When did the Armley asbestos disaster first begin?
Armley asbestos disaster
The contamination was the result of the activities of a local asbestos factory, part of the Turner & Newall (T&N) group (often referred to by the name of its founders, J. W. Roberts Ltd.) and occurred between the end of the 19th century and 1959 when the factory eventually closed. At its peak the factory had 250 employees. At least 300 former employees are believed to have died from asbestos-related illnesses, and a number of cancer deaths in the Armley area were traced to the factory in 1988 as a result of an investigation by the "Yorkshire Evening Post". The estate was found to have the highest incidence in the country of mesothelioma. As the interval between exposure and diagnosis can be up to 50 years the number of further deaths which may occur due to the factory's emissions or residual dust since its closure cannot be predicted.
Asbestos and the law (United States)
On June 14, 2006, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amendment to the act which would have allowed victims of mesothelioma $1.1M within 30 days of their claim's approval. This version would have also expanded eligible claimants to people exposed to asbestos from the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, and to construction debris in hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Ultimately, the bill's reliance on funding from private entities large and small, as well as debate over a sunset provision and the impact on the U.S. budgetary process caused the bill to fail to leave committee. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has no general ban on the use of asbestos. However, asbestos was one of the first hazardous air pollutants regulated under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act of 1970, and many applications have been forbidden by the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
Asbestos
The large scale asbestos industry began in the mid-19th century. Early attempts at producing asbestos paper and cloth in Italy began in the 1850s, but were unsuccessful in creating a market for such products. Canadian samples of asbestos were displayed in London in 1862, and the first companies were formed in England and Scotland to exploit this resource. Asbestos was first used in the manufacture of yarn, and German industrialist Louis Wertheim adopted this process in his factories in Germany.
Armley asbestos disaster
Rachel Reeves, elected as MP for Leeds West in May 2010, raised the issue of justice for the victims of the asbestos disaster and their families in a series of questions in Parliament. In her maiden speech she said: "There is a real concern that the coalition will use the country's financial deficit as an excuse to unfairly target working people, particularly those who have been left dealing with the devastating effects of exposure to asbestos. With the backing of trade unions and support groups a huge amount of effort has gone into making sure that the voices of asbestos victims and their families are heard by Government and as a result a number of important assurances were made to them at the end of the last Parliament. It's vital those commitments are not reneged upon to the detriment of thousands of asbestos victims across the country."
Mesothelioma
Many building materials used in both public and domestic premises prior to the banning of asbestos may contain asbestos. Those performing renovation works or DIY activities may expose themselves to asbestos dust. In the UK, use of chrysotile asbestos was banned at the end of 1999. Brown and blue asbestos were banned in the UK around 1985. Buildings built or renovated prior to these dates may contain asbestos materials.
Mesothelioma
The first lawsuit against asbestos manufacturers was brought in 1929. The parties settled that lawsuit, and as part of the agreement, the attorneys agreed not to pursue further cases. In 1960, an article published by Wagner et al. was seminal in establishing mesothelioma as a disease arising from exposure to asbestos. The article referred to over 30 case studies of people who had suffered from mesothelioma in South Africa. Some exposures were transient and some were mine workers. Before the use of advanced microscopy techniques, malignant mesothelioma was often diagnosed as a variant form of lung cancer. In 1962, McNulty reported the first diagnosed case of malignant mesothelioma in an Australian asbestos worker. The worker had worked in the mill at the asbestos mine in Wittenoom from 1948 to 1950.
Health impact of asbestos
The first known U.S. workers' compensation claim for asbestos disease was in 1927. In 1930, the first reported autopsy of an asbestosis sufferer was conducted in the United States and later presented by a doctor at the Mayo Clinic, although in this case the exposure involved mining activities somewhere in South America.
Armley asbestos disaster
During the 1970s the incidence of mesothelioma in former workers at the factory began to rise, but cases were also being found in people who had never worked for T&N, although they had lived in the vicinity of Midland Works or had relatives who were former employees. In 1987 Richard Taylor, a journalist with the "Yorkshire Evening Post", began checking through the coroner's court reports, examining death certificates and interviewing relatives and neighbours of the deceased. As a result, Taylor was able to demonstrate a pattern "of an incredibly high incidence of mesothelioma deaths in Armley around the Roberts factory." Philip Sanderson Gill, the coroner, agreed with the findings, and said: "It was only as a trend over a number of years that a more precise picture appeared. I have very few other cases from other areas of Leeds. It is significant that virtually all the cases we have come from that area." The "Yorkshire Evening Post" produced a series of articles about the ongoing contamination and disease, which they dubbed the "Armley Asbestos Tragedy".
Armley asbestos disaster
In 1974, after reviewing company documents about Midland Works, a T&N public relations officer wrote: "I hope very much indeed that we are never called upon to discuss Armley in the public arena." In 1978, however, Leeds City Council informed T&N that the factory was still "badly contaminated" with asbestos, with dust found in the basement, lift shaft, roof, ventilation shafts and beneath the floors. Hessian sacks containing asbestos fibre were still present, and the yard was filled with 'a few hundred tonnes' of blue asbestos waste mixed with soil. R. D. Lunt, T&N's Safety and Environment manager, wrote of the factory basement: "Every nook and cranny has asbestos fibre in it". T&N contributed £15,000 towards the clean-up of the factory, and claimed they were doing so out of "a moral, not a legal responsibility" to do so. The surrounding houses and buildings were not included in this operation, and Leeds City Council and T&N "agreed to keep the whole matter 'low-key' if approached by the media", while a T&N internal memo stated "The Principal Inspector of Factories and the Assistant Director of Environmental Health are anxious to play this down and have given us considerable support."
