More than three years after the government indicted W.R. Grace and Company and several of its executives in the most controversial asbestos case ever to hit the U.S. courts, pre-trial issues continue to stall the start of the trial.

According to a news story aired on KPAX-TV, Grace’s newest petition involves the specific asbestos fibers found in Libby. The company argues that since the form of asbestos found in Libby was not a regulated type of the mineral, the government should not be allowed to build a case around them.

Company officials also attempted to get the court to throw out one of the government’s charges, which states that the executives knew they were putting the residents of Libby in danger. That specific charge was filed twice and the defendants argue that the amended or superceding indictment missed a deadline.

“On May 23rd the Justice Department filed its response brief, arguing that the high court does not need to review the case and defending both the asbestos issue, and the timeliness of the superceding indictment,” the story noted, believing the court’s decision speaks to its desire to finally get the case to trial.

Public housing tenants in Houston who thought they would have to pay more than $3,000 each to clean up their apartments after a fire were given a reprieve this week when Lone Star Legal Aid intervened on the tenants’ behalf.

According to an article in The Houston Chronicle, tenants were originally told that they’d need to pay $3,400 each for a professional cleaning service to remove asbestos fibers that were dislodged during a fire that affected about 200 apartments in the Bellerive development.

“The housing authority, which owns the property and leases apartments to elderly or disabled tenants at subsidized rents, said clothing and furniture in 61 of the building’s 210 apartments might have been contaminated with cancer-causing asbestos fibers,” the article notes. The agency told tenants that its insurance would not cover the cost of removing the asbestos from the units.

Regina Woolfolk, vice president for external affairs for Houston’s Housing Authority, said the agency has raised about $150,000 from private donors toward the estimated $210,000 cost involved in hiring a private contractor to clean the tenants’ belongings. It’s continuing to seek donations for the balance, she said, but in the meantime the work can now begin.

Woolfolk stated that tenants in apartments with only minor damage should be able to move back into their units by early July.

Housing officials at North Carolina State University in Raleigh closed a residence hall earlier this week when contractors discovered and disturbed asbestos inside the building.

According to an article in the college’s newspaper, The Technician, asbestos was discovered on the south side of Bragaw Residence Hall, prompting the hiring of a licensed abatement company to remove the hazardous material.

“It’s standard with our renovations, especially with buildings built before the early 1970s,” housing facilities associate director Barry Olson said of the asbestos cleanup. “There is typically some level of asbestos containing materials that is safe to human beings unless disturbed. In the case of renovation, materials are disturbed.”

Olson said the university is committed to keeping students and staff as safe as possible, so they hired a local company to remove the material and conduct follow-up testing to be sure all the air is free of airborne asbestos fibers.

“We’re going through and not only removing it but…following all of the requirements through the EPA for safe removal and disposal,” Olson said of the collaboration between NCSU and Matrix.

The particular work being done this summer, according to Olson, involves removing floor and ceiling tiles and pipe insulation.

“In this particular case we are removing mastic, or glue, underneath all of the floor tiles, the mastic holding the ceiling tiles in place and some pipe wrap,” he said, noting that the glue contains asbestos as does the insulation around the pipes.

“They wet it down, remove it, double bag it and then dispose of it according to [Environmental Protection Agency] regulations,” Olson explained to students.

“Asbestos was a very common building material for a number of years and if left undisturbed, it’s safe,” he said. “It’s when you disturb it, then it becomes problematic. We’re removing it and making the environment completely safe.”

Asbestos has been found in a large portion of homes in Australia’s indigenous communities in the country’s remote Northern Territory.

According to an article in the Herald Sun, the first signs of asbestos troubles were discovered last August when tradespeople working on houses in one of the remote communities discovered the dangerous mineral. The tradesmen were there on behalf of the federal government’s intervention program for indigenous peoples of Australia. Their find prompted the ongoing inspection of all 73 communities affected by the intervention.

To date, says the article, the presence of asbestos has been revealed in 45 of the 50 communities surveyed thus far. It is expected that inspection of the other 23 communities will be completed by the end of July.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin noted that none of the material found so far poses an immediate health risk. However, she stressed, the government would do everything possible to insure that the people living in those towns would not be adversely affected.

