Libby's CARD clinic expands

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., will host a groundbreaking ceremony on March 31 for the renovation and expansion of the Center for Asbestos Related Disease, known as the CARD Clinic.

The ceremony, open to the public, begins at 1:30 p.m. at the clinic behind the current building at Third Street and Louisiana Avenue in Libby.

A reception will follow, with an opportunity to tour the clinic and view the new building plans.

The CARD Clinic is a nonprofit specialty medical and research facility governed by a volunteer community board. It is devoted to health care, outreach and research to benefit all people impacted by exposure to Libby asbestos.

Expansion is needed to handle both a burgeoning case load and expanding research components. The 3,072-square-foot addition will include new patient rooms, another pulmonary function testing laboratory, space for six-minute-walk breathing tests and dedicated space for research activities.

A federal appropriation will cover much of the cost of expansion.

For about 2,800 victims sickened by asbestos exposure from the former W.R. Grace & Co. vermiculite mine near Libby, the CARD clinic is a lifeline and the front line for treatment of asbestos disease.

The clinic continues to get 20 to 25 new patients a month, according to Dr. Brad Black, director of the clinic.

Blacks expects it will be 2025 to 2030 when new patients with asbestos-related disease stop coming through the door. That’s because roughly 80,000 people came and went in Libby from the time vermiculite ore first was shipped in the mid-1920s to the mine’s closure in 1990.

About two-thirds of those 80,000 potential victims are connected to Libby from 1950 and later, and that’s the target group for much of the research now under way.