How the anti-asbestos lobby manipulates public opinion

Eco-terrorism as a social phenomenon and a method of a competitive struggle did not appear yesterday. Playing on fears has always been an excellent means of manipulating public opinion, and the environmental topics have paved the way for all possible speculations. Therefore today we can make out commercial “ears” behind public actions of many organizations for environmental protection more and more often.

In our country a growing threat posed by pseudo-environmentalists has been already evaluated on the highest level. The Chairman of the Russian Government was the first to speak publicly about the things everybody knew but tried hard not to notice. When talking to journalists during his recent car tour around Russia, the head of the government said openly that the government regularly came across the manipulation with environmental issues in the competitive struggle. “Sometimes an environmental problem is used for political purposes, and the Nord Stream is the example”, Mr. Putin noted.

According to the Prime Minister, things got to direct blackmail. “We faced with a situation when they came and said: “Nothing personal. It’s business. You’ll have to pay. You’d better do it right away.” They even specified amounts”, the Prime Minister said.

It is important that the concern of the Chairman of the Russian government on this matter is not limited by frameworks of such megaprojects as the Nord Stream. Already in April 2009 activities of the international lobby were discussed in detail at the meeting of the Russian Prime Minister with trade union leaders. “We cannot and must not allow anybody to take advantage of difficulties to press on us even harder. I’m not talking about politics now. I mean, to restrain us in the competition in world markets”, - Vladimir Putin indicated the position of the authorities.

Actions of the international anti-asbestos lobby are, perhaps, one of the brightest examples of the effective work of pseudo-environmentalists serving the business. The starting point of our investigation was the sensational article “Asbestos Turnabout” published in the Wall Street Journal that revealed cases of fraudulent asbestos lawsuits in the USA. Billions of dollars are made on the imaginary asbestos problem. Due to the existing legal precedents money is virtually made out of thin air. A slight contact with asbestos is sufficient to have an opportunity to sue several companies. And even if a man smokes and suddenly develops lung cancer, then asbestos is to blame, not smoking. And if he can prove that he has been exposed to asbestos fibers, he can count on a considerable compensation.

According to the report of the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Legal Policy published in May 2008 the losses from asbestos lawsuits in the U.S. exceeded 70 billion dollars. At the same time, according to the Wall Street Journal, the race for excess asbestos profits resulted in several lawsuits for one and the same case.

How is Russia related to this story? The thing is that Russia is the largest producer and consumer of chrysotile asbestos. Behind the name that says nothing to the ordinary man there stands a strategic product, a mineral that is widely used in different spheres of human activities. It is used for the production of building materials, e.g. slate and water pipes, brakes, etc. Chrysotile asbestos is safe in case of its controlled use, and this has been proved by many reports of respected scientific institutions. Yet, until 1970s people in Western countries used an absolutely different, health-damaging mineral called amphibole that has a common commercial name “asbestos” with Russian chrysotile. These minerals are different in their structure and even look different; yet, the powerful industry of the international anti-asbestos lobby is now operating based on this confusion.

In the current epoch of the “free market” chrysotile is an “inconvenient” competitor for its many substitutes. Its cheapness, availability and durability are unequivocally in favor of chrysotile. However various public organizations strive for “closing” national markets to this product. This is the ecological terrorism. Behind the pseudo-environmentalists there stands a whole supranational industry of money-pumping. This international association of lawyers, politicians, and businessmen are headed by law firms that have built their empire on asbestos cases. Since 1970s this lobby have filed and won thousands of lawsuits, thus paralyzing whole industries.

The leader of the international trade union movement “For Chrysotile” Andrey Kholzakov states that the law firms have a direct link to public organizations advocating the chrysotile ban. According to him, the head of one of such firms finances the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) that promotes the anti-asbestos lobby from the “public position”. His sister, in her turn, manages the Secretariat. Thus, the link between the lobby and the “public” organization is obvious, Mr. Kholzakov says. Aside from the Secretariat, the expert continues, huge financial flows are also sent to political and commercial organizations under the guise of grants and sponsorship to doctors or of donations.