Gramercy Park asbestos steam explosion
Workers from Con Ed, the major utility company at the time, were repairing a high pressure steam pipe in front of the building when a connecting sleeve burst, releasing hot steam and debris upwards. Laboratory testing afterwards determined that the insulating material contained asbestos, which subsequently led to a large-scale evacuation and cleanup. The release from the explosion, in front of 32 Gramercy Park at the corner of 20th Street and Third Avenue, continued for several hours with debris reaching 18 stories. The pipe was covered with asbestos magnesia block insulation which was pulverized and dispersed with the rising steam cloud.
Health impact of asbestos
Widespread recognition of the occupational risks of asbestos in Britain was reported in 1924 by a Dr. Cooke, a pathologist, who introduced a case description of a 33-year-old female asbestos worker, Nellie Kershaw, with the following: "Medical men in areas where asbestos is manufactured have long suspected the dust to be the cause of chronic bronchitis and fibrosis ..." Dr. Cooke then went on to report on a case in 1927 involving a 33-year-old male worker who was the only survivor out of ten workers in an asbestos carding room. In the report he named the disease "asbestosis".
Armley asbestos disaster
Walley (2003) stressed the importance of the role played by the "Yorkshire Evening Post" and the local MP, John Battle in sustaining interest in the Armley story for several years, from the discovery of the associated deaths, largely the work of Taylor at the "Post", up until the case finally reached court. Without downplaying the later efforts of such organisations, Walley believed it noteworthy that the "Post" was championing the cause "significantly before the emergence of any residents organisation" and sees their persistence as evidence that "behind the front page headlines there was at work a 'civic conscience' committed to the revelation and exposure of something very significant to the city as a whole," rather than a superficial, immediate coverage focusing predominantly on "the spectacular effects of eco-disasters." Between 1988 and 1992, he says, "the development of the issues of the tragedy seem almost an elite affair between local journalists and the local M.P." and dealt with the "reality... which may be intrinsically long term and whose complexity goes considerably beyond the human interest aspects of the spectacular."
Spodden Valley asbestos controversy
The manufacture of asbestos products began on the site in 1879, and by 1970 the factory had an annual output of 2,250,000 yards of asbestos cloth and of asbestos yarn. The dangerous nature of asbestos fibres had first been suspected in 1898, when Factory Inspector Lucy Deane reported: "The evil effects of asbestos dust have also instigated a microscopic examination of the mineral dust by HM Medical Inspector [Thomas Legge]. Clearly revealed was the sharp glass-like jagged nature of the particles, and where they are allowed to rise and to remain suspended in the air of the room in any quantity, the effects have been found to be injurious as might have been expected." In 1924 a 33-year-old Turner's employee, Nellie Kershaw, became the first officially recognised victim of asbestosis but the firm refused to accept responsibility for her death, saying it would "create a precedent". Her family received no compensation, and she was buried in a pauper's grave in Rochdale.
Vic Berry
In the early hours of Sunday 10 March 1991, a serious fire broke out in the scrapyard which took firefighters several hours to bring under control, by which time serious damage had been caused. The cause of the fire, which led to widespread distribution of airborne asbestos across the city, has never been determined. As a result of the fire and after months of difficulties, the Vic Berry Company ceased trading in June 1991, the final straw being the failure to reach a deal with its landlord, British Rail, for the decontamination of 170 grounded bodies in the Western Boulevard which contained asbestos. The company owed creditors a reported £4 million. On 7 June, British Rail gave Vic Berry five days to begin clearing the site or it would bring in a contractor to do so. Vic Berry began to trade under his own name from 11 June 1991, employing around a dozen of his former staff, and began to clear the site on 14 June. The closed site was nevertheless left significantly contaminated from the disposal process.
Asbestos and the law
A federal grand jury indicted W. R. Grace and Company and seven top executives on February 5, 2005, for its operations of a vermiculite mine in Libby, Montana. The indictment accused Grace of wire fraud, knowing endangerment of residents by concealing air monitoring results, obstruction of justice by interfering with an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) investigation, violation of the Clean Air Act, providing asbestos materials to schools and local residents, and conspiracy to release asbestos and cover up health problems from asbestos contamination. The Department of Justice said 1,200 residents had developed asbestos-related diseases and some had died, and there could be many more injuries and deaths.
Armley asbestos disaster
The appeal was dismissed on 2 April 1996, and permission to appeal to the House of Lords was refused. Lord Justice Russell rejected T&N's claim that they could not have known of the dangers before 1933 and said: "The true date was much earlier, certainly long before Mr Margereson's birth date [1925]. His activities as a child, therefore, as well as Mrs Hancock's, were at a time when the defendants were on actual or constructive notice as to the potential pulmonary damage that exposure to asbestos dust could bring about."
