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• August 6, 2003 - "FAIR Act being decided on"

• August 2, 2003 - "Veterans hit especially hard with asbestos related illnesses"

• July 29, 2003 - "Asbestos debate continues decades later"

• April 24, 2003 - "Mesothelioma Cancer Widow Awarded $2.6 Million in Asbestos Lawsuit"

• April 24, 2003 - "Asbestos Trust in Midst of Approval"

• April 23, 2003 - "Mesothelioma Death Shocks Wife"

• April 9, 2003 - "Former Railroad Workers File Asbestos Lawsuits"

• April 5, 2003, "New York Man Dying of Mesothelioma Awarded $47 Million"

• April 2, 2003, "Asbestos Lawsuits Move Into Wider Area"

• October 1, 2001, Federal-Mogul Corporation Files Voluntary Chapter 11 and Administration Petitions to Resolve Asbestos Claims
  
• June 26, 2001, USG Files For Bankruptcy
  
• April 2, 2001, W.R. Grace & Co. Files Voluntary Chapter 11 Petition to Resolve Asbestos Claims
  
• March 3, 2001, Asbestos victim awarded landmark compensation
  
• March 13, 2000, Feature Article: Libbys Dark Secret
  
• February 15, 2000, Vermiculite Products Could Expose Consumers To Asbestos

= Asbestos Companies File For Bankruptcy =

June 26, 2001, USG Files For Bankruptcy
Since 1994, U.S. Gypsum has been named in more than 250,000 asbestos-related personal injury claims, and has paid more than $450 million for litigation before insurance recoveries. The subsidiary's personal injury costs have increased from $30 million in 1997 to more than $160 million last year, and were expected to exceed $275 million this fiscal year.

USG filed for bankruptcy protection in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., the state where USG is incorporated. ''Rather than dealing with these lawsuits in state civil courts, we needed to get them all in one court and before one judge and have a fair hearing,'' Foote said. ''There are true victims of asbestos-related diseases. Moneys need to flow to them. We will recognize and honor those claims.''

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April 2, 2001, W.R. Grace & Co. Files Voluntary Chapter 11 Petition to Resolve Asbestos Claims
Asbestos company, W. R. Grace & Co. announced that the company has voluntarily filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in response to a sharply increasing number of asbestos claims. This Chapter 11 filing includes 60 of Grace's domestic entities. None of the Company's foreign subsidiaries are included in this filing.

The filing, made today in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware, will enable the Company to continue to operate its businesses in the usual manner under court protection from its creditors and claimants, while using the Chapter 11 process to develop and implement a plan for addressing the asbestos-related claims against it. The Company intends to work closely with asbestos claimants and other creditors to develop a plan of reorganization that will both address valid asbestos claims in a fair and consistent manner and establish a sound capital structure for long-term growth and profitability. Read More

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=Asbestos In The News=

March 3, 2001, Asbestos victim awarded landmark compensation
A woman who contracted mesothelioma by washing her husband's work clothes has been ordered to receive more than $370,000 in compensation by the Dust Diseases Tribunal in New South Wales. Winnifred Brennan, 62, from Adelaide, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in July 1999.

Mrs. Brennan is expected to live only another 14 months and her payout is one of the first made for a non-occupational asbestos case. Judge James Curtis found in the Dust Diseases Tribunal that Mrs. Brennan had engaged in a lifetime of service to her late husband, a builder, and their family of nine children. Part of that service involved washing her husband's work clothes and visiting his building sites where he worked with asbestos. She was diagnosed with mesothelioma while she cared for her husband who was dying from terminal bone cancer. Read More

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March 13, 2000, Feature Article: Libbys Dark Secret
The mountain town in northwest Montana held a dark secret. Near the Idaho border, 70 miles from the Canadian line, Libby is a utilitarian town. Because logging is way down and local mines have closed, residents have scrambled to find new ways of making a living. But like people in many small Western towns, they keep to themselves.

Until recently, few people outside Libby knew that a startling number of the town's residents have died of lung diseases, or that today, many suffer from lung cancer. For at least two decades, it has been common knowledge among locals that their sickness is caused by asbestos-laced dust produced by a vermiculite mine just outside town.

If it were only the miners and truck drivers who contracted the diseases, the news would not be so shocking. But the men brought the fine particles of asbestos home in their work clothes. When their wives shook out their clothing, the particles filled their homes. Some men brought home truckloads of asbestos to mix with garden soil for better drainage. Others insulated their homes with it. Wives and grown children followed the journey to the graveyard, a half step behind the workers.

"This isn't just the working men and their wives who are dying," says Gayla Benefield, whose parents, Perley and Margaret Vatland, both died of asbestos-related diseases. "This could go on to the fourth generation within families. My grandchildren watched my mother die and they were terrified. They asked me if they would die of that, too."

The tragedy in Libby from asbestos poisoning developed slowly. Individuals fought their own private legal battles with the mine's owner, corporate giant W.R. Grace & Co., a company at the center of the 1996 book, A Civil Action, and the movie based on it.

Last November, just as Grace was about to leave Libby in its dust, news of the asbestos poisoning hit the national press. Within weeks, federal hazardous-waste teams were sweeping the town, and the state's political leaders were scrambling to explain why they hadn't acted sooner. Two law firms were filing class-action lawsuits against W.R. Grace, and the company was backpedaling, promising to cover asbestos-related health costs. Read More

February 15, 2000, Vermiculite Products Could Expose Consumers To Asbestos
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is investigating whether products made from vermiculite could expose consumers to asbestos. Preliminary test results on common household products indicate that a particularly lethal form of asbestos fibers contaminates some attic insulation, but researchers do not yet know whether normal use of these products could endanger consumers.

Lungs infected with tremolite become inflamed and eventually scarred, a condition called asbestosis. Heavily scarred areas can no longer function, and victims become unable to breath effectively, because oxygen cannot get into the lungs and carbon dioxide and other impurities cannot get out. The vermiculite ore at a mine in Libby, Montana, was contaminated with tremolite.

At least 192 people in Libby have died over the past 40 years from asbestos related illnesses linked to the Zonolite mine. Most died of asbestosis, lung cancer or mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining. More than 375 other people in Libby have also been diagnosed with asbestos related diseases. Read More