Tell Your U.S. Senator to Stand Up for Asbestos Victims Rights, Vote No for the Asbestos Bail Out Bill

"I'd strip naked and bark like a dog if I thought that's what it took to get attention on this issue." -- Pat Martin, advocate who has been on a mission to compel his government to test and pay for removal of asbestos contaminated zonolite attic insulation from over 300,000 homes in Canada.

The bad news is that the Asbestos Bail Out Bill is gaining momentum.  The good news is we can stop it, and we don't even need to strip naked and bark like a dog to do so (although I'm not ruling this unusual if not offensive tactic out!). If each of us takes a moment to voice our opposition, we can turn the tide.  Several Democratic Senators have shown signs of caving in.  The following senators are being courted by the dark side and need to hear from you: Sen. Herb Kohl (Wisconsin), Sen. Patrick Leahy (Vermont, he is co-sponsoring the bill), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (California), Tom Carper (Delaware), Sen. Max Baucus (Montana, he is co-sponsoring the bill) and Charles Schumer (New York).  The bill currently is scheduled for public debates by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 28. Each senator needs to hear from you now while the behemoth 300+ page bill is being marked up.

You can view the text of the Senate asbestos injury "compensation" bill, as introduced on April 19, 2005 (S.852) at:
http://www.nycosh.org/workplace_hazards/asbestos.html

For each U.S. Senator, we have provided their email address, fax number, mailing address and phone number. [Click here]

The Trust Fund bill has many flaws.  Here is a quick summary of its major problems:

• The trust fund will run out of money before it can compensate the over 400,000 pending claims. It will be broke before it gets started.

• It will take at least two years to create a massive new federal bureaucracy to review and pay out claims.

• Nobody knows for sure who pays into the fund and how much, creating more uncertainty for claimants and more risk for protracted litigation over who pays the bill.

• To save money and prevent insolvency, the trust fund administrator will make it harder for claimants to get compensation by increasing the burden of proof, ratcheting down the medical and exposure criteria, and stretching out the time periods for payouts.

• The bill discriminates against claimants who were exposed after the mid 1970s and who were exposed by virtue of washing a loved one's clothing or while performing house repairs, changing automobile brakes or working around asbestos only for a short time.

• The Government will confiscate all unpaid settlements that fail to meet unrealistic contract requirements.

• The Government will shut down your lawsuit, even if you are set for trial, or in trial, or on appeal.

• The exigent health claims exception will not provide assurance that mesothelioma patients will resolve their claims within their limited lifespan. The exception is riddled with loop holes and hurdles that favor industry and unduly burden claimants and their advocates.

• Mesothelioma patients with cases pending will be forced to abort their lawsuit and wade through confusing red tape to get their industry-friendly settlement and if they don't get compensated in nine months (highly likely) they will then be allowed to go back to the court system.  During the nine month delay, patients cannot preserve their rights with legal depositions. This is a cruel carrot and stick ruse that favors industry. The median survival for mesothelioma patients is 9.3 months. Patients who passed away before resolving their claims would move to the end of the line.

• The Government will illegally void contracts between plaintiffs and their attorneys and arbitrarily cap claimants' attorneys’ fees at 5% while imposing no restrictions on the hourly fees that defense lawyers can charge.

• The Government will abolish the jury system for asbestos victims and impose an industry-friendly of "one size fits all" payment values that bears little resemblance to historical settlement or verdict values.

• The Bill does not account for the special financial hardships faced by mesothelioma patients, for whom the pursuit of cutting-edge treatment options may ring up hospital and medical bills exceeding $500,000. The trust fund administrator can adjust awards for younger claimants slightly upwards, but only if he can adjust them downward for older claimants.

• Many states, such as California, Washington, Illinois, New York and others, have special dockets for accelerating trial settings for cancer claimants. The creation of a massive federal bureaucracy will not speed this process up; it will only slow it down.

• Although the asbestos companies are responsible for poisoning more than 27 million workers before 1978, and despite the fact that millions of homes, schools, and buildings continue to be contaminated with deadly asbestos fibers, the bill would allow but not mandate the trust fund administrator to set aside only $10 million a year for five years for medical research. The trust fund is valued at $140 billion, but the bill would require the lung polluters to pay only $50 million at most to clean up their disastrous mess - a mess that has historically resulted in more deaths than floods, fires, hurricanes, terrorist attacks and even World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War.