Ashton-under-Lyne
A poor supply of fresh water and dwellings without adequate drainage led to a cholera outbreak in the town in 1832. The Ashton Poor Law Union was established in 1837 and covered most of what is now Tameside. A new workhouse was built in 1850 which provided housing for 500 people. It later became part of Tameside General Hospital. Construction on the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway (SA&MR) began in 1837 to provide passenger transport between Manchester and Sheffield. Although a nine-arch viaduct in Ashton collapsed in April 1845, the line was fully opened on 22 December 1845. The SA&MR was amalgamated with the Sheffield and Lincolnshire Junction Railway, the Great Grimsby & Sheffield Railway, and the Grimsby Docks Company in 1847 to form the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR). In 1890, the MS&LR bought the Old Hall and demolished it to make way for the construction of new sidings.
In the late 19th century, public buildings such as the market hall, town hall, public library and public baths were built. A donation from Hugh Mason funded the construction of the baths constructed in 1870–1871. The Ashton-under-Lyne Improvement Act was passed in 1886 which gave the borough influence over housing and allowed the imposition of minimum standards such as drainage. Coal mining was not as important to the town as the textile industry, but in 1882 the Ashton Moss Colliery had the deepest mine shaft in the world at . Ashton's textile industry remained constant between 1865 and the 1920s. Although some mills closed or merged, the number of spindles in use increased. With the collapse of the overseas market in the 1920s, the town's cotton industry went into decline, and by the 1930s most of the firms and mills in the area had closed.
Ivy City
A serious environmental issue occurred in Ivy City in 1999. In March, the city accused Hartford Knox Street Associates, owner of six apartment buildings in Southeast D.C., of illegally dumping 110 bags filled with asbestos-laden insulation in an alley in Ivy City. District of Columbia Department of Public Health officials said the company had removed the insulation without proper safety procedures from its buildings, and then dumped them in an area where residents could come into contact with the cancer-causing asbestos.
Levy Konigsberg
The firm's asbestos litigation involvement traces back to Levy's role in the litigation during the 1980s and early 1990s. Levy was one of the attorneys, cited by the New York Times, as representing workers at the Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut in cases brought to trial beginning in 1982. In 1986, when Johns-Manville was completing its bankruptcy reorganization, Levy, who was head of the committee representing asbestos victims, was chosen to serve on the Board of Directors for the company while it emerged from bankruptcy.
Mesothelioma
The first lawsuits against asbestos manufacturers were in 1929. Since then, many lawsuits have been filed against asbestos manufacturers and employers, for neglecting to implement safety measures after the links between asbestos, asbestosis, and mesothelioma became known (some reports seem to place this as early as 1898). The liability resulting from the sheer number of lawsuits and people affected has reached billions of dollars. The amounts and method of allocating compensation have been the source of many court cases, reaching up to the United States Supreme Court, and government attempts at resolution of existing and future cases. However, to date, the US Congress has not stepped in and there are no federal laws governing asbestos compensation.
In 2013, the "Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency (FACT) Act of 2013" passed the US House of representatives and was sent to the US Senate, where it was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. As the Senate did not vote on it before the end of the 113th Congress, it died in committee. It was revived in the 114th Congress, where it has not yet been brought before the House for a vote.
Wansbeck (UK Parliament constituency)
Alfred Robens represented the area in the Attlee ministry and towards the end of the year of Attlee's more marginal victory (1950–51) served as Minister of Labour and National Service. He then in 1951 won instead the newly created Blyth seat to the immediate south. In 1955 he became Shadow Foreign Secretary until an unimpressive performance in predicting and reacting to events in the Suez Crisis in 1956. However, in a position which would span the period 1961 until 1971, he became Chairman of the National Coal Board (and Lord Robens) and oversaw substantial cuts in the mining industry. During this period he co-authored the "Robens Report" that followed his difficult but practical risk management of the coal mining sector, including accepting some culpability in the Aberfan Disaster. This led, with the ministry of Barbara Castle's adjustments, to the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 which set up the Health and Safety Executive and remains the foundation of this area of English law.
Wittenoom, Western Australia
The Australian Blue Asbestos Company employed 6,500 men and 500 women in the mining and milling of crocidolite at Wittenoom between 1943 and 1966. This cohort has been traced periodically for vital status and cause of death since 1975. By 1986 there were 85 deaths from pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma. None occurred within ten years of first exposure to crocidolite. A survey of dustiness in the industry conducted in 1966 has provided a basis for estimates of cumulative crocidolite exposure of the members of the cohort. Exposure-response relationships have been examined. Mesothelioma incidence rates increase exponentially with time since first exposure and also increase with intensity of exposure to crocidolite. Mathematical modelling of the relationship between mesothelioma incidence and intensity of exposure, duration of exposure and time since first exposure results in an estimate of up to 700 cases of mesothelioma in this cohort by the year 2020.
Spodden Valley asbestos controversy
The Spodden Valley asbestos controversy arose in May 2004 when approximately of land in Spodden Valley in Rochdale, England, formerly used by Turner Brothers Asbestos Company (later known as Turner & Newall), and the site of the world's largest asbestos textile factory, was sold to MMC Estates, a property developer. The developer subsequently submitted a planning application to Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council in December 2004 to build an "urban village" consisting of 650 homes, a children's daycare centre and a business park on the site. The planning application summary claimed: "of particular note is the absence of any asbestos contamination". However, asbestos containing materials were abundantly visible on the ground, and local residents claimed that there were numerous asbestos dumping sites across the area, and that the woodland there had been heavily contaminated with asbestos dust. Site clearance work had begun as early as May 2004, prior to the submission of the application, including tree felling and soil disturbance, and some waste had been removed on flatbed trailers and open trucks. In September 2005 MMC admitted that the woods were significantly contaminated with asbestos.
