Brownwood: Asbestos, Health, Politics & Morality
I would like to know what happens to the poor who have terminal conditions..do they get treated if they cant pay ?
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LEXI
Newbie
8 Posts
Posted - April 17 2005 : 16:43:17
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this questions is posted at: http://www.cityofbrownwood.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=333&FORUM_ID=34&CAT_ID=12&Forum_Title=Global%2FWorld+Economy&Topic_Title=Should+the+U%2ES%2E+Have+Universal+Health+Care%3F&whichpage=2&tmp=1
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Here's the answer to the question:
Brownwood Bulletin Page 5a Sunday, April 17, 2005
" Transplant fund open for Walker "
"Ron Walker, a resident of Brownwood for the past 12 years, is in urgent need of a lung transplant."
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"After he was diagnosed, the insurance company he had used for years suddenly dropped all health coverage in the state of Texas."
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"When his wife Judy, contacted the hospital, she was told that without insurance, he must have a minimum of $ 225,000 in an account before he could even be considered for a transplant. "
A fund has been set up for his transplant in the name of Judy Walker at TexasBank, 400 Fisk Ave. Brownwood, TX 76801. To help, call Pam Woodcock at 642.3537 or Mandy Sharp at 641.8671.
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Brownwood Asbestos....
ISSUES
ASBESTOS COMPANIES
...WHAT THEY KNEW AND WHEN
Internal industry documents show that the asbestos companies have known since the 1930's that asbestos is harmful. The documents prove that the industry concealed the hazardous nature of asbestos from the workers and the public for decades.
The Asbestos Bailout Bills, SB 15 and HB 8, shield these wrongdoers from accountability. Shouldn’t lawmakers be strengthening protections for the victims and their families instead of protecting companies that knowingly poisoned their workers?
Voices of the Asbestos Victims...
The Asbestos Companies: In Their Own Words...
At least 2,651 people have been killed by asbestos in Texas since 1979...
Over 680,000 Tons of asbestos-laden vermiculite shipped to Texas by W.R. Grace...
42% of Texans at risk of exposure...
PLANT EMPLOYEES AT RISK FOR ASBESTOS ILLNESSES
Report inconclusive on Grace operation's threat to neighborhood
By JIM GETZ, Dallas Morning News, October 5, 2005
They called it the giant cigar. Diane Smith and Linda Bates recall that the towering smokestack of W.R. Grace's Texas Vermiculite plant behind Thomas A. Edison Middle School spewed what they thought was ash, so the kids saw it as a stogie. "It was like glitter," Ms. Smith said of the particles the kids licked off the ice cream they bought at the Good Luck hamburger stand where Ms. Bates' mother worked. But a new report from a federal agency says the W.R. Grace facility produced something more ominous than glitter. Read More...
HONOR VETS
LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, July 14, 2005
Politicians in Washington love to talk about the greatest generation, but whether they truly honor those who defended this country in its darkest hour depends on actions, not words. The asbestos bailout bill before the United States Senate dishonors all asbestos victims, and especially Navy veterans from World War II on, including myself, since 1969...Read More...
Asbestos boss likely to breathe free
By RICK CASEY, Houston Chronicle, June 15, 2005
So what punishment did Houston businessman Eric Ho get for stealthily subjecting immigrant workers to potentially high levels of asbestos? If you missed Sunday's column, Ho bought the defunct Alief General Hospital in 1997 with the intention of converting it to housing. He was informed by the seller that it required as much as $400,000 worth of asbestos abatement. Read More...
Lege Briefs: Perry Signs Block on Asbestos Suits
WIRE REPORTS, San Antonio Express-News, May 20, 2005
HOUSTON — Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill into law Thursday that will make it more difficult to file asbestos-related lawsuits. Those who oppose the new law say it merely protects corporations that knowingly harmed thousands of Texans.Texas Watch, a consumer advocate group that has criticized the measure for failing to ensure asbestos victims will receive compensation, called the new law "special interest, insurance industry-backed asbestos legislation." Read More...
Senate passes bill on asbestos suits
Reform would let only those with serious illnesses seek compensation
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Houston Chronicle, April 27, 2005
AUSTIN - A flood of asbestos lawsuits in Texas' judicial system would become a trickle if a Senate bill that is meant to reform how those cases are treated is approved, supporters say. Read More...
