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Labor Dept. enters Libby's asbestos fight
Monday, August 21, 2000
By ANDREW SCHNEIDER
The Labor Department has become the second Cabinet-level agency to start an investigation of how the government failed in its duty to warn miners in Libby, Mont., that they were being exposed to lethal levels of asbestos.
The investigation could force a re-examination of federal policies governing asbestos exposure that have put at risk tens of thousands of workers who mine or handle vermiculite, talc and other contaminated minerals.
Patricia Dalton, acting inspector general for the Labor Department, said yesterday that the investigation is focusing on the actions or lack of actions by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Both are part of the Labor Department.
National experts in occupational medicine and union officials applauded Dalton's action and said the findings of her team could help rectify serious deficiencies in how OSHA and MSHA regulate worker exposure to asbestos today.
"The job of the Department of Labor is to protect America's workers," Dalton said. "We take very seriously our responsibility of ensuring that the programs -- including OSHA and MSHA -- work efficiently and effectively. There can be no shortcuts tolerated when it comes to the health and safety of workers."
The Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general is conducting a similar examination of its role at the now-closed vermiculite mine owned by W.R. Grace & Co. in Libby. Five auditors for that agency completed their first round of interviews last week with miners and their family members who are dying from exposure to asbestos contained in the vermiculite ore.
All major agencies have an inspector general, appointed by the president, confirmed by Congress and instructed to act as watchdogs over the actions of the federal department to which they are assigned. Their findings are submitted to Congress, which has responded to several inspector generals' inquiries by taking legislative action.
Joseph McGowan, spokesman for the Labor Department's inspector general, said its investigation will go back to decisions made in the 1960s.
"You need to know what happened years ago in this (asbestos) issue to understand what's happening today," Dalton said. "Our concerns are whether there are systemic problems in either OSHA, MSHA or both that may have taken root in the past."
At Libby, scores of inspections conducted by federal mine inspectors repeatedly reported the same dangerous levels of asbestos. OSHA and its research arm, the National Institute of Occupations Safety and Health, did their own studies confirming the hazard, but there is no indication that the agencies warned anyone but Grace management.
"It's about time that someone inside the government is trying to find out what happened," said Don Judge, head of the Montana American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations.
"For 18 years, people have been allowed to become sick and die because officials in Washington, D.C., made a decision not to tell these workers about the dangers in Libby's ore. If we can find out who made that decision, whether it was in the EPA, OSHA or MSHA or all of them, maybe we can stop it from happening again."
Dalton said she and her team had been "closely following the Libby matter" and are working closely with EPA's inspector general, Nikki Tinsley.
In November, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that hundreds of miners and their family members died or were sickened from exposure to the asbestos-tainted vermiculite ore.
Soon afterward, the P-I showed that millions of pounds of the dangerous ore had been shipped to processing plants throughout North America. In some cities, 50 percent or more of the workers at the processing plants had died from asbestos-related disease.
Physicians and union officials who deal daily with workers dying from asbestos exposure urged the inspector general to get to the root of what they say is the most serious problem -- how OSHA determined which asbestos fibers it would regulate.
Mike Wright, health and safety director for the United Steel Workers of America, said there are many important questions that must be addressed.
"A decade ago, George Bush's OSHA made a decision to define these asbestos fibers as if they were almost harmless. We applaud the Department of Labor for starting an investigation of that decision and its consequences," Wright said in an interview from Pittsburgh. "We'll support that investigation any way we can."
Dr. Michael Harbut has treated thousands of patients with asbestos-caused disease. He said the investigation of OSHA's and MSHA's handing of asbestos exposure is long overdue.
"My hope is that the inspector general will have the courage to examine what political and industry pressure was really exerted on OSHA years ago when it was setting its standard for what type of asbestos the government will regulate," said Harbut, former chairman of the occupational and environmental medicine section of the American College of Chest Physicians.
"Every well-trained physician who treats asbestosis in miners -- taconite, talc or vermiculite -- sees a terminal disease process caused by the precise asbestos minerals that the mining and manufacturing industries got OSHA to exclude from the regulations."
OSHA says workers cannot be exposed to more than .1 asbestos fibers per cubic centimeter of air, a limit OSHA admits will still cause some cancers. But MSHA's regulations allow miners to be exposed to 20 times the limit set by OSHA.
"This disparity just isn't sane," Harbut said. "The inspector general clearly faces a difficult task, but it is one of enormous importance. One that, over the years, could save the lives of millions of workers."
