ilena

http://www.mlive.com/news/bctimes/in...8728189530.xml

Note from Ilena: Nope, this industrial holocaust isn't silicone breast
implants,

www.SiliconeHolocaust.org

... but yet another Industry cover up and debacle.

'Industrial Holocaust'


Thursday, March 4, 2004

By Jeff Kart
Times Writer


A windstorm knocked down a tree in Leo Van Hoof's yard during Memorial
Day weekend in 1998. Other big branches littered the property.


From Our Advertiser


After a day of cutting up wood with a chain saw, Van Hoof felt a pain


It was much worse. A storm brewing in his lungs for decades was
erupting. About eight months later, Van Hoof was dead from
mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the chest that is caused by
asbestos fibers.

Van Hoof's death, on Jan. 7, 1999, is just one of dozens in Bay County
that have been linked to asbestos, used in insulation decades ago at
such businesses as the former Defoe Shipbuilding Co. in Bay City,
where Van Hoof worked for two winters.

A new report being released today by the Environmental Working Group
in Washington, D.C., aims to shed light on what the group says is an
epidemic of asbestos-related illnesses and deaths in the United
States.

One attorney for victims and families has likened the asbestos deaths
to an "industrial holocaust."

The report, based on government mortality records and studies, shows
that as many as 67 people have died in Bay County from
asbestos-related diseases since 1979. The diseases include
mesothelioma and asbestosis, a emphysema-like condition of the lungs.

Bay County, the 18th most populous in Michigan with 110,157 residents,
ranks fifth in the state for asbestos-related deaths, behind much
larger counties in the metro Detroit and Grand Rapids areas. Saginaw
and Midland counties rank right below Bay County, with as many as 114
additional related deaths.

Since 1979, at least 1,140 people have died from asbestos in Michigan,
the report states; the state ranks 12th in the nation for the deaths.

Asbestos-related diseases are killing 10,000 people a year in the
United States, said Richard Wiles, the report's author and senior vice
president of the Environmental Working Group. The deaths appear to be
increasing, Wiles said.

"We took a look at this thing and nothing had prepared us for the
magnitude of the public health disaster we had found," he said.

Wiles said Congress is considering a national trust fund to compensate
asbestos victims. But he said it's underfunded and would terminate too
early. His group wants to see the legislation, Senate Bill 1125,
examined more closely.

Leo Van Hoof was a Munger farmer by trade, but spent his winters and
some summers as a carpenter, according to family members.

That included two stints at Defoe Shipbuilding Co., which constructed
battleships for the military during World War II and closed in 1976.

Bay County is high on the list of asbestos-related deaths because of
the city's shipbuilding history, said Linda Teeter, executive director
of Michigan Citizen Action, an independent lobbying group in
Kalamazoo. Defoe employed 4,000 workers in peak years.

"They were wrapping pipes all the time," Teeter said. "It was always
in the air. They also took it home, so women and children were exposed
to it. It was in their clothes, in the laundry and the air."

Thousands of victims across the country have sued manufacturers of
products that contained asbestos, including companies that supplied
products to Defoe Shipbuilding.

Thomas E. Defoe of Saginaw, whose father was president of Defoe
Shipbuilding, said the dangers weren't known at the time. Defoe, 61,
worked at the company from 1964 and stayed on through its closing.

He said the materials used were specified in government contracts;
some materials were even furnished by the government.

"This is what a lot of people weren't aware of," Defoe said. "A lot of
the things we did and a lot of the things we purchased we only had
certain people we could buy from. We were told what to use."

Thomas Defoe said he started working at the company when he was 10
years old, and hasn't had any symptoms of asbestos-related diseases.

He said he doesn't know of anyone else in his family who has, either.
But he does know of former Defoe workers who have died from being
exposed to asbestos fibers long ago.

"When it was really bad was during the war ... like in the '40s,"
Thomas Defoe said. "If you go back that far, there was no safety.
There were all kinds of things that went on back in those days."

Attorneys Michael Serling and Russell Beaudoen in Birmingham have been
working on asbestos-related cases for 30 years, and have represented
close to 500 people, not including the Van Hoofs.

Workers in numerous trade occupations were exposed to asbestos,
including pipe coverers who installed insulation around pipes in
factories, commercial buildings, schools and shopping centers, Serling
said.

Asbestos insulation was used up until the mid-1970s, but
asbestos-related diseases have a lag time of 15 to 40 years, the
attorneys said.

"Here's guys that built our country and now decades later are dying of
asbestos-related diseases," Serling said. "I call it an industrial
holocaust."

Asbestos was used in about 3,000 applications until it began to be
phased out in the 1970s. But it was never banned; it remains in the
attics of millions of American homes and is still used today in
products such as brake linings and roofing materials, exposing
mechanics and contractors, Wiles said.

"People will continue to be exposed to asbestos until we ban it and do
a much better job of getting rid of the asbestos that's out there,"
Wiles said.

At Defoe, workers sprayed the hulls of ships with fire-proofing that
contained asbestos, the attorneys said.

"Of all the exposure we encountered, nowhere did we come across
something more lethal than working with pure, raw amosite fiber
shipped in from Africa," Beaudoen said.

Leo Van Hoof worked two winters at Defoe, and also did construction
work on area homes, schools and businesses, his family said. He
stopped working outside the farm in 1962.

"He remembered cutting asbestos sheeting on a table saw without any
mask or anything," said his wife Pat Van Hoof, 70.

She said her husband went to a Bay City doctor after the pains in his
side didn't subside.

The doctor tapped his lung with a needle, sucking out a gallon of
fluid, Pat Van Hoof said.

The fluid was collecting in the lining of his lung, said his son, Tom
Van Hoof, 41.

At first, the doctor tapped the lung once a month, then more
frequently. A biopsy confirmed mesothelioma in July 1998, the family
said.

The doctors packed Leo Van Hoof's lung with powder to absorb the
fluid. He went through chemotherapy, but he slipped closer and closer
toward death.

Soon he was unable to walk, using a wheelchair and relying on oxygen
to breathe. Bumps popped up on his back and chest from small,
chicken-pox-size tumors inside his chest, family members said.

"It was very painful for him," Pat Van Hoof said. "It's a terrible
thing to see somebody go through when they're healthy."

The family doctor suggested the Van Hoofs contact an attorney, and the
family ended up suing numerous asbestos suppliers, as other victims
have done.

Pat and Tom Van Hoof said they've never added up the settlement
amounts, which included payments of $3,000 and $10,000.

"It's not an astounding amount," Pat Van Hoof said.

Tom Van Hoof said some lawsuits are still pending five years later.
Some companies filed for bankruptcy due to numerous claims, which has
delayed payments.

Pat Van Hoof said she washed her husband's asbestos-laden clothes for
years, but hasn't shown any symptoms, and neither have her four
children.

Asbestos cases against employers were limited to worker's
compensation, which is why suppliers are being sued.

- Jeff Kart covers the environment and politics for The Times. He can
be reached at 894-9639.