We should admit that the anti-asbestos lobby has already achieved “impressive” results in Europe. Ignoring scientific evidence of safety of the controlled use of chrysotile, governments of some European countries have banned the use of all types of asbestos on their territory.

Some people also try to do the same in Russia. At present there exist some nongovernmental organizations, public actions of which allow us to suggest their connection with the international anti-asbestos lobby.

In public documents of such organizations nothings indicates their affiliation with the Secretariat or other international organizations; yet, Western governmental and commercial structures, which interests must logically be far from the Russian boundaries, act as sponsors of some actions.

Nowadays backroom games of lobby structures are opposed to by a number of public organizations. And the most categorical position in relation to the lobbyists is that of the Trade Union of Russian Builders that already in 2007 proclaimed the opposition to the international anti-asbestos lobby as one of its priority goals. And for that very purpose the Alliance of trade unions of chrysotile asbestos miners and millers has been founded.

At the same time the goals of pseudo-environmentalists are quite transparent. “They need to adopt a public resolution about the harm of chrysotile by all means”, Mr. Kholzakov, the Chairman of the trade union of the Joint-Stock Company “Uralasbest”, the Head of the international trade union movement “For Chrysotile”, says. According to him, their activities come down to a narrow practical task, that is, development of the necessary document reflecting a “change” in the public opinion with respect to the use of chrysotile asbestos in Russia.

In 2011 yet the 5^th Conference of the Parties to the Rotterdam Convention will be held and the issue of including chrysotile in the list of dangerous substances is again in its agenda.

For many years the main obstacle here has been the firm position adopted by Russia and some other countries in support of chrysotile. The desired document might become an instrument of pressure on the position of the Russian delegation at the Conference.

The struggle of trade unions has continued for some years at all fronts of the information war. Thus, the trade unions were the first to reveal the links between the anti-asbestos lobby and the allegedly independent International Ban Asbestos Secretariat. The Chrysotile Association reported that in 2008 at the World Congress on Safety and Heath at Work in Seoul, Korea, organized by the International Labor Organization (ILO) its delegates presented with facts proving that activities of the Secretariat were sponsored by the Law Firm Kazan, McClain, Abrams, Lyons, Greenwood & Harley, PLC. The coordinator of the Secretariat Laurie Kazan-Allen personally admitted the fact of sponsorship of IBAS by companies of the anti-asbestos lobby.

In their time the Russian trade unions acted as a unifying force joining efforts of organizations from chrysotile-producing countries in a single international public force – the International Trade Union Movement “For Chrysotile” comprising trade unions of the chrysotile industry from Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, Colombia, Kazakhstan, and other countries.

International trade unions have stood in the way of the anti-asbestos lobby. Before that large-scale information campaigns had often failed to allow national governments to protect their industry and workplaces of hundreds of thousands of people employed by the industry. Nowadays the active trade union and international movement lets researchers and experts present results of independent expert examinations to the public.

The trade union movement actively opposed the ban in international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and led the WHO to the decision about a differentiated approach to regulating different types of asbestos fibers. This was fiercely counteracted by the anti-asbestos lobby that insisted on the review of this decision through affiliated officials. Quite often some WHO officials related to the lobby directly sabotage resolutions of their own organization by ignoring the decision about the differentiated approach to different types of asbestos made by the World Health Assembly. It should be noted that thanks to the trade unions such cases received wide publicity, thus saving the delegations from chrysotile-producing countries from undue pressure.

According to Andrey Kholzakov, today it is most important not to allow the lobbying structures to manipulate the public opinion. The scientific judgment on chrysotile is as follows: its controlled use poses no health risk. Risks for health of workers and population are present only if the established safety rules are broken, as is the case in the use of any other building materials. This is the official position of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. And nobody is going to review this assessment. No grounds.

Source: Rossiyskaya Gazeta

Uses in West not relevant to India

The health issues recorded in the Western countries in the past and which are being highlighted and debated by the anti-asbestos lobbies relate to extensive and uncontrolled usage of the Blue and Brown varieties of Asbestos fibre falling within the amphibole category.