Armley
Armley Mills, now the Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mills, was the world's largest woollen mill when it was built in 1788. In the 18th and 19th centuries Armley was, through its mills, a major contributor to the economy of the city of Leeds. Many of the buildings standing in and around Armley were built in the 1800s, including many of the churches, schools, shops and houses. Ledgard Way is named after the entrepreneur Samuel Ledgard. Armley also has picturesque views over the rest of Leeds from certain vantage points. William Tetley started his business of malters in Armley in the 1740s. His grandson Joshua Tetley founded Tetley's Brewery in Hunslet in 1822.
Armley
Damage caused by a raid in the Leeds Blitz in March 1941 and later slum clearance schemes brought about the redevelopment of much of Armley in a programme beginning in the 1950s and finishing in the early 1970s.
Armley asbestos disaster
The Armley asbestos disaster is an ongoing health issue originating in Armley, a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Described by Dr. Geoffrey Tweedale as a "social disaster", it involved the contamination with asbestos dust of an area consisting of around 1,000 houses in the Armley Lodge area of the city.
Armley asbestos disaster
T&N had conceded before the trial that Hancock's and Margereson's illnesses were caused by asbestos from the factory, but any compensation depended on proving that the company knew or should have known the dangers the dust could cause. Three months after the hearing ended Mr. Justice Holland handed down a written judgment, finding for the plaintiffs, and awarded damages of £65,000 to June Hancock and £50,000 to Evelyn Margereson. The judge ruled that the defendant was liable on the grounds that the risks of asbestos dust exposure had been known by the defendant since 1933 and it was foreseeable that children allowed to play in the vicinity of the factory would be exposed to the risk of pulmonary disease. This was a landmark decision, extending as it did the duty of care beyond factory employees to those outside a factory's walls.
Bernie Banton
Banton also has a foundation named in his honour. The Bernie Banton Foundation is an Australian not-for-profit organisation devoted to asbestos awareness, asbestos education and advocacy on behalf of asbestos victims. The foundation "aims to make a difference by helping to alleviate exposure to asbestos, in the hope of eventual eradication of asbestos related disease." The foundation was launched by the Prime Minister, The Hon Kevin Rudd, on September 11, 2009 at Sydney's Concord Repatriation General Hospital.
Johns Manville
Starting as early as 1929, Johns Manville employees began claiming disability from lung diseases. The claims settled out of court with secrecy order. In 1943, Samac Laboratory in New York confirms the link between asbestos and cancer. John Manville suppresses the report. From approximately 1930-1950, attorney Vandiver Brown handled involvement in such lawsuits.
Asbestos and the law
On February 20, 1973 a federal grand jury in Detroit, Michigan indicted Adamo Wrecking Company ("Adamo") for violating provisions of the Clean Air Act by knowingly causing the emission of asbestos by failure to wet and remove friable asbestos materials from demolitions.
Armley asbestos disaster
The bank's Vice President Michael O'Connor, himself a senior lawyer, recognised the value of the documents, which dated back as far as the 1920s, and, as no protective order had been placed on them which would have prevented their disclosure to third parties, "began sending large bundles of key T&N documents to the media, lawyers, doctors, victims' support groups and historians." As well as forming the basis for two BBC documentaries, "Deadly Legacy" (broadcast 14 April 1993) and "An Acceptable Level of Death" (14 April 1994) and two BBC Radio 4 programmes, "The Shocking Story of Asbestos" (6 October 1993) and "Asbestos and the Third World" (13 October 1993), the documents provided crucial information to lawyers in the U.K. who had previously been told that such information was no longer kept, and also revealed how early the company had known about the real risks of asbestos. Other documents included a 1964 T&N memorandum describing the growing public awareness that asbestos caused cancer as a "sinister development" and a document about new safety regulations which said: "If, however, we demonstrate by a token effort only an ostensible intention to comply with the regulations, it is conceivable that we can ward off the evil day when asbestos cannot be economically applied."
Armley asbestos disaster
Midland Works emitted vast quantities of asbestos dust, primarily through its ventilation system, which covered the nearby streets and rooftops of surrounding houses. One resident told of how his wife "used to wipe the greyish white dust off the window sills of their home at 9.30 am, and that an hour later, if the machines at Roberts were blowing out dust, there would be another layer of dust half an inch thick."
Armley asbestos disaster
In subsequent legal hearings, residents testified how: "If you walked right behind the factory it was like cotton. It was in the cracks in the pavement behind the factory;" and: "It used to be blue-white. We used to sweep this blue dust up. It was blue fluffy stuff ... I used to get up in the morning and the other side of the street always had a layer of fine dust with footmarks on it from the early morning workers." Of the conditions in the nearby school one said: "The dust was always there while I was at school, lying on walls or window ledges if it had been damp. It was like snow fall." Describing the loading bay, to which local children had easy access, one witness recalled: "Sometimes sacks were left out overnight. They were hessian sacks and they were full of a sort of fluffy dust. We could jump on the sacks when they were left out... I remember seeing grey-blue coloured dust come out of them. If we jumped hard enough the sacks burst open. After sitting or bouncing on the sacks I remember being covered in dust." During the summer doors and windows of both the factory and the houses were left open for cooling, and during the winter children often congregated around the factory's street-level ventilation outlets for warmth.
