Asbestos Exposure Is Hazardous Again

A Debate With a Very Long History

First, keep in mind that this debate goes back a long way. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned the use of asbestos in 1989 due to its carcinogenic properties. But that was after tens of thousands of workers had been exposed to it for a generation or more. The effects of that exposure can take a long time -- even decades -- to harm individuals, which accounts for why the litigation has stretched out so long.

Attorneys for affected workers have gone after every company that used asbestos in its products or that purchased other companies that used asbestos. The Rand Corp.'s Institute for Civil Justice says 730,000 people have filed asbestos injury claims to date, costing more than $70 billion and driving 70 companies into bankruptcy, The Sacramento Bee reported.

The lawyers reserved special enmity for those that clearly ignored the health risks after they became known. In the Owens-Corning bankruptcy case, for instance, company attorneys admitted the company first began stamping a health warning on cartons containing asbestos products (but not on the products themselves) in 1966, which was many years after the dangers became well known.

Owens-Corning's situation is emblematic, as the hearing will determine whether the company owes anywhere from $2 billion to $16 billion -- a huge range -- to asbestos victims. The company made insulation called Kaylo that was used widely in shipyards, steel mills and refineries. It doesn't take much exposure to the heat-resistant fiber to cause a fatal lung cancer called mesothelioma. Yet testimony in the trial, reported in the Toledo Blade, indicated that construction workers routinely shaped and sawed Kaylo without knowing the dangers of it. "It showered asbestos fibers all over the place," a plaintiffs' attorney said.

Tens of thousands of workers in the nation's heartland and urban centers have a stake in this debate, which revved up on Jan. 11 at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Stakeholders on all sides are being heard, including Senate-appointed mediator Judge Edward Becker, and it appears that issues have narrowed. But analysts say it appears stakeholders are far from a consensus even though Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee, hopes to get a bill to the Senate floor early in February.

Nobody Is Giving Ground

Although the Republican majority has compromised on a few key issues, both trial attorneys and labor unions so far have failed to give any ground. No Democrats appear ready to support the reform bill, including the most important Senate Democrats involved in the issue -- Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow from heavily industrialized Michigan. Last year, only one Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, supported the Republican bill, formally called the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act.

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