Friable low-density asbestos insulation boards were also used as inner roof to provide better fire protection. These products consisted of asbestos upto 90% in loosely bound form. Such applications exposed workers to uncontrolled inhalation of loose asbestos dust in high concentrations which led to health related problems. Once the ill effects of such applications were documented, such usages were stopped in the western countries decades ago.

Those experiences in the West, do not apply to India, where warm climatic conditions never required such asbestos containing thermal insulation of buildings.

In India, we only use Chrysotile (white) asbestos fibre for the manufacture of asbestos-cement sheets and asbestos-cement pipes which contain a very small quantity of Chrysotile fibre (only 8 –10%). The other raw materials used are cement 45%, fly ash 30 –35% and wood pulp. The asbestos fibres are firmly locked-in or encapsulated within the cement matrix during manufacture so that fibres cannot be emitted into the atmosphere under normal use and thus, poses no health risk to the general public or environment. Several studies abroad have concluded that use of Chrysotile in the manufacture of Asbestos Cement Products under controlled conditions is safe for the workers, environment and the general public.

Source: http://acpma.com/uses-in-west.html

Mine Jeffrey Accepts Offer from Canadian-Led Investors

Guarantees Safety, Responsible Use and Jobs 

MONTREAL, Nov. 1, A Canadian-led consortium of international investors has made a successful offer to buy 100% of Quebec's privately held Mine Jeffrey Inc. All shareholders, including the workers' coop, have approved the offer. The parties hope to close the transaction by the end of the year and to resume work on the underground mining project. 

Mine Jeffrey's modern facilities have an excellent reputation for safety. The open pit operation has been in business for more than 130 years.

The consortium, which includes investors from India, will finance the completion of an underground mine project initiated several years ago. This will enable the company to produce approximately 225,000 tons of chrysotile fibre annually, while certifying safe and responsible practices from cradle to grave.   

The consortium has committed to provide a stable supply of its high-quality fibre—but only to large companies certified for safety and environmental responsibility. This will protect workers' health and safety, as well as strategic commodity requirements in Asia, the world's largest market for the product. 

This investment will secure 500 jobs in Quebec for the next 25 years, in a region that is currently economically depressed; it will also maintain Canadian control over an important commodity.  

According to Bernard Coulombe, President and Principal Shareholder of Mine Jeffrey, "The new investors will not be involved in the day-to-day running of the company, which will be entrusted to the existing management and workers."   

Michael Vineberg, senior partner at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg and legal advisor to the investor consortium, said that "Mine Jeffrey will remain under Canadian control. The controlling interest in the consortium will be held by Canadian investors. They are looking forward to working with Monsieur Coulombe and current management."  

Chrysotile fibre is currently used legally in Canada, the USA, and countries in South America and Asia.  

Chrysotile fibre is used in developing countries predominantly to manufacture affordable and sturdy roofing sheets and pipes. A small percentage of chrysotile fibre is mixed with cement, thus binding the fibre. None of the fibre produced at Mine Jeffrey is used in loose form, as was the case in legacy environments, and as may still happen among smaller companies that would not qualify as buyers of Jeffrey's product.

Chrysotile fibre was first discovered in Quebec in 1876. There are currently two producers in the province.  

Chrysotile fibre, previously known as asbestos, is classified as a hazardous product. However, like hundreds of other hazardous materials, it is used safely under controlled conditions around the world. 

Source: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/November2010/01/c7922.html

Why the West encountered problems with Asbestos

During the periods of ignorance  of health risks related to asbestos usage due to lack of direct evidence of asbestos-related-diseases (ARDs) and scientific studies and investigations, asbestos was used extensively in the Western countries for insulating large structures, public buildings and homes.  Asbestos fibres mixed with adhesives were sprayed in order to provide insulation and fire protection.  All this was done without any pollution control systems, resulting in excessive concentrations of airborne asbestos dust.  Inhalation in excess quantities of foreign matter could always result in respiratory problems and later worse illnesses.

Apart from uncontrolled dust levels, even the asbestos fibres used during those ignorant periods was a mix of  fibres which predominantly were Amphibole types known as Crocidolite (blue asbestos) and Amosites (brown asbestos), which were proven to cause mesothelioma cancer.