Compromise seeks to tweak asbestos policy
By LOMI KRIEL, San Antonio Express-News, April 27, 2005
AUSTIN — Danny Martinez didn't think he was that out of shape. After all, he's worked under the South Texas sun on oil rigs all his life, lifting heavy pipes and tools. And in his mid-40s, he didn't think he was that old either. But sometimes he couldn't breathe, no matter how wide he opened his mouth and how deep he inhaled. Read More...
Feds investigate deadly ore shipped to Dallas
By LISA FALKENBERG, Associated Press, Dallas Morning News, April 23, 2005
After dark, the silver dust fell on Bedford Street like spilled glitter. It clung to window sills, the black habits of neighborhood nuns and, at least once, the bare arms of Concepcion Hernandez's sister. Hernandez, 79, remembers how her sister refused to wash it off, insisting on wearing it to a meeting with attorneys and city leaders as evidence that nearby factories, including a lead smelter and asbestos plant, were poisoning her neighborhood. Read More...
Asbestos compromise reached
Trial lawyers back anti-lawsuit measure
By W. Gardner Selby, Austin American-Statesman, April 23, 2005
Legislation limiting asbestos lawsuits gained sudden momentum Friday after business interests and trial lawyers endorsed a revised measure. Texas could be poised to restrict such lawsuits after the 2003 Legislature stalled on the issue. Read More...
ASBESTOS BILLS STRIP VICTIMS OF THEIR LEGAL RIGHTS [Waco]
Legislation lets polluters escape responsibility; Consumers call for stronger victim protections
April 20, 2005, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: ALEX WINSLOW (512) 381-1111 or (512) 699-6644
Read More...
Se debate iniciativa de daños por asbesto
El Senado revisa una propuesta para quitar responsabilidad a fabricantes de asbesto
By CRIS VILLARREAL NAVARRO, RUMBO, April 19, 2005
Harlingen — La organización Texas Watch (TW) pidió a sus 8,000 miembros en todo el estado que se movilicen para detener la aprobación de las iniciativas HB 8 y SB 15. Hoy miércoles, un comité del Senado estatal empezará la revisión de la iniciativa que liberaría a las compañías de seguros y a los fabricantes de asbesto de toda responsabilidad legal con los afectados de enfermedades mortales derivadas de la exposición al producto. Read More...
ASBESTOS BILLS STRIP VICTIMS OF THEIR LEGAL RIGHTS [Harlingen]
Legislation lets polluters escape responsibility; Consumers call for stronger victim protections
April 19, 2005, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: ALEX WINSLOW (512) 381-1111; Nick Smallwood (español)
Read More...
Fresh Heir?
By RACHEL STONE, Beaumont Enterprise, April 17, 2005
Any exertion, and Arrel Martin is finished. The 77-year-old can't walk half a city block without stopping to rest. He can't mow his own lawn, and picking up a few groceries is a marathon task that takes hours to complete. His lungs refuse to work for him and he feels like he's drowning, Martin said last week in a telephone interview from his home in Orange. Read More...
WINSLOW: DENYING ASBESTOS VICTIMS THEIR CHANCE TO GET JUSTICE
Commentary by N. ALEX WINSLOW, Austin American-Statesman, April 16, 2005
Asbestos is a deadly product that leads to progressive, incurable diseases, including cancer and slow suffocation. An unknown number of Texans were knowingly exposed to poisonous asbestos by polluters who are now trying to escape accountability. At the Texas Legislature, lawmakers are considering legislation that will further strip the legal rights of thousands of Texans suffering from devastating asbestos-related diseases. Read More...
Asbestos bill faulty
OPINION, Dallas Morning News, April 16, 2005
The Texas Legislature is considering legislation that will strip the legal rights of thousands suffering from devastating asbestos-related diseases. Deep in the bill is a provision that would throw out the claims of thousands of asbestos victims who have been waiting for their day in court. Read More...
Consumer advocacy group stomps against asbestos bills
By TRICIA CORTEZ, Laredo Morning Times, April 14, 2005
Two Republican-led bills in Austin could greatly affect who is eligible to file an asbestos claim in court. Lining up on one side of the aisle, in support of the bills, are major oil and gas corporations, refineries, chemical plants and groups who lobby on behalf of business interests. The other side is represented primarily by consumer advocacy groups and trial lawyers. Read More...
