Seeking what is due for an entire community

To the Editor:

A wrongful death charged against W.R. Grace & Co. when Willy Schauss passed away in the spring of 1999. He had Asbestosis that caused cancer throughout his body. However he did not die from these diseases, he died from natural causes, pneumonia, as it was stated on his death certificate.

There are three cash cows for the medical community: Asbestosis, cancer and AIDs. The medications for these conditions are paid for by benevolent foundations. The high cost of dying is from natural causes. The diseases above are enablers. They destroy the immune system, allowing death by expensive and painful natural causes, again, the real killers of the victims here in Libby are: Asbestosis and cancer, making W.R. Grace & Co. guilty of wrongful death.

The lay person that reads this will fully understand the honesty with which I wrote this down, as I, like Willy Schauss, will probably die five years before my time, as will most all with Asbestosis. There are well over 200 already in our graveyard and Dr. Black has over 1,500 Asbestosis victims in his books. If all have lost five years on average, this represents a lot of years lost to the greed of W.R. Grace & Co. It is a fact that the last five years of life for these people is without much quality, so this figure is naturally doubled.

The day before Labor Day, I saw a show on channel 7 about Asbestosis here in Libby. I, in this program, welcomed our former governor to Libby. I asked her the only pertinent question of the day, in that the state of Montana had known of the danger of Asbestosis since 1955, and that it was criminal and unconstitutional not to warn and inform the people that they were living in harm's way. She, being a politician, would not answer what the state would do for the victims.

I had correspondence with her later. She said that the law would not let her pay subsistence to people that could not work because of Asbestosis. That is supposed to be what politicians do, is submit special legislation for emergency conditions. The state would have been completely refunded with a claim against W.R. Grace & Co. bankruptcy. This is but one of the reasons she was not re-elected.

Vermiculate (tremolite) Asbestosis is still not fully understood by medical science in its affect on the human body. It is though known, that the mineral ingested as dust is needle like and travels until it hits a barrier. That's the reason for the scar tissue on the lining of the lungs. This mineral ingested in the body travels out to the skin and causes a tumor because of body fluids. These fluids, after a period of time, will get a rainbow coloration from the non-ferrous material. Willy Schauss had five of these removed, the last being a brain tumor in 1998.

The W.R. Grace Company put together a group of industrialists to lobby Congress for deregulation under the Reagan administration; it was called the Grace Commission. They knew at that time that they could not let the public know of the known danger of the largest asbestos deposit in the U.S. in Libby. They did not even inform their employees of the danger of the product. Such knowledge would have alerted the public and would have shut down their domestic market by public panic through the media. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the government realized its complacency in their handling of this product and started removing it without fanfare from schools and government buildings. This limited the domestic market.

So in the 1980s, W.R. Grace & Co. went into the export market. I can assure you this Vermiculite (tremolite) asbestos did not have a general surgeon warning label on it. People in the third world that are now enjoying insulation from hot and cold weather, could well have Asbestosis in the next 10 years and become enemies of the U.S. They might even join the international terrorist movement against America. I have tried to inform the State Department in hopes that they might trace these exports and mitigate their impact.

I feel compelled to warn the medical people and attorneys involved that there is a lot of animosity, hatred, and even threats of violence, regarding charges of wrongful death against W.R. Grace & Co. It can be stated in an individual case, that cause of death was natural and not related to Asbestosis. However, collectively there are hundreds of families so similarly situated that give overwhelming evidence that wrongful death is a proper finding, and Asbestosis is the real killer and it is not natural causes.

I have taken the liberty of using Willy Schauss and his family as an example of prevailing conditions here in Libby. His widow has Asbestosis as do her son and two of her daughters, all patients of Dr. Black of the CARD clinic.

Many residents believe because the CARD clinic is funded by the W.R. Grace Co. that Dr. Black has a conflict of interest. I do not believe this to be so, I have known Brad Black for eight years and know his primary concerns are his friends and neighbors that have Asbestosis. The only way he could help them is through funding of the CARD clinic.

The medical community and attorneys seem reluctant to pursue wrongful death claims. It is hoped that all involved will call, write or fax them. For, in fact, if they do not pursue Asbestosis as wrongful death, all W.R. Grace & Co. has to do is stall the bankruptcy court until all Asbestosis victims die of natural causes to free themselves of all liability.

When Willy Schauss had Asbestosis in 1998, they, at the time, had not associated it to the virulent cancer, which he had the last six months of his life. This ending for the residents of Libby is all too common to be coincidental. Asbestosis is the primary cause of death and it should show on all death certificates over the past 20 years instead of natural causes, as these are legal documents.

I was concerned that in the last couple of years that Congress would bail out W.R. Grace & Co. with a bill on Asbestosis. In case that happened, I made suggestions in hopes that some of the funding would, in the end, get to the victims nationally. Government Accounting Office (GAO) estimated that 75 percent of every legislated social dollar is used or destroyed as it goes through the bureaucracy. This is called administrative costs. Every government agency has a legal department dedicated to this effort. We should be happy that these bills did not pass.

A settlement from W.R. Grace & Co. will not cure Asbestosis nor will it add to the quality of time left. It will though, allow us a little dignity in leaving this earth with our bills paid and maybe help with children and grandchildren in their education. Remember, let your doctor and attorney know your concerns.

Edward L. Perley

Libby