• Asbestos cancer and disease is a public health crisis, not a litigation crisis. The Bill does next to nothing to hold the mass poisoners accountable for the asbestos epidemic for which they are responsible.

• The bill sends a terrible message to companies who make defective products and hurt consumers on a massive scale: the more consumers you hurt, and the more liable you are, the better chance you will have that your federal government will bail you out and wipe away your financial, tort and moral debts and pass the financial and medical burdens onto the backs of the victims.

• The Trust Fund bill purports to fix a litigation crisis, but it throws out the baby with the bathwater. If there are problems with frivolous lawsuits, then fashion a medical criteria bill that preserves the rights of the seriously impaired asbestos victims to seek their civil remedies and puts unimpaired asbestos exposed persons on a wait and see registry.

• Victims cannot sue, but the asbestos companies can. The bill will swiftly take away the rights of victims to seek redress in the court system, but it preserves the rights of the wrongdoers to litigate their payment assessments. They get to nitpick in court over their share of the bill, which they will do tirelessly (just as the toxic dumpers did in the Superfund litigation), but the innocent Americans who were poisoned won't be able to seek full recovery from a jury or impartial judge.

The following are sample protest letters you are free to use as a basis for your own personalized letter.

To review letters protesting SB 852, as well as previously submitted letters protesting the 2004 version of the asbestos bail out bill, click here:  http://www.mesothel.com/pages/protest_main.htm

Asbestos Disease Hotspots

Please click here for a map of heavily contaminated hotspots.  

The bill would single out residents of Libby, Montana for special treatment. There is no question that the people of Libby have been abused, maligned, poisoned and lied to.  However, the asbestos-contaminated vermiculite from Libby was distributed to hundreds of vermiculite expanding plants (for use in potting soil, among other products).  The employees of those plants, as well as the residents who lived near the plants, face the same set of health risks that the people of Libby face.  Moreover, there are hundreds of communities throughout the U.S. that grew up in the shadows of asbestos plants and factories, as well as industrial sites in which millions of tons of asbestos was used and has not been abated.  Click here to view a list of those communities.

For a detailed critical analysis of the Specter/Leahy Bill, please click here:

The asbestos manufacturers and insurance companies have spent millions and millions of dollars on lobbyists to sweet talk the politicians in Washington, D.C. The politicians have heard enough sweet talk.  Now they need to hear some straight talk from the people who have been afflicted with asbestos cancer.  They need to hear how you feel about your government siding with the companies who poisoned you or a loved one.  They have listened to the fancy pants, the mouthpieces, the hired guns, the smooth talkers.  Now they need to hear from you. They say this bill is for you, but I'm willing to bet they've never really sat down and listened to a single mesothelioma patient.

Thank you,

Roger G. Worthington

Please Click Here to learn how to contact your elected officials.

For an insightful and factual review of what the asbestos companies knew and when, please examine a few of the actual corporate documents posted by  TexasWatch.Org [ http://www.texaswatch.org/ ]. Texas Watch poses the critical question which citizens of a free and open democracy should all ask: The Asbestos Bailout Bills shield wrongdoers from accountability. Shouldn’t lawmakers be strengthening protections for the victims and their families instead of protecting companies who knowingly poisoned their workers, consumers, neighbors and Navy veterans?

Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act of 2005 (S. 852) - Hearing in the Judiciary Committee for April 26, 2005:

• Click here for the Testimony of Margaret Seminario, Director, Safety and Health Department, American Federation Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.

• Click here for the Testimony of Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, DIH.  Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine Chairman, Department of Community and Preventive Medicine Professor of Pediatrics The Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

• Click here for the Testimony of Ms. Carol Morgan, President & General Counsel National Service Industries, Inc.

• Click here for the Testimony of Craig A. Berrington, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, American Insurance Association.

• Click here for Excerpts from Asbestos Trust Fund Bill 4/26 Hearing by Senate Judiciary Committee members:
  • Senator Edward Kennedy
  • Senator Richard Durbin
  • Senator Richard Durbin with Senator Arlen Specter
  • Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO Safety and Health Directory
  • Professor Eric Green, Boston University Law School
  • Senator Arlen Specter