ASBESTOS BILLS STRIP VICTIMS OF THEIR LEGAL RIGHTS [Laredo]
Legislation lets polluters escape responsibility; Consumers call for stronger victim protections
April 13, 2005, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: ALEX WINSLOW (512) 381-1111; Nick Smallwood (español)
Read More...
Lawmakers weigh asbestos lawsuit
Measure requires more medical proof.
By W. GARDNER SELBY, Austin American-Statesman, April 12, 2005
Nearly two years after asbestos-related legislation faltered, despite Gov. Rick Perry slipping over a brass rail to try to save it, a Senate panel Monday opened debate afresh. Senate Bill 15 would require plaintiffs who claim they became sick from asbestos to present detailed medical evidence before filing a suit. Read More...
SENATE COMMITTEE CONSIDERS RADICAL ASBESTOS LEGISLATION
Victims, Consumer Group Urge Committee to Reject SB15
April 11, 2005, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: ALEX WINSLOW (512) 381-1111
Read More...
Lawmakers to ponder asbestos bills
By SCOTT E. WILLIAMS, Galveston County Daily News, April 11, 2005
A committee of state senators today begins discussing a bill that would place new limits on asbestos lawsuits. N. Alex Winslow, executive director of the nonprofit consumers’ group Texas Watch, said the new law would deny legal recourse to people afflicted with either cancer or asbestosis, a hardening of the lungs, from exposure to asbestos. Read More...
ASBESTOS BILLS STRIP VICTIMS OF THEIR LEGAL RIGHTS [Galveston]
Legislation lets polluters escape responsibility; Consumers call for stronger victim protections
April 7, 2005, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: ALEX WINSLOW (512) 381-1111
Read More...
Asbestos legislation being crafted to shut out victims
Lawmakers pledge fairness but real goal is voiding claims
Editorial by N. ALEX WINSLOW, Houston Chronicle, April 4, 2005
Asbestos is a deadly product that leads to progressive, incurable diseases, including cancer and slow suffocation. Countless Texans were knowingly exposed to poisonous asbestos by polluters that are now trying to escape accountability for their callous inaction. Read More...
Businessman aims to tighten litigation laws
Critics say the plan would offer special protections to insurance companies
By TIM EATON, Scripps Howard Austin Bureau, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, April 1, 2005
AUSTIN - A businessman from Corpus Christi visited the Capitol Thursday and pushed to tighten laws on asbestos litigation...But critics said it offers special protections to insurance companies. Read More...
Memorandum from Texas Watch to members of the Texas Legislature
on Asbestos Litigation (HB 8 & SB 15) - April 1, 2005
Gilmore demands W.R. Grace probes
By DARRYL R. ISHERWOOD, Trenton Times, March 22, 2005
HAMILTON - Mayor Glen Gilmore has called on state and federal law enforcement officials to hold W.R. Grace & Co. and its executives accountable for exposing workers to asbestos at the former Zonolite plant in the township. Read More...
Dreams exploited
By WILLIE J. SMITH, Trenton Times, March 20, 2005
The sinister side of the American dream for African-Americans fleeing the Old South in search of a better day in the mid-decades of the last century surfaced in recent days in reports by The Times on the former W.R. Grace/Zonolite facility in Hamilton. Read More...
ASBESTOS BILL STRIPS VICTIMS OF THEIR LEGAL RIGHTS [Austin]
Legislation allows polluters to escape accountability
March 16, 2005, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: ALEX WINSLOW (512) 381-1111
Read More...
Old ore factory draws attention from legislator
By ANTON CAPUTO, San Antonio Express-News, March 7, 2005
State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer wants state environmental regulators to investigate a site near downtown San Antonio that handled tons of asbestos-contaminated ore. The request was made by letter Feb. 24, shortly after a San Antonio Express-News report publicized the link between the defunct factory at 354 Blue Star St. and the recently indicted W.R. Grace Co. Read More...
Ban sought on 'wet' asbestos removal
By ANNA M. TINSLEY, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 3, 2005
State Rep. Marc Veasey wants to make sure a controversial proposed method of removing asbestos with water is never used in Texas. Use of the procedure -- created in Fort Worth and actually dubbed the "Fort Worth method" -- was proposed for years on the dilapidated east-side Cowtown Inn, until federal environmental officials said last year that they needed more tests. Read More...
