There has been a long history of tension between the "business" community
and the "asbestos/public health/environmental" communities. This is caused, in part, by the unrelenting desire by business
to cut its financial losses generated through legal and reparative activities from the earlier mistakes it
made by embracing asbestos, the "magic mineral". This website will continue to put public health above the business-first,
monetary cost considerations and special interest lobbying propaganda because it is the host's professional
opinion that the cost in medical treatment, lost human productivity, loss of human relationships, lost property values,
death, loss of faith in government, and expenditures for the ultimate abatement of the hazards were never taken
into consideration by those who attempt to continue the myths and misinformation about asbestos hazards and their true costs.
The mass exodus of former asbestos product manufacturers to hide
behind the legal protection of the U.S. Bankrupcy laws simply highlights the moral and ethical bankrupcy of
those who were responsible or those who enable them to continue to avoid accepting their responsibilities to society.
It has been said repeatedly that the "asbestos litigation that has
swamped the U.S. Court system for decades is the largest crisis ever to hit U.S. jurisprudence". This is very simple
to understand. More people have been injured, made sick and died and more property has been devalued by the massive
and deceptive salesmanship and greed than for any other reasons since our country was created.
The U.S. Courts are the only place to redress these grievances and
the system was wholly unprepared for this kind of large-scale, anti-social event. The pro-business community continues
to try to "blame the victims" by supporting "pro-business" political candidates, campaigning for "tort reform" and
arbitrary caps on liability limits, or by even putting arbitrary time limits for the filing of new asbestos-related cases.
If these strategies should succeed, there will be no real value to our civil court system for anything in the future
when it comes to the foisting of new and unproven products or materials into the general commerce of the country. The
greater U.S. population will then formally become the test animals, the "guinea pigs", for demonstrating any health
or injury consequences from those products and little or no redress will be allowed after such unwelcome precedents are
established.