The Vanderbilt mine produces talc used in most crayons manufactured in the United States.
This summer, the Consumer Product Safety Commission confirmed the P-I's findings that some crayons were contaminated with low levels of anthophyllite and tremolite, two types of asbestos fibers. But CPSC also found even higher levels of "transitional fibers" -- minerals that doctors say cause cancer and other asbestos-related diseases but are not one of the six forms of asbestos regulated by the government.
"Semantics. That's what this fiber issue is coming down to," said Ronald Medford, assistant executive director of hazards identification at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The fibers his agency found were almost identical in structure to the asbestos that the government can regulate "and therefore, we think they shouldn't be in crayons," he added.
After the CPSC's findings, crayon manufacturers announced they would remove all talc from crayons within a year.
He calls the inspector general's inquiry "one bright sign in a dismal parade of government inaction" but worries about the safety of the workers who are still handling the tainted talc.
"The large amount of fibers that CPSC found in the Vanderbilt talc used by crayon and other manufacturers is asbestos and kills like asbestos, even though OSHA buckled under to industry pressure and refused to regulate it," Abraham said. "I can only hope that the inspector general will try to determine how many thousands of workers in scores of industries died or are now at risk because of this lack of government integrity."
Inspectors face complex and technical issues, but Dalton said this isn't a problem.
"Our people have broad technical abilities, but for some scientific and medical evaluations, we have used outside consultants and specialists from other government agencies," she said. "If needed, we'll use them again in this examination."
McGowan said the time needed for the team to complete the examination "will depend on access to records and documents we need and to individuals knowledgeable about what happened along the way from Libby."
"There is a high degree of interest in this office about getting to the bottom of it all," he said.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT EPA already investigating
'Maybe we can stop it'
Concern for other miners
The mine at Libby closed in 1990. But suspected asbestos contamination at other mines -- vermiculite mines in Virginia and South Carolina, talc mines in New York and taconite mines in the Iron Range of Minnesota and Michigan -- continues to concern health experts who have seen workers suffer with asbestosis and asbestos-related cancers.A discredited report
In June, the P-I reported on the death and illness from asbestos-related diseases of workers at the Vanderbilt Talc Co. mine in upstate New York. OSHA has acknowledged its decision in 1992 not to regulate fibers found in the talc was based, in part, on an unauthorized and discredited report that downplayed the risks faced by workers. That report, characterized by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services as an "inappropriate collaboration," was done by Vanderbilt officials and two NIOSH scientists who hid their work from their agency.'One bright sign'
Dr. Jerrold Abraham, a professor of pathology at New York's Upstate Medical University, not only has studied the Vanderbilt talc but also the lungs of the people who mine it in biopsies and autopsies.
P-I senior national correspondent Andrew Schneider can be reached at 206-448-8218 or andrewschneider@seattle-pi.com
Day 1
· A town left to die
· It all started with the search for gold
· The History of W.R. Grace Co.
· Dangers of asbestos exposure
· Known deaths from tremolite from Libby mine (graphic)
Day 2
· While people are dying, government agencies pass buck
· 'No one ever told us that stuff could kill you'
· Libby's lost miners: A gallery
· Group organizes to help victims
(newest at top)
· W.R. Grace to pay record Superfund fine
· Finally, asbestos-plagued Libby, Mont., to get help
· Up to 30% tested in Libby hurt by asbestos
· W.R. Grace files for bankruptcy
· Labor Dept. enters Libby's asbestos fight
· Why did dying miners get no help?
· Health warning on attic asbestos
· W.R. Grace buys its old Libby mine, then bans EPA investigators from it
· Grace backs off pledge to clean up asbestos
· Grace sends papers to EPA -- reportedly tainted
· A small group of physicians is trying to change the course of asbestos-induced disease
· One victim's story: '(I) couldn't get a breath; it scared me to death almost' · Horseman in the race of his life
· Class-action suit targets Grace Co., insulation
· Mine-safety agency takes action
· Immediate cleanup sought in mining town
· Grace to pick up medical bills in tainted town
· Asbestos study is expanded nationwide
· Deadly ore was shipped around U.S., Canada
· Just 23 months hauling ore--and it killed him 36 years later
· Finally, asbestos victims have their say
· Initial tests reveal areas of asbestos in and around Libby
· Montana's governor knows asbestos danger
· State, federal authorities sending teams to Montana mining town
· Editorial: Libby folks must get some answers
· EPA sues for access to Libby vermiculite mine
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