W.R. Grace to asbestos victims: You're not sick

LIBBY - Roughly 700 of the 870 Libby area residents enrolled in W.R. Grace's medical plan got letters earlier this month saying they either don't have asbestos-related disease anymore or may not be as sick as they think they are.

The surprise letters came in two forms from Grace, the former owner of the vermiculite mine in Libby that exposed miners and the community to deadly asbestos.

One letter informed plan members that a review by medical experts indicated that they had no asbestos-related condition. The second letter acknowledged the presence of an asbestos-related "condition or illness." Each letter provided a synopsis of what benefits are available.

Benefits have been scaled back, including a reduction in the number of chest X-rays covered to one per year, according to Tanis Hernandez, outreach coordinator for the Center for Asbestos Related Disease.

The news from Grace prompted a groundswell of opposition and frustration from asbestos patients who have been receiving benefits but must now wait to see how the cutbacks will proceed.

"I've been cured by Grace. It's a miracle," asbestos victim Bob Stickney said tongue-in-cheek. "I don't know how they can say at first you have asbestos disease, and now you don't."

Stickney is among the many who may be left to pay for asbestos treatments out of their own pockets. He has insurance, but doesn't know if his asbestos disease would be covered, since it's a pre-existing condition.

Stickney's frustration is typical of the feelings sweeping through the Libby community, said LeRoy Thom, board vice chairman of the Center for Asbestos Related Disease.

Thom, who worked at the mine for 17 years and has asbestos disease, said he may not be affected because he got a letter acknowledging he has asbestos-related disease.

At a Community Advisory Group meeting in Libby last week, Thom called Grace's medical experts "prostitutes of industry" and pushed for the creation of a community-run medical trust fund for asbestos patients. Currently, Grace's plan is administered by HNA/Triveris.

"Grace has apparently waved their hand across Libby and said 'you're healed,'" Thom said. "It's a way for Grace to lessen the burden on their health-care plan as it relates to their bankruptcy. If they show less disease, it lessens their liability."

Grace's medical experts continue to use guidelines developed for people exposed to chrysotile asbestos, which differs significantly from the amphibole asbestos found alongside the vermiculite formerly mined near Libby, said Alan Whitehouse, a doctor at the CARD clinic.

Amphibole asbestos affects the lungs differently, Whitehouse said. Most Libby asbestos patients suffer from pleural disease, which can progress rapidly and have major health impacts as the plaque encompasses the lung "like an orange rind" and restricts breathing, he said.

Grace's experts make their decisions based on X-rays alone, which don't tell the whole story, Whitehouse said. He called the letters telling patients they don't have asbestosis "nonsense."

"That's an attempt to minimize what you have," he said.

The distinction serves only as a tool to avoid paying benefits, Whitehouse said.

"The insurance company in this situation is using that to manipulate the situation and say you don't have much wrong with you," he said.

Thom suggested a community trust could be placed under the auspices of the Asbestos-Related Health Care Project, which oversees the Libby Asbestos Medical Plan.

That plan was funded by a $2.75 million court settlement between Grace and the Environmental Protection Agency over access to former mining and processing sites in the Libby area. The money was earmarked to help pay for health-care needs not covered by the Grace medical plan. Over the past three years, the Libby Asbestos Medical Plan has paid out more than $330,000 in benefits, but the fund is limited and benefits are capped at $25,000, Thom said.

The Community Advisory Group wrote a letter to Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., urging him to use his political clout to find $50 million in seed money for a community trust fund. The group estimates $250 million will be ultimately needed to handle all of the medical needs of asbestos victims.

The CARD clinic filed a complaint with the medical board of HNA/Triveris.