$6 Million Grant for Asbestos Poisoned Town

The Department of Health and Human Services is awarding a $6 million grant to county agencies in Lincoln County, Montana, the site of the worst asbestos-related public health disaster that has been recorded since asbestos products were banned in the late 1970s.  In the small town of Libby. Montana over 200 people have died from mesothelioma, the lethal form of cancer whose only known cause is asbestos.  The grant is specifically designated to provide screening and health care for Libby residents who have asbestos-related diseases.

The W.R. Grace Company operated a large vermiculite mine in Libby from 1963 to 1990.  The vermiculite ore was contaminated with asbestos, and mining activities put deadly asbestos fibers into the air in mine-generated dust.  Thousands of local residents have been sickened by asbestos-related diseases; that pattern is likely to continue due to the long latency period associated with asbestos cancer and asbestosis.

Senator Max Baucus of Montana has been instrumental in getting some federal assistance with the Libby site.  One of the bureaucratic ironies associated with the Libby mine is that it has been declared a toxic site and put on the EPA Superfund List, but has not yet been awarded public health emergency status.  Over one hundred million dollars has been spent cleaning up the mine.

Perhaps three thousand cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed each year in a nation of three hundred fifty million people.  Two hundred residents of a town with 3,000 residents have died from it.  Because mesothelioma symptoms often take up to forty years to appear, it is safe to say that some of the Libby residents with respiratory problems today will ultimately succumb to mesothelioma cancer or asbestosis.  Over a quarter of the population currently has respiratory problems; asbestos-related diseases are going to continue to plague longtime residents of the area.  Now that the Department of Health and Human Services has come forward with this grant, some of the government funds being spent on asbestos contamination in Libby will be spent on the people who have suffered from the toxicity already.

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