*By James F. Murphy*

Monday, March 14, 2005 (Philadelphia Inquirer)

It's open season on asbestos lawsuits and the people seeking damages - whether they are victims of asbestos exposure or their insurers.

President Bush has asked Congress to end litigation by victims by compensating them from a $140 million trust fund. And last month, four large insurers asked Pennsylvania regulators to block a plan by Bermuda-based Ace Ltd., to limit its costs from asbestos claims. The insurers, clients of an Ace subsidiary, say they are counting on Ace to pay more than $600 million of their asbestos claims.

No one, it seems, wants to pay for the sickness and death caused by this cancer-causing fiber, once widely used as insulation and in building materials. But many victims - and I have talked to hundreds from across the United States and Canada - would gladly forgo the cash in exchange for having healthy lungs, kidneys and other organs.

When my doctor diagnosed me with an asbestos-related disease in December 1995, it was as if I had received a death sentence. I had always taken care of myself: I was a nonsmoker, and I had a chest X-ray every two years. Yet, here I was with asbestosis, a disease that often is a precursor to mesothelioma, which can cause potentially fatal cancerous tumors.

Where had this come from? And why hadn't it been detected earlier? I had only to look back 30 years to find the answers.

I had served in the Navy for four years, and it was during the late 1950s that my shipmates and I were exposed to asbestos. It was used as part of heating pipes, air vents and insulation panels. It was in our sleeping compartments, mess hall, passageways, gun mounts, and engine and boiler rooms.

Every time the guns were fired, I remember, tiny fibers would float into the air, onto our clothing and bunks. We unknowingly inhaled or swallowed them, due to the close quarters and lack of fresh air being circulated. They were asbestos particles, and, as my doctor later told me, it would be anywhere from 10 to 45 years from our first exposure to the development of an asbestos-related disease.

Thirty years later, alerted by a newspaper article on asbestosis, I had the X-ray that changed my life. It was then that I began trying to find out why the Navy did not inform anyone of the health hazards. Research shows that asbestos manufacturers had been aware of the heath risks since the 1920s and that the Navy knew since the 1940s.

I then began attempting to learn why former Navy personnel had not been notified of the health hazard to which they had been exposed. My letters bounced from congressmen to U.S. senators to the Department of Veterans Affairs, each growing feistier. While concern often was expressed, I received no real answers. One Navy official even wrote me that he did not have the authority to notify fomer personnel that their health might be endangered.

I grew frustrated but determined to help my fellow servicemen. I began using the Internet, posting an "Asbestos Alert" message to find people who were in the Navy. I exchanged e-mails and letters with those who responded, and heard their sad, frightened tales. More than 500 people have contacted me, so far.

Men who had had lung surgery two or three times told me how, once they discovered they had been exposed to asbestos, they were unable to get compensation; it was too late to make a claim, they were told. Others confided in me: "The doctors have found spots on my kidneys. I don't know what to do. Should I get a lawyer?"

Wives told of husbands who had wasted away from cancer. Grandsons told of grandfathers who had died, never receiving anything to help pay their huge medical bills.

Always they asked: How can I get more information on asbestos-related diseases? Can you help me?

I don't have all the answers, but I do know one thing: Asbestos lawsuits can't be contained by government officials or the compensation limited by insurance companies. People who served their country honorably are sick, have died or are dying from exposure to asbestos. We gave for our country, and now we deserve help. We won't go quietly.

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/James F. Murphy (http://murphyblogsite.myblogsite.com) lives and writes in Media./

*** POSTED MARCH 14, 2005 ***