Posted on 07/18/2011 10:18:38 AM PDT by Red Badger
Edited on 07/18/2011 1:37:41 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
BILLINGS, Mont. -- Federal regulators knew potentially contaminated bark and wood chips were being sold from a Superfund site in the asbestos-tainted town of Libby, Mont., for three years before they stopped the practice.
That revelation comes in a letter from the Environmental Protection Agency to U.S. Sen. Max Baucus.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcmontana.com ...
If you’ve seen the TV ads looking for mesothelioma victims, WR Grace was to blame for most of them.
Win-win!
And here I was thinking Hannah Montana had some dread social disease.
Rotten headline writers.
They are constantly on TV............I get sick just seeing them..........and all the ‘Bad Drug’ ambulance chaser ads.............
Funny thing about asbestos, it is a mineral mined out of naturally occurring rock... I bet there are places where it outcrops and you can just bend down and break a piece off of the rock face. Does that make that property a Superfund site?
In 2006, 2.3 million tonnes of asbestos were mined worldwide, in 11 or 12 countries. Russia was the largest producer with about 40.2% world share followed by China (19.9%), Kazakhstan (13.0%), Canada (10.3%), and Brazil (9.9%)
None in USA...........
“If you’ve seen the TV ads looking for mesothelioma victims, WR Grace was to blame for most of them.”
No, you speak a half-truth that amounts to a lie.
“To blame” implies “found guilty”.
Spoken as it was in your sentence it implies that in the majority of claims brought to court WR-Grace was found guilty in the majority of those cases.
But, the facts are that no matter how many claims one can count that have been brought to court against WR-Grace (or anyone else in regard to asbestos), or how many cases WR-Grace (or anyone else in regard to asbestos) lost in court, the majority of claims presented have either been dismissed by the courts or the defendant was not found guilty.
Asbestos litigation has been shown to me a multi-state tort case scamming mill.
Merely being near or around asbestos does not scientifically, in medicine or anywhere else, prove asbestos to be the causative factor in some ailment that someone obtains, just because such contact is a possible factor among many other possible factors.
Hoping pliant judges and juries will ignore that science, trial lawyers have attempted to bring to court anyone that has ever come near asbestos, if they just have any ailment asbestos might possibly be one of hundreds of causative factors for, no matter their level of exposure or what medical science says about that level of exposure.
You must be a shill for WR Grace! LOL
You're taking an off hand remark and trying to parse it as a legal/scientific statement, which it was never intended to be.
The mine at Libby, MT produced a substance that killed hundreds of people, not all of them due to occupational exposures.
Merely being near or around asbestos does not scientifically, in medicine or anywhere else, prove asbestos to be the causative factor in some ailment that someone obtains, just because such contact is a possible factor among many other possible factors.<]I>
That is about a worthless statement. Of course proximity does not equal exposure, and that goes for anything, not just asbestos...substitute lead, hexavalent chromium, radiation, etc for asbestos and the statement is still correct but worthless in this context.
The people at Libby, MT weren't just near, but were exposed to asbestos. And many died from cancer caused by asbestos exposure.
Having been an indoor air quality specialist in the past (certified in asbestos and microbial inspection and remediation) I have a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to litigation and hysteria that don't meet scientific and trade standards.
Grace executives may have escaped conviction for criminal charges (can you say "OJ Simpson"?)but the company still put out a multi billion dollar settlement. No one does that simply out of the goodness of their heart.
But you're way off base calling me a liar. Way off.
What I’m not is a shill for the trial lawyers association and their recognized industry of scamming the numbers of “victims” brought into their class action suits.
The state courts have found that MOST of the alleged victims the trial lawyers attempt to get added to the “class” are not and could not be proven victims. Are there real victims? Yes. MOST offered to the courts by the trial lawyers are alleged and NOT accepted, in the final analysis in the courts decisions; NOT found victims of WR-Grace.
While I am sure that WR-Grace and any other defendants can be held to blame for certain cases of mesothelioma, the first thing to understand is that corporations sometimes make a financial decision to pay a claim, rather than continuing to pay lawyers to defend against it, and the second thing is that the science of mesothelioma shows that more than simple exposure to asbestos is at work - because some individuals have long term continuous “exposure” and never develop mesothelioma and others have a brief exposure and do obtain mesothelioma. Obviously, additional factors are at work in addition to “asbestos exposure” and some individuals have more of any additional factors and others do not.
Again, this is not an attempt to qualify anything about any specific case, at Libby, Montana or anywhere else.
But, your general statement that WR-Grace is to be blame for most victims of mesothelioma is disputed by the state courts which keep coming to the conclusion that most victims presented to them are victims of the trial lawyers.
Officially, there is no 'safe' exposure limit and all exposures are considered harmful. The dose-response is generally linear meaning the more exposure, the greater the preponderance for disease. Those that have genuine exposures that have not yet shown symptoms are more anomolies than the rule. Letency for most asbestos related cancers can be decades.
Mesothelioma is a specific type of cancer generally> but not always, associate with a specific exposure, not just any exposure to any type of asbestos or other substance.
While you rely on what the courts have ruled, remember OJ Simpson was ruled not guilty.
Not guilty does NOT mean the person was innocent!
As a side note, you guys in Fla. have one of my locally disbarred judges dealing in real estate down there now......
That’s too bad....
It’s HIGHLY likely that if asbestos was not completely banned in the US, the twin towers would still be standing in New York.
Oh, like cigarette smoke.
Good post!!
“Oh, like cigarette smoke.”
Yea, like cigarette smoke.
I am one of eight siblings.
We grew up in a household where both parents smoked all their lives. My mom was an unrepentant chain smoker. I cannot be sure with regard to my older siblings but I fairly sure she smoked during her pregnancies of my younger siblings.
Most of us started smoking ourselves in our teens.
My dad did not want me stealing cigarettes but knew I smoked. So he’d buy me a carton of Camels periodically. I would take them to school, keep them in my school locker and trade them for Marlboros.
As I teen I periodically repainted the interior of hour house, just to lighten the beige walls back from the light brown they had become.
If a childhood of “second hand smoke” is sufficient, on its own, to most definitely cause someone to obtain lung cancer later on, then my siblings and I defy that sciences as none of us have any lung cancer or lung diseases of any kind.
My siblings and I followed our childhood with smoking as late-teens and into adulthood. Most of us eventually did quit, after 30 or 40 years of it. Even that “exposure” added to the childhood “exposure” obtained from our parents has not meant lung cancer or lung diseases for any of us.
No I am not advocating smoking for anyone, and yes STATISTICALLY (the odds) of obtaining lung diseases are greater if someone smokes/has smoked.
But science also knows that in terms of CAUSES there is MORE than just “exposure to cigarette smoke” at work. If that were not the case, my siblings and I would all be on lung machines already; particularly in the case of two my siblings who still smoke,
“Officially, there is no ‘safe’ exposure limit and all exposures are considered harmful.”
That is based on statistics, not medicine.
Consult major medical outfits like the Mayo Clinic.
You will find what I said is true.
“Exposure” alone is NOT the only factor in involved, otherwise long-term exposure would lead to definite mesothelioma for anyone with such long-term exposure. But the facts are that that is not the case. Long-term exposure does NOT lead to the development of mesothelioma in every individual with such exposure. Some persons with long-term exposure to asbestos never develop mesothelioma.
That scientific fact says that in terms of scientific cause, something/somethings in addition to “exposure” are at work as well, regardless of what someone’s statistical chances are.
“Not guilty does NOT mean the person was innocent!”
Paying a settlement so as to end paying the lawyers is not always an admission of guilt.
Sometimes it does include a voluntary admission of responsibility. Sometimes it is only done when written into the settlement is legal language that says the settlement does not constitute any admission of guilt - it’s just cheaper.
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