“I understand that communities will be very concerned about these developments, and I am taking immediate action to ensure that communities are not exposed to asbestos health risks,” Macklin said.
All asbestos-contaminated material identified as a potential high risk would be removed within 12 months, she added.

“The health and safety of community members and commonwealth staff is my top priority,” Macklin stressed. “This is a very difficult time for community members and NTER (Northern Territory Emergency Response) staff, and I want to assure them that we will be taking every possible measure to protect their health and safety.”

The president of the Asbestos Disease Foundation of Australia (ADFA) says the national death toll from mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases continues to rise, and more and more do-it-yourself home renovators are now being counted among the deceased.

According to an article on News.com Australia, experts believe the death toll of 3,000 per year will double in Australia within the next 10 years. Barry Robson of the ADFA said the first cases of renovators falling victim to the diseases were appearing, and he warned the general public there were “many more to come.”

Asbestos expert Jim Leigh explained that the first round of mesothelioma was generally found among asbestos miners in Australia. The second round hit tradespeople, such as construction workers and contractors. He believes do-it-yourselfers and the major victims and the third round and will be hit hard in the coming years.

Queensland Asbestos Related Disease Support Society chairperson, Chris Smith, who currently suffers with asbestos-related lung cancer, offered a stern warning to home renovators.

“One exposure may kill, so if you’re not sure if it’s asbestos, wear a mask,” Smith said. “The asbestos out there now is in a worse condition than it was. It’s deteriorating and dusting away.”

A New Jersey appellate court ruled that fifteen Spanish workers can sue an American company for asbestos-related diseases they say they developed due to work they performed on U.S. Navy ships in Spain.

According to an Associated Press article, the court ruled 3-0 in favor of the workers, reversing an earlier ruling made by a lower court that dismissed their lawsuit against manufacturer Owens-Illinois Inc. on jurisdictional grounds.

The workers, who toiled aboard U.S. Navy ships from 1950 to 1998, claim they were exposed to asbestos insulation products that were manufactured at New Jersey-based Owens-Illinois plants.

A lawyer for the company, John C. Garde, said that he was not sure yet whether or not Owens-Illinois would appeal. However, he questioned why the men should be allowed to sue in New Jersey when the injuries occurred overseas.

“I find it difficult to believe that any New Jersey court would countenance claims remaining in New Jersey that have nothing to do with New Jersey, with plaintiffs who have never even set foot in New Jersey,” Garde said.

Mitchell S. Cohen, lawyer for the plaintiffs, believes the original judge should have understood that New Jersey is the only place the case can be tried.

“Spanish law will not allow, under the facts of these cases, to file a claim in Spain,” Cohen said. That’s because the injuries took place on sovereign U.S. territory — the Navy warships, he said.

According to the article, the Spanish tradesmen said they were employed by private contractors or the Navy, and worked at the jointly owned U.S.-Spanish military installation in Rota, Spain, or at neighboring private shipyards in Cadiz, Spain. The suit was originally filed in 2004.

Asbestos safety risk expert, Jeffery C. Camplin, at the request of the Illinois Dunesland Preservation Society, has compiled a publication called “Asbestos Tips for Beach Visitors”, aimed at visitors to Chicago’s Oak Street Beach, where amphibole asbestos contamination has been an issue for the past several years.

According to a press release for the organization, for decades, “trillions of asbestos fibers were released daily and carried southward by Lake Michigan’s currents from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Johns-Manville asbestos Superfund site in Waukegan, IL.

“This bungled clean-up attempt has contaminated the entire Illinois shoreline and polluted the drinking water supply,” the press release declares.

In Camplin’s publication, he offers the following advice:

1. Avoid Eating and Drinking at the Beach - Asbestos and amphibole fibers can contaminate your hands, food, and containers. Eat in picnic areas away from the beach.

2. Avoid Disturbing the Sand - Microscopic asbestos can be released from the sand when agitated. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has found that amphibole asbestos fibers can be released from wet sand and become airborne.

3. Shower Off and Clean Belongings Prior to Leaving the Beach - The deadly amphibole asbestos fibers can be found wherever beach sand can go. Wash your whole body including hair, ears, and under fingernails. Pets should also be washed down prior to leaving the lakefront and beaches.