The above practices, applications and fibre types have since been discontinued - but in the Western countries, the consequences are still manifesting leading to negative campaigns and litigations.

But, in India  those spraying applications for insulation and fire rating were never prevalent.  

Moreover, the risky variety of asbestos (blue and brown types) having been banned all over the world,  India uses only the Chrysotile variety of asbestos which is allowed to be mined largely in Russia, Canada, China, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Zimbabwe in controlled conditions.

It is worth nothing that in India 95% of chrysotile asbestos is used in asbestos-cement roofing sheet and pipe manufacture.  In these products, the asbestos fibres are locked in the cement matrix and cannot get released or airborne.  And therefore, there is no risk to public in general.

Even at the ac  manufacturing stage, various engineering controls are in place to eliminate any asbestos fibres getting airborne.  Many studies by Government Agencies have shown that chrysotile asbestos can be safely used.

Judge Robreno: Cleaning up clogged asbestos MDL BY ARICKA FLOWERS

Serving in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a federal judge is making a name for himself for his swift handling of a huge asbestos docket. 

Judge Eduardo Robreno has resolved more than 500,000 claims in four months after ordering that each plaintiff state a specific claim against each company being sued.

Legal analysts say the order has made it difficult, if not impossible, for some plaintiffs to maintain their case. 

"Half a million claims is a mind-boggling number and I think that is to the judge's credit because he is cracking down on lawsuit abuse," said Bob Dorigo Jones, spokesman for the Foundation for Fair Civil Justice.

"He is finding that not only are the cases being settled, but they are being withdrawn by the plaintiffs' lawyers who know that they can't defend lawsuits they filed in the first place. That's justice working as it should be because one judge basically stood up and decided to enforce the law." 

Because asbestos is the longest-running mass tort litigation in the nation, some analysts say a dramatic overhaul was well overdue. According to one law professor, Robreno's order does that by that shifting the burden of proof to plaintiffs. 

"I cannot understand how it is that when the levels of asbestos exposure have gone sharply down, yet the number of cases has gone sharply up," said Richard Epstein, a University of Chicago distinguished professor of law. 

"If that's what the background norm is, than any judge who sets the presumption in favor of the plaintiff is setting it the wrong way. The information that you know at the global level is deeply suspicious of the claims and it ought to follow." 

Epstein said some of the cases "just don't sound right," given their background information. 

"And when Judge Robreno forces them to the evidence, most of them have just cut and run and abandoned the cases," he said. 

"My guess is that's because they don't have any proof." 

Asbestos reformer

Robreno joined the court in 1992 upon the nomination of President George H.W. Bush and the recommendation of Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA). 

He started his career in the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division in 1978 and was the first Cuban-American to be appointed a federal judge. Robreno oversees thousands of asbestos litigation pretrial proceedings from across the country appointed by the U.S. Judicial Panel of Multi District Litigation (MDL). 

Some legal experts say Robreno's approach to handling asbestos claims could give the judge a reputation as a reformer. 

"What Robreno is doing is a long overdue action to crack down on fraud in the system that has been costing taxpayers, job providers and consumers money for way too long," said Dorigo Jones. 

But not everyone is convinced that Robreno's actions are an attack on plaintiff claims. 

John E. Herrick, a lawyer with Motley Rice, LLC of Mt. Pleasant, S.C., who is also on the plaintiff's steering committee for the MDL, believes the judge's handling of claims is more of a clean up tactic as opposed to an attack on potential victims and their attorneys. 

"What the court has really been interested in doing is cleaning up its docket," Herrick said. "For so many years the MDL was just a place where cases went to die and both sides of litigation called it the black hole. Cases went in and were basically on a suspense docket where nothing ever happened."

Herrick said the cases often had been resolved as to all defendants, but never got dismissed because there wasn't anything going on to prompt their dismissal. 

"I think the purpose in the court doing this is to see how many cases are real and have plaintiffs that want to continue to pursue their claim," Herrick said.

Modeling Judge Jack

Judge Robreno's method of cleaning up the MDL's docket has spurred comparisons to the style of U.S. District Court Judge Janis Jack of Texas who handled silica mass tort litigation. 

