Libby doctor lobbies U.S.senators for asbestos bill

A Libby doctor on the front line of treating asbestos disease is in Washington, D.C., this week to lobby for full Libby asbestos-victim coverage in a landmark bill headed to the Senate floor Monday.

Dr. Brad Black, the director of the Center for Asbestos Related Disease in Libby, met Thursday with Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., Conrad Burns, R-Mont. and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to discuss getting the full Libby Fix put back into the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act.

Coburn was the senator who insisted the diffusion-capacity test be eliminated from the Libby Fix, and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and author of the asbestos bill, allowed the deletion a year ago, apparently to get the bill out of committee and to the floor for consideration by the full Senate.

Diffusion capacity is a measure of the lungs' efficiency at getting oxygen into the bloodstream. Because Libby victims were exposed to tremolite asbestos, which is much more toxic than chrysotile asbestos (the most common form of asbestos typically found in building materials), diffusion capacity is said to be a leading indicator of the severity of impairment in Libby victims.

"I'm in Washington, D.C., to represent the community and people who've been affected by the exposure to asbestos in Libby," Black said in a statement issued through Baucus' office. "(I want) to make sure people here understand the disease in Libby and some of the important concerns when dealing with people in Libby. And hopefully I'll serve the community well by making sure that the people that are affected are treated well."

Black, who has been treating asbestos patients in Libby for many years, has a full schedule of meetings today, arranged by Baucus, with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Baucus and Burns have vowed to get the diffusion-capacity test put back into the bill's special language for Libby asbestos patients.

"It wasn't easy getting the Libby Fix in the bill in the first place," Baucus said in a press release.

"Now we are trying to take it one step further, and we're all going to have to pull in the same direction. I'm hell-bent on getting the Libby Fix across the finish line - in its entirety."

If the diffusion-capacity test is eliminated from the bill, it disqualifies 40 percent of the Libby victims who otherwise would be eligible for immediate compensation.

The Libby Fix allows Libby claimants to be exempted from the exposure criteria in the bill; they just have to establish that they lived, worked or played within a 20-mile radius of Libby for any 12-month period prior to Dec. 31, 2004. Libby victims also would be exempted from the bill's medical criteria and instead would follow special criteria applicable only to Libby claimants. It gives each eligible Libby patient at least $400,000 in compensation.

Language in the bill requires a strong demonstration that asbestos is the cause of the lung disease. The claimant would need a "diagnosis of bilateral asbestos-related nonmalignant disease" through X-ray demonstration of pleural thickening, blunting, interstitial fibrosis and other indicators caused by exposure to asbestos.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.