Nothing frivolous about asbestos, Opinion 1
OPINION, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 21, 2005
Although several thousand Texans have died from diseases connected to asbestos exposure (either asbestosis or mesothelioma), Gov. Rick Perry says he wants to stop "frivolous asbestos lawsuits." Meanwhile, W.R. Grace & Co. and its top executives have been indicted in Montana on several criminal counts on accusations of exposing workers and residents in Libby, Mont., to asbestos while being aware that the exposure would be deadly to a significant number of those exposed. Read More...
Nothing frivolous about asbestos, Opinion 2
OPINION, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 21, 2005
Regarding an item in the Feb. 8 National Briefs, "Mine owners indicted on asbestos charges": Perhaps high-ranking employees of W.R. Grace & Co., which "categorically denies any criminal wrongdoing," should read the reams of data produced on the topic since the early 1900s. Read More...
The Cruel Saga of Asbestos Disease
COMMENTARY by PAUL BRODEUR, LA Times, February 18, 2005
The renowned epidemiologist Dr. Irving J. Selikoff was known to say that studying asbestos disease was like throwing a rock into a pond and seeing how far the ripples extended outward. In pioneering studies conducted in the 1960s, Selikoff demonstrated the horrific extent of asbestos lung disease in heavily exposed asbestos insulators. He then showed that asbestos disease was also striking less- exposed workers who toiled alongside the insulators in shipyards and on building construction sites. Read More...
Life and death matter
LETTER TO THE EDITOR, San Antonio Express-News, February 18, 2005
President Bush wants tort reform. In his State of the Union address, he referred to "frivolous asbestos claims" as an example for that need. However, the article "Feds accuse company of asbestos cover-up" (Feb. 8) stated that federal prosecutors charged W.R. Grace, a chemical company, with covering up asbestos dangers to employees and residents in a small Montana town from 1976 to 1990. Dust from the mining operations covered nearby baseball and football fields, and unknowing residents used contaminated mine materials in their gardens. Read More...
Factory handled tons of asbestos
By ANTON CAPUTO, San Antonio Express-News, February 17, 2005
A company charged with covering up the existence of deadly asbestos in ore it took from a Montana mine shipped hundreds of thousands of tons of the material to factories in Texas over three decades, including one near downtown San Antonio, according to newly released details of a federal investigation. Read More...
Proposals would limit asbestos lawsuits in Texas
By BRANDI GRISSOM, Associated Press, Dallas Morning-News, February 16, 2005
Charles Kramer's battle with terminal cancer has taken him to the state Capitol. With oxygen tank in tow, he's there this week to ask lawmakers to carefully consider proposed changes to Texas' legal system involving the asbestos litigation system. Read More...
New Analysis Shows Growing Number of Asbestos Related Deaths in Texas
Texas Legislature Set to Debate Limits on Asbestos Liability This Session
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Environmental Working Group, February 14, 2005
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 — At least 259 Texans died in 2002 from just two forms of asbestos disease, according to a new report on asbestos mortality by the Washington, DC-based Environmental Working Group (EWG) Action Fund. More than one third of the deaths in 2002 (103) were in just three metropolitan areas: Houston with 44, Beaumont with 34, and Dallas with 25. Read More...
A Slow Death In Texas: Asbestos Mortality on the Rise in the Lone Star State
By ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUP
Read More...
W.R. Grace Charged in Asbestos Exposure Cases
By Kathy Witkowsky, NPR: All Things Considered, February 8, 2005
W.R. Grace and seven of the company's officials face criminal charges, accused of knowingly exposing mine workers and residents of Libby, Mont., to asbestos and covering up their knowledge of the dangers. Read More...
W.R. Grace Indicted Over Mine's Asbestos
By BOB ANEZ, Associated Press Writer, February 8, 2005
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) - A federal indictment charges that W.R. Grace and Co. and seven of its executives knew a mine was releasing cancer-causing asbestos into the air and tried to hide the danger from workers and townspeople. Read More...
W.R. Grace indicted in Libby asbestos deaths
Mine company and seven executives face criminal charges
By ANDREW SCHNEIDER, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 8, 2005
MISSOULA, Mont. -- W.R. Grace & Co. and seven of its current or former executives have been indicted on federal charges that they knowingly put their workers and the public in danger through exposure to vermiculite ore contaminated with asbestos from the company's mine in Libby, Mont. Read More...
INDICTMENT: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA vs. W.R. GRACE
Read More...
The Politics ( because all politics is local ! )......
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