In 2005, Jack ruled that thousands of claims in a silicosis tort docket were based on false medical diagnoses and, in her 250-page opinion, the former nurse went so far as to suggest that they were "manufactured for money." 

Jack's decision has spurred other judges to request that plaintiffs' attorneys hand over detailed reports on medical information on their client's claims. 

This sort of thorough evaluation of each claim has drawn parallels between Judges Jack and Robreno. But, as one law professor points out, it is important to understand how many plaintiffs are really reflected in the half a million cases that Robreno resolved in such a short amount of time. 

"Judge Robreno has dismissed 500,000 claims but you have to understand what that means," said Lester Brickman, law professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University in New York and expert on mass torts. 

"If you have a single plaintiff suing 20 companies, that's 20 claims. So the actual number of plaintiffs who were dismissed and added up to the 500,000 claims is probably about 40,000; not half a million." 

Brickman said the key to Robreno's cleanup strategy lies in his call for an Administrative Order Number 12, or AO12. This move essentially called for the severing of lawsuits; making it more difficult for some plaintiffs to go forward with their cases. 

"Judge Robreno called for an administrative order 12, which requires the plaintiffs to produce basic information about each of their claims or dismiss the case," said Brickman. 

He said that most of the 500,000 claims that have been settled by Robreno were dismissed because the lawyers could not comply with AO12. 

"When these claims were dismissed they were usually done by agreement between the plaintiff's lawyer and the defendant," he said. "So the word 'settlement' is misleading, the bottom line is these were dismissed because they could not comply with AO12." 

In addition to the AO12, Brickman believes there is one additional catalyst to the abandonment of thousands of claims. He said the need to protect the reputation of certain medical experts that commonly testify in asbestos cases often trumps the importance of an individual case; thereby adding to the steep drop in claims. 

"Rather than run the risk of affecting thousands of claims the physician may be linked to in bankruptcy trust, every time that the defendants challenge the reliability of the diagnosing doctor in a specific case, the plaintiffs' lawyers are automatically dismissing those cases," said Brickman. "So those are also part of the 500,000 that were dismissed. That is how this is playing out, no money is being exchanged." 

Clearing the deck 

Although legal experts may not agree on whether Robreno's strategy favors plaintiffs or defendants, the one thing all parties can agree on is how quickly it will clear the packed docket. 

"We really applaud the fact that Judge Robreno is doing something because that really hadn't gone on before," Herrick said. "He has a philosophy that every case ought to be moving towards resolution. To that end, he has gone to great lengths to basically make sure that every case in the MDL will be subject to a scheduling order by the end of the year." 

Once the remaining claims are scheduled, the courts will have a clearer picture on how many claims will be heard. But when it comes to determining how many asbestos claims in the docket are truly valid, Brickman said, that will take much more time. 

"Four to eight months from now, we will see how many cases complied with AO12 and had no effective challenge to the medical diagnosis," Brickman said.

"At that point, the defendants will look behind the curtain to see if the information supplied to meet the AO12 requirement is in fact valid. Right now, it's simply a matter of do you have the AO12 information or not; if not, go away. 

Brickman said that at some point defendants will look at the data in the claims and maybe challenge the validity of the information. 

"Judge Robreno is simply clearing the decks of cases that are insufficiently pleaded and making way for trials or settlements to take place," he said. "No matter how the remaining claims are resolved, Robreno is becoming known as reformer of sorts." 

Epstein said the asbestos tort issue is a "very serious problem" and a "threat" to American business.

But Robreno, he said, is trying to distinguish between good and bad claims.

"When you are looking at these types of mass tort cases, the first thing that often comes to mind is mass fraud," he said. 

"What makes it hard is that you don't want to get in a situation where the few legitimate claims under the current law are slumped in with the bad claims," Epstein said. 

"But if you have to figure out what you'd rather do, which is to either let a good claim go or let in a few thousand bad ones in, it has to be letting the good claim go. If you can find a way to distinguish between the claims, then that's what you do; and that's what this judge is trying to do."

Source: http://www.legalnewsline.com/news/222265-judge-robreno-cleaning-up-clogged-asbestos-mdl