Health impact of asbestos
North-west of Nelson, in the Upper Takaka Valley is New Zealand's only commercially harvested asbestos mine. A low-grade Chrysotile was mined here from 1908 to 1917 but only 100 tons was washed and taken out by packhorse. A new power scheme enabled work to renew and between 1940 and 1949, 40 tons a month was mined by the Hume Company. This continued to 1964, when, due to the short length of its fibre, the limited commercial viability forced mining to cease.
Armley asbestos disaster
In 1998, with 263,000 claims for injury pending, T&N was bought by Federal-Mogul, a multinational auto-parts conglomerate based in Southfield, Michigan, USA. On 1 October 2001, after lobbying efforts for a bailout failed, Federal-Mogul filed for Chapter 11 protection to shield the company from asbestos litigation. This allowed them to "ringfence" their assets and continue trading while not having to meet the asbestos-related claims. At the time, the company's turnover was approximately $6 billion, and its UK group of companies had a turnover of approximately £400 million. Compensation cheques to victims who had won their claims were dishonoured, outstanding court cases placed on hold and an embargo put in place preventing new actions from being launched. Federal-Mogul's chairman Frank Macher, claimed that despite the insolvency: "Federal-Mogul will continue to serve its existing customers, fulfill current contracts and secure new business... Federal-Mogul is continuing business operations without interruption and with the full support of our major customers."
Federal-Mogul
In 1998, the company acquired the Automotive Products division of Cooper Industries, with brands including Anco wiper blades, Champion ignition, MOOG chassis, and Wagner and Blazer lighting. It also acquired Cooper's Abex Friction products business, which included asbestos-containing products. That same year, Federal-Mogul acquired Turner & Newall, a building materials company based in Manchester, UK. Turner & Newall was one of the world's largest manufacturers of asbestos-related products, including those made with blue crocidolite asbestos mined in South Africa. Turner & Newall was responsible for the Armley asbestos disaster in Leeds, UK. After the acquisition, Federal-Mogul set aside approximately $2.1 billion to cover asbestos-related claims but that amount provide insufficient. The large number of products liability claims that came with the Turner & Newall acquisition were largely responsible for Federal-Mogul's federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in 2002.
Bromley Hall
The Hall suffered bomb damage during World War II. It was purchased from the Crown estate by Alfred Tyler, who carried out reconstruction, donating the rare panelwork to the V&A Museum. It also contained a fine example of a Queen Anne staircase. The Hall was used as both a residence and office for Tylers (London) Ltd and was sold in the late 1990s when it became a carpet warehouse. Bromley Hall fell into disrepair and was placed on the Buildings At Risk register by English Heritage.
Asbestos
In 2000, tests in a certified asbestos-testing laboratory found the tremolite form of amphibole asbestos used to be found in three out of eight popular brands of children's crayons that were made partly from talc: Crayola, Prang, and RoseArt. In Crayola crayons, the tests found asbestos levels around 0.05% in "Carnation Pink" and 2.86% in "Orchid"; in Prang crayons, the range was from 0.3% in "Periwinkle" to 0.54% in "Yellow"; in Rose Art crayons, it was from 0.03% in "Brown" to 1.20% in "Orange". Overall, 32 different types of crayons from these brands used to contain more than trace amounts of asbestos, and eight others contained trace amounts. The Art and Creative Materials Institute, a trade association which tested the safety of crayons on behalf of the makers, initially insisted the test results must have been incorrect, although they later said they do not test for asbestos. In May 2000, Crayola said tests by Richard Lee, a materials analyst whose testimony on behalf of the asbestos industry has been accepted in lawsuits over 250 times, found its crayons tested negative for asbestos. In spite of that, in June 2000 Binney & Smith, the maker of Crayola, and the other makers agreed to stop using talc in their products, and changed their product formulations in the United States.
James Hardie Industries
While other companies were involved in similar asbestos-related activities, most notably CSR Limited, more than 50% of claims made to the NSW Dust Diseases Tribunal in 2002 were brought against companies in the James Hardie group. Prince "et al." claim that this is due to the range of mining and manufacturing interests that James Hardie had throughout its long operating history. The Australian Council of Trade Unions has estimated that 4600 claims for mesothelioma would be made against James Hardie from 2006 onwards, with claims expected to peak in 2010 or 2011 at 250 per year. The total number of past and future claims made against James Hardie for asbestos-related diseases is estimated to be more than 12,500, of which 8103 will be claimed after 2006.
Catherine Martin (journalist)
In 1978 the effects of pleural abnormalities and other asbestos-related diseases were beginning to show up in the former mine workers. Martin's front-page story for "The West Australian" won a Walkley award and she produced a series of another nine articles highlighting the impact on workers and their families.
Andrew McGuire
He was severely burned as a seven-year-old child when his pajamas ignited while standing next to a kitchen stove. 
He began his injury prevention work in 1973, where he was the first Executive Director of Action Against Burns, which helped establish a state fire resistance standard for children's pajamas (sizes 7-14) that helped eliminate pajama-related burn injuries to children. The Massachusetts state standard was adopted by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission as a federal standard in mid-1975. And, in 1973, he established one of the first self-help groups for burn survivors in the U.S.
After he returned to California in 1975, and established the Burn Council, he initiated an international campaign for self-extinguishing cigarettes (also known as Fire Safe Cigarettes). The Campaign for Fire Safe Cigarettes was officially launched on May 24, 1979. As of April, 2010, all 50 states in the U.S. have passed identical laws mandating Fire Safe Cigarettes. The exact same mandating regulations are in effect in Canada, Finland, South Africa, Australia, and all 27 countries of the European Union, among other countries. Initial results in the U.S. show up to a major reduction in fires, fire deaths and injuries due to the mandatory sale of fire safe cigarettes.