4. Carefully Clean or Isolate Items Used at the Beach - Don’t track material that could contain asbestos through the house. Take care when shaking out towels and blankets that may have come into contact with sand. Remove all beach clothing before entering your car or home. Launder clothing, blankets, and towels separately. Store shoes and hard to clean items outside.

5. Avoid Certain Cleaning Methods - Do not dust, sweep, or vacuum debris that may contain asbestos. According to the U.S. EPA, “These steps will disturb tiny asbestos fibers and may release them into the air.” The use of High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filtered vacuums is recommended for cleaning up toxic dust and fibers.

A study conducted by seven scientific and medical experts from around the world in regards to the cancer risks of asbestos was submitted to Canada’s Health Minister in March but has yet to be released to the general population, despite promises that the information would be made public within weeks of its receipt.

According to a CBC News story, Health Minister Tony Clement’s office said the report will be made public once his officials have reviewed it, but study authors Leslie Stayner, head of the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois, and Trevor Ogden, the chair of the panel of experts, have each written letters to Clement demanding the release of the information.

“It is simply unacceptable for this report to continue to be withheld from the public, while individuals who have seen the report and our comments make erroneous allegations about what it contains to suit their political objectives,” Stayner wrote in his letter.

Parliamentary members from the Canadian province of Quebec, where chrysotile asbestos is still mined, fear the study will prompt a call for a total ban on asbestos. But the study’s authors said they weren’t asked their opinion on whether or not a ban is necessary. Instead, they were charged with “examining the relative potency of exposure to chrysotile versus other forms of asbestos, and how best to estimate the risk of cancer from exposure.”

“I want to make the record clear that nothing in the report would argue against the sensibility of an asbestos ban in Canada or for that matter anywhere else in the world,” Stayner told CBC.
According to the article, Michel Arsenault, president of the Quebec Federation of Labour, convinced his colleagues at the Canadian Labour Congress earlier this year not to call for a ban on asbestos mining until after the Health Canada study was completed and made public.

Stayner did admit, however, that while they did not give their opinion about a ban in the study results, personally, he believes that chrysotile cannot be used safely.

“From a pragmatic point of view, my answer to this question would be that it [safe use] is simply not possible,” he said in a recent interview.

A jury in Los Angeles awarded compensation in the amount of $9.7 million to a Georgia man who said he developed malignant mesothelioma decades after he was exposed to asbestos while serving as a Navy machinist’s mate aboard the USS Preble in Long Beach.

According to an article in the San Jose Mercury News, Chief Y.R. Brewer, age 66, served aboard the ship from 1961 to 1965 and blames his disease on exposure to asbestos-packed gaskets he handled regularly while on the job.

“He was exposed to something he didn’t know was dangerous. If he had, he would have protected himself,” his wife, Gale Brewer, told the Los Angeles Daily Journal last week from Georgia.

“He feels good about it,” his wife said of the ruling. “But his health is so bad. He can’t eat, when he eats it doesn’t stay down.” Mrs. Brewer also indicated that her husband has less than a year to live.
The Brewers will not see the full amount of the award because the suit had named 12 parts manufacturers, but 11 settled before trial. Jurors found the remaining defendant, gasket maker Crane Co. of Stamford, Conn., to be 2 percent liable in the case, meaning it will be responsible for only that percentage of the award. Jurors found the Navy 50 percent liable for Brewer’s cancer, although it was not named in the suit because the U.S. government cannot be held responsible for asbestos damages.
“Crane Co. feels tremendous sympathy for the Brewer family but does not believe it caused his injury,” said Terry Budd, the company’s attorney. He indicated that Crane may appeal the verdict.

Victims of asbestos exposure in the Australian state of Victoria will now be able to claim compensation for both asbestosis and, later, mesothelioma, thanks to a new law that is about to go into effect there.

According to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, the new law – named after asbestos campaigner Bernie Banton, who died earlier this year - will remove a restriction that prevents asbestos victims making a further claim if their condition becomes a terminal illness.

Premier John Brumby said Victoria had lagged behind other states and the commonwealth in general in introducing such legislation. He believes asbestos represents “a unique problem for the legal system.”
The law needed to make an exception for asbestos victims because they were a “special class of people”, he said. “They are people who can’t know, having been exposed, whether they will go on to develop a devastating and fatal injury,” he said.