Libby Doctor Lobbying Senate On Asbestos Bill

Libby doctor lobbying Senate on asbestos bill

by Mary Clare Jalonick, WASHINGTON

2nd February 2006

A Libby doctor is in Washington this week lobbying senators on legislation that would compensate Libby-area residents sickened by asbestos.

Dr. Brad Black, director of Libby's Center for Asbestos Related Disease, is lobbying members to improve upon a Montana provision in a larger asbestos bill expected to hit the Senate floor next week. That language, authored by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., would pay sickened Libby residents up to $1.1 million each for asbestos-related diseases.

About 200 deaths and many more cases of asbestos-related disease have been blamed on asbestos contamination associated with Libby's vermiculite mine, which was operated by W.R. Grace & Co. and closed in 1990.

Black, along with Baucus and Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, is pushing the bill's authors to include a certain test to determine which Libby residents would be eligible for the compensation. The test, called the diffusion capacity test, measures the lungs' efficiency to pass oxygen into the bloodstream and helps diagnose victims of tremolite asbestos disease, which is commonly found in Libby.

Language requiring the test was not included when the committee approved the bill last May, with some members arguing that it could make the bill too expensive.

Black argues that without the test, 40 percent of those otherwise eligible for compensation would not receive payment.

''We have to use the best measures we can to make sure people in Libby are adequately compensated,'' he said Thursday.

Baucus said Thursday that it will be a ''serious lift'' to get the test into the final bill.

''We are in a major fight over this provision,'' he added. ''That's why it's important Dr. Black is here to explain why the circumstances in Libby are unique and why those folks need this extra test.''

Burns, a Republican, has said he will not support the asbestos bill unless the diffusion capacity test is included.

Matt Mackowiak, spokesman for Burns, said that Black will provide important medical documentation showing the need for the tests at his meetings with senators and their staffs. The doctor scheduled meetings with Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn.