Asbestos-Related Health Issues in Montana Alert Minnesotans
Saturday, February 24, 2001
Greg Gordon
Star Tribune
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Preliminary medical data show asbestos-related lung abnormalities among more than a fourth of people in a Montana mining town that shipped asbestos-tainted vermiculite across the country -- findings that one federal official called "astounding."
The results released late Thursday heightened Minnesota Health Department officials' concern about potential risks to people who lived near a northeast Minneapolis plant that processed the Montana ore.
Based on test results processed so far, signs of asbestos disease were found in as many as 27 percent of nonworkers in Libby, Mont., who had no known exposure to the vermiculite dust beyond breathing air in the vicinity.
Rita Messing, a toxicologist for the Minnesota Department of Health, called the data "alarming." She is overseeing plans for a $350,000 survey to assess the possible asbestos exposure of 6,000 past and present residents of the Minneapolis neighborhood near a vermiculite processing plant that operated from 1938 to 1989.
"We've been worried from the beginning about people in the community," not just those who worked at the plant, she said. "I think it adds urgency to what we're trying to do."
W.R. Grace & Co. had operated the Madison Street attic insulation plant in Minneapolis since the mid-1960s and bought the Libby mine in 1963. The company closed the mine in 1990 amid a mounting toll of workers sick or dying from asbestos illnesses -- diseases that can take 10 to 40 years to produce symptoms. Grace is now facing a number of class-action lawsuits.
At a community meeting in Libby on Thursday night, the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) released medical screening results of the first 1,078 of 6,144 area residents to undergo chest X-rays and lung capacity tests. The research is believed to represent the largest in-depth environmental health study in the United States.
The data showed that, depending on how many radiologists identified abnormalities such as thickening of the lining of the lungs, 19 percent to 30 percent of those tested had signs of asbestos illnesses.
Those with abnormalities included:
- 37 to 50 percent of Grace workers tested.
- 20 to 29 percent of their family members who may have breathed dust from their clothing.
- 25 to 43 percent of those who played in piles of scrap vermiculite.
- 14 to 27 percent of people who had no apparent exposure to the contaminated vermiculite.
Dr. Aubrey Miller, a Denver-based medical officer for the U.S. Public Health Service who is among the study's authors, cautioned that the preliminary data could give an exaggerated picture because sicker people might have been the first to submit to screening. And some of the abnormalities might never produce serious diseases such as asbestosis or lung cancer, he said.
But, Miller said, the data suggest that "a lot of folks that didn't work there look like they have some abnormalities."
Chris Weis, a toxicologist for the Environmental Protection Agency who is working with the ATSDR, said in a phone interview from Montana that the early results are unprecedented.
"What we're finding is absolutely astounding," he said. "We've never seen anything like this before in this country, where ambient [air] exposures to asbestos, apparently of a residential population, have caused this level of biological changes or effects on the lung."
Weis said that "not only Minneapolis, but every other area where processing took place, should take heed of these findings. The clear indication is that if you lived near one of these processing plants, your risk of debilitating and possibly lethal lung disease is extremely high."
He said Libby residents who were presented with the data Thursday night were "upset ... shocked. You might imagine how they're feeling. They've been told that one in three of their loved ones, neighbors, family members have been exposed to a substance they already know has killed many, many members of their community."
Doctors, lawyers and family members have alleged that microscopic asbestos fibers contributed to the deaths of at least 21 men who worked at the Grace plant in Minneapolis and a separate vermiculite operation a few blocks away owned by the B.F. Nelson Co. They also have blamed asbestos from those plants for killing three people who lived nearby.
B.F. Nelson closed its plant in 1971. The health department has focused its efforts on tracing asbestos exposures from the Grace plant, which operated more recently.
Weis said the worker death toll from the Libby vermiculite is probably "in the hundreds," a figure that Grace has disputed.
A spokesman for the company, Greg Euston, said Friday of the study results: "We think it's important to remember that these results represent less than one fifth of the people who were tested. There's a lot of work left before the picture becomes clear."
Greg Gordon can be contacted at ggordon@mcclatchydc.com
*** POSTED FEBRUARY 26, 2001 ***