Andrew broke a New Jersey state court protective order he was under and provided secret documents from Philip Morris tobacco company, entitled "Project Hamlet," to Lowell Bergman at CBS's 60 Minutes. These 1,400 pages of documents detailed nearly a decade of secret Philip Morris research, begun in 1979, developing Fire Safe Cigarettes. These documents were exposed to the world during a Bergman produced 60 Minutes episode in March, 1994, hosted by Mike Wallace. This was the first "proof" from within the tobacco industry that it was possible to produce a commercially viable Fire Safe Cigarette. In a deposition of a researcher at Philip Morris, it was explained that the secret research project was code named "Project Hamlet" as an "inside joke" at the research labs. The joke they found amusing was that the research involved the concern: "To burn or not to burn."
Armley asbestos disaster
Further claims of compensation for other victims eventually commenced in 2007 when Federal-Mogul emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. By that time, just £91 million was available for T&N's worldwide non-U.S. asbestos liabilities for the next 40 years. Successful applicants receive as little as 17% of the value of their claims.
Mesothelioma
In Leeds, England the Armley asbestos disaster involved several court cases against Turner & Newall where local residents who contracted mesothelioma demanded compensation because of the asbestos pollution from the company's factory. One notable case was that of June Hancock, who contracted the disease in 1993 and died in 1997.
Armley asbestos disaster
Hancock said after the ruling: "The money won't do me much good, but there's no other way they can pay. The only way they can answer for what they did is money." She died on 19 July 1997. A charity, the June Hancock Mesothelioma Research Fund, was established shortly after her death to support victims of mesothelioma and mesothelioma research projects.
Australian Blue Asbestos
The company was purchased from CSR Limited by James Hardie Industries Ltd and has now moved to the Netherlands in an apparent attempt to divorce itself from the asbestos crisis. Worker's compensation claims for previous workers, wives and offspring of residents of Wittenoom continue to be a big issue for company, which has not moved any further on the compensation case. The present number of known victims is around 2000. Since 1995, a disturbing trend has surfaced: many new cases of wives and children of workers from Wittenoom have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, possibly from washing dust-laden clothes of mine workers, while the children who used to play in the mine tailings that were spread over the streets at Wittenoom, have also been affected.
Asbestos
One vermiculite mine operated by W. R. Grace and Company in Libby, Montana exposed workers and community residents to danger by mining vermiculite contaminated with asbestos, typically richterite, winchite, actinolite or tremolite. Vermiculite contaminated with asbestos from the Libby mine was used as insulation in residential and commercial buildings through Canada and the United States. W. R. Grace and Company's loose-fill vermiculite was marketed as Zonolite but was also used in sprayed-on products such as Monokote.
Turner &amp; Newall
The company operated a plant in Leeds where the Armley asbestos disaster occurred and which only closed in 1959.
Andrew Schneider (journalist)
In 1999, Schneider began investigating asbestos-related deaths in Libby, Montana, for the "P-I". His investigation found asbestos particles had been released by a closed vermiculite mine, causing contamination of workers' clothing. The mine operator, W.R. Grace and Company, was alleged to have known about the dangers of exposure to the asbestos processed at the Libby mine and failed to disclose the risks to workers and government agencies in a timely manner. The asbestos contamination, according to Schneider, had killed at least 192 people in Libby, including the wives and children of miners, and at least 375 people were diagnosed with potentially fatal diseases associated with asbestos. The release of the story, entitled "Uncivil Action: A Town Left to Die", gained national attention and led to litigation against W.R. Grace and the indictment of executives on federal charges of knowing endangerment, obstruction of justice, and wire fraud after the company declared bankruptcy and illegally transferred funds and assets to new companies. The Environmental Protection Agency launched an investigation into the Libby mine after the release of the story, and later established a Superfund cleanup site in Libby, declaring in 2009 that the town was under a public health emergency.
Wittenoom, Western Australia
In 1948 CSR took over the asbestos project at Wittenoom as the parent company of ABA. From 1950 until the early 1960s Wittenoom was Australia's only supplier of asbestos with 161,000 tonnes being mined from 1943 to 1966. In an internal report recommending the mine's closure in 1966, one of CSR's own executives admitted that "...no thorough investigation of the deposit at Wittenoom was made". For most of the years CSR mined asbestos, the operation lost money. It struggled into profit for the five years from 1956, and then only by making its workforce work two and even three shifts a day. When the mine closed it had an accumulated debt of around $2.5 million.
Asbestos
In 1999 the EPA began cleanup efforts in Libby and now the area is a Superfund cleanup area. The EPA has determined that harmful asbestos is released from the mine as well as through other activities that disturb soil in the area.
Armstrong World Industries
Armstrong World Industries, Inc. is a Pennsylvania corporation incorporated in 1891. It is an international designer and manufacturer of walls and ceilings. Based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, AWI has a global manufacturing network of 26 facilities, including nine plants dedicated to its WAVE joint venture. In 2011, Armstrong’s net sales were $2.86 billion, with operating income of $239.2 million. 
Armstrong World Industries, Inc. emerged from Chapter 11 reorganization on October 2, 2006. Its stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange October 18, 2006 under the ticker symbol AWI. The Armstrong World Industries, Inc. Asbestos Personal Injury Settlement Trust, holds approximately 66% of AWI’s outstanding common shares. Armstrong's “Fourth Amended Plan of Reorganization, as Modified,” dated February 21, 2006, and confirmed by U.S. District Court Judge Eduardo Robreno in August 2006, become effective Oct. 2, 2006. The Plan includes a comprehensive settlement resolving AWI’s asbestos liability by establishing and funding a trust to compensate all current and future asbestos personal injury claimants. The company had filed for reorganization December 6, 2000, with the federal bankruptcy court in Delaware for reorganization under Chapter 11 because pending asbestos injury claims appeared to exceed the value of the company, and were growing.
Libby, Montana (film)
Libby, Montana is a 2004 documentary film about the biggest case of community-wide exposure to a toxic substance in U.S. history. The film details the story of the iconic, mountainside town of Libby, Montana and the hundreds of residents who have been exposed to asbestos, raising questions of the role of corporate power in American politics.
Asbestos
Industrial scale mining began in the Thetford hills, Quebec from the 1870s. Sir William Edmond Logan was the first to notice the large deposits of chrysotile in the hills in his capacity as head of Geological Survey of Canada. Samples of the minerals from here were displayed in London, and excited much interest. With the opening up of the Quebec Central Railway in 1876, mining entrepreneurs, such as Andrew Stuart Johnson established the asbestos industry in the province. The 50 ton output of the mines in 1878 rose to over 10,000 tons in the 1890s with the adoption of machine technologies and expanded production. For a long time, the world's largest asbestos mine was the Jeffrey mine in the town of Asbestos, Quebec.
Asbestos production began in the Urals of the Russian Empire in the 1880s, and in the Alpine regions of Northern Italy with the formation in Turin of the Italo-English Pure Asbestos Company in 1876, although this was soon swamped by the greater production levels from the Canadian mines. Mining also took off in South Africa from 1893 under the aegis of the British businessman Francis Oates, the Director of the De Beers company. It was in South Africa that the production of amosite began in 1910. The U.S. asbestos industry had an early start in 1858, when fibrous anthophyllite was mined for use as asbestos insulation by the Johns Company, a predecessor to the current Johns Manville, at a quarry at Ward's Hill on Staten Island, New York. US production began in earnest in 1899, with the discovery of large deposits in the Belvidere Mountain.
Mr Fluffy
At the time, there was little knowledge by the public about the dangers of exposure to asbestos. Subsequently, cases of mesothelioma, lung cancer and other asbestos-related diseases have become well publicised. Testing in these homes has revealed the ongoing possibility of exposure to the loose asbestos fibres, with the loose-fill amosite asbestos used by Mr Fluffy especially hazardous due to its lack of a bonding agent causing it to easily migrate to hidden corners and cracks inside a residence.
Ambler, Pennsylvania
In Ambler, where more than 1.5 million cubic yards of asbestos waste were discarded in a 25-acre area known as the "White Mountains", contamination remains an issue. From 1973 to 1993 the United States EPA oversaw remediation of the White Mountains, renamed the "Ambler Asbestos Piles". It was proposed to the National Priorities List (NPL) as a Superfund site on October 10, 1984, and formally added to the list as of June 10, 1986. Various remedies were completed as of August 30, 1993 and the site was consequently deleted from the National Priorities List on December 27, 1996, after remediation. The site is reviewed every five years by the EPA.
Armley asbestos disaster
June Hancock had also grown up next to the Midland Works, and had never worked inside the factory. Her mother died of mesothelioma in 1982, and June was diagnosed with the cancer herself in 1993. Hancock instructed a solicitor shortly after she was diagnosed and the writ was issued on 5 September 1994. The two cases were heard over six weeks at Leeds High Court in 1995. Despite being in the terminal stage of her illness, Hancock attended court on all but one day of the hearing.
South Bound Brook, New Jersey
In the mid-1970s a teen from the town created a plan for an environmental commission and presented it to the council. James Manley got his commission and the first order of business was to find out what the white piles of waste on the tow path between the Delaware and Raritan Canal and Raritan River consisted of. It turned out to be 17% crystal asbestos by volume. Since there was no New Jersey State regulation for the disposal, this became a landmark case. The waste was hauled in dump trucks through Bound Brook to the floodplain south of West Main Street and dumped. A trail of asbestos dust led from the old dump site to the new dump location.
James Hardie Industries
James Hardie was one of a number of companies involved in the mining of asbestos, and by the middle of the twentieth century had become the largest manufacturer and distributor of building products, insulation, pipes and brake linings containing it. In Australia, it ran asbestos plants in New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. Working with the products containing asbestos - including the building material known as "Fibro" - caused people to develop various pleural abnormalities such as asbestosis and malignant mesothelioma.
Health impact of asbestos
Dr. Cooke's second case report was followed, in the late 1920s, by a large public health investigation (now known as the Merewether report after one of its two authors) that examined some 360 asbestos-textile workers (reported to be about 15% of the total comparable employment in Britain at the time) and found that about a quarter of them suffered from pulmonary fibrosis. This investigation resulted in improved regulation of the manufacturing of asbestos-containing products in the early 1930s. Regulations included industrial hygiene standards, medical examinations, and inclusion of the asbestos industry into the British Workers' Compensation Act.
Andrew Schneider (journalist)
Schneider continued his reporting on asbestos after leaving the "P-I" for the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" in 2001, uncovering asbestos-related hazards from the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. Schneider, along with "P-I" editor David McCumber, published a book of their findings entitled ""An Air That Kills: How the Asbestos Poisoning of Libby, Montana Uncovered a National Scandal"". The book, compiled from Schneider's previous investigations, also revealed that harmful asbestos-related material was in continual use in new construction and household products, and alleged that the federal government withheld the risk of asbestos-related disease after the September 11 attacks. The Libby story was later adapted in 2007 into a documentary film by PBS's "P.O.V." program. Schneider and McCumber released an e-book in 2016, "An Air That Still Kills", updating their findings on Libby after the EPA declared the city "safe to live in".
Armley asbestos disaster
In 1987 Chase Manhattan Bank (Chase) began legal proceedings against T&N ("Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., Plaintiff-appellee, v. Turner & Newall, Plc, Formerly Known As Turner & Newall Ltd., Defendant-third-party-plaintiff-appellant, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Turner Construction Company, third-party-defendants") in the United States. Chase claimed compensatory and punitive damages from T&N for the hazard created at Chase's corporate headquarters by the presence of spray applicated asbestos fireproofing materials. In the United Kingdom, John Battle had complained to Parliament that securing documents from T&N was causing progress with the Armley victims' cases to stall, with "documents shifted around from one subsidiary to another within the parent group. Lawyers are expected to specify exactly what records they want without knowing what the company holds. Even if they manage to specify particular records, such as reports on the escape of dust from the factory and tested measurements of asbestos levels within the factory or in the surrounding area - even details of the factory's structure and its ventilation system - those documents are either outwith the rules of discovery or the reply comes back that the records no longer exist." But as the Chase case progressed, around two million T&N documents, many of which had previously been unseen by British solicitors and historians, were uncovered by the discovery process and research in the US.
Arnstein &amp; Lehr
In 1977, the firm handled a case involving regulations promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act that went as far as the Supreme Court of the United States. In the early 1970s, the Environmental Protection Agency promulgated a “National Emission Standard for Asbestos” and specified a certain procedure be followed in demolition of buildings containing asbestos but not limiting asbestos emissions that occur during a demolition. The National Association of Demolition Contractors retained the firm to defend criminal charges brought against member demolition contractors throughout the country for violation of what the government termed an “emission standard”.
Collapse of the World Trade Center
The collapse of the World Trade Center produced enormous clouds of dust that covered Manhattan for days. On September 18, 2001, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assured the public that the air in Manhattan was "safe to breathe". In 2003 the EPA's inspector general found that the agency did not at that time have sufficient data to make such a statement. Dust from the collapse seriously reduced air quality and is likely the cause of many respiratory illnesses in lower Manhattan. Asbestosis is such an illness, and asbestos would have been present in the dust. Significant long term medical and psychological effects have been found among first responders including elevated levels of asthma, sinusitis, gastroesophageal reflux disease and posttraumatic stress disorder.
Hebden Bridge
Acre Mill was an asbestos factory in the hilltop settlement of Old Town, owned by Cape Insulation Ltd. It was opened in 1939 to meet the demand for gas mask filters made from blue asbestos during the Second World War, and diversified into the production of other asbestos products, including rope, pipe lagging and textile, after the war. In 1970, the company closed the mill and moved to Westmorland. The mill was the subject of a 1971 "World in Action" investigation entitled ""The Dust at Acre Mill"" which revealed how the factory broke the law regarding asbestos-dust control between 1940–1970. By 1979, 12% of a total of 2,200 former employees had asbestos-related disease. The mill was demolished in 1979. Cape Insulation also operated a second factory at Hangingroyd Mill.
Owens-Illinois
Although it has not made an asbestos-containing materials since 1958, Owens-Illinois invented, tested, manufactured and distributed KAYLO asbestos containing thermal pipe insulation from 1948 through 1958. Owens-Illinois remains a named defendant in numerous asbestos litigation matters throughout the U.S. Some claims in these cases allege that Owens-Illinois was a participant in the seventh annual Saranac Seminar when the cancer-causing potential of asbestos was studied in the 1950s.
Berry Brow
In the bottom of the valley are two high rise buildings, built in the 1960s in an attempt to modernise the village. These reached public notoriety in the 1980s when they were found to contain high levels of asbestos, which had been built into the fabric of the building, under the regulations in force at that time. A request by Kirklees Council for money from central Government to assist with the predicted £1 million cost of removing the asbestos was rejected in February 1991.
Summerland disaster
The fire started at around 7:30 p.m. on 2 August 1973, and was caused by three boys who were smoking in a small, disused kiosk adjacent to the centre's miniature golf course. Eventually, the burning kiosk collapsed against the exterior of the building. This part of the building was clad in a material called "Galbestos"—profiled steel sheeting with asbestos felt on both sides coated with bitumen, with limited fire-resistance qualities. The fire spread to the wall's interior soundproofing material, which also had poor fire resistance, causing an explosion that ignited the highly flammable acrylic sheeting that covered the rest of the building. The fire quickly spread across the sheeting on the leisure centre walls and roof, and through vents which were not properly fireproofed. The acrylic material melted, allowing more oxygen to enter, and dropping burning molten material, both starting other fires and injuring those trying to escape. The building's open-plan design included many unblocked internal spaces that acted as chimneys, adding to the conflagration.
