For the 10th year in a row, W. R. Grace & Co. has written another generous donation check to St. John’s Lutheran Hospital in Libby, Montana. This year, the check was for the amount of $250,000. This donation comes hot on the heels of the major federal trial against Grace which ended earlier this month. At issue in the trial was whether Grace and five former executives had knowingly endangered the health of Libby residents by mining asbestos-tainted vermiculite in the town. Federal prosecutors also had to prove that the company did so in violation of the criminal provision of the federal Clean Air Act. The company and all five executives were acquitted, a move that outraged many residents of Libby.
The Grace vermiculite mine closed in 1990, but many Libby residents are still falling ill. The town has already lost hundreds of residents to asbestos-related diseases, and more are expected to perish in the coming years. Asbestos is linked to asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma.
Mesothelioma cancer, although very rare, is always fatal, as there is no known cure. In the last decade, however, advances in treatment – such as the Alimta® and Cisplatin® combination – have led to increased survival rates for patients. Oncologists all over the country, including Dr. Anne Tsao of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, are focused on the study of mesothelioma cancer, and are hopeful that their efforts will lead to a cure.
The former donations made to St. John’s by W. R. Grace have gone towards the funding of a clinic for people with asbestos-related disease, personnel training, the purchase of new equipment, and the subsidization of medical care. Grace, which is based in Maryland, has a history of environmental contamination. In the 1970s, Grace was brought to trial for contaminating the water of Woburn, Massachusetts with trichloroethylene, a compound known to cause cancer.
