in Libby and did nothing to about it but also had been assessed punitive damages for outrageous and reckless misconduct in prior asbestos litigation. This did not deter Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, from describing Grace as a "reputable" company driven unfairly into bankruptcy.

Since then, members of a grand jury in Missoula, Mont., have seen things somewhat differently. Earlier this month, they indicted seven current and former Grace officials for knowingly putting their workers and the public in danger.

As it happens, the ripples extend far beyond the outskirts of the town. More than 700 mills across the nation have processed millions of tons of asbestos-contaminated vermiculite mined in Libby. Government evaluators believe it to be "most likely" that many of these mills have released hazardous levels of asbestos dust into the environment.

Moreover, it is estimated that as many as 35 million American homes contain Zonolite insulation -- a Grace product manufactured from asbestos-contaminated vermiculite. Yet when the Environmental Protection Agency first proposed to issue a nationwide alert regarding the Zonolite hazard, it was rejected by Bush's Office of Management and Budget.

The fall of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, resulted in a vast toxic cloud that contained a whole range of pollutants, including hundreds of tons of asbestos insulation and thousands of tons of asbestos-containing floor tiles. When the EPA proposed to alert the citizens of Lower Manhattan to the obvious health hazard, it was overruled by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which apparently wished to avoid any action that might impede the reopening of Wall Street. Instead, then-EPA Administrator Christie Whitman announced that the air in Lower Manhattan was "safe to breathe" -- a claim subsequently disputed by the agency's inspector general.