SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - Researchers have embarked on an ambitious
study to track the health of thousands of high school graduates
over a half century in a Montana town where a toxic mine has
killed hundreds of people and made it the deadliest Superfund
site in the nation. People who attended Libby High between 1950
and 1999 and then moved away are being asked to submit to tests
to help determine the extent of contamination caused by asbestos
mining and processing in the northwestern Montana town.
Researchers will track down many of the 13,000-plus graduates
with the help of the school district and alumni groups, and then
ask them to undergo a battery of X-rays, CT scans and pulmonary
function tests. Dr. Stephen M. Levin of the Mount Sinai School
of Medicine in New York said the study is part of a larger range
of work trying to figure out why asbestos-related disease coming
out of Libby appears to be particularly fast-moving and
virulent. "This progresses much more rapidly than your
grandfather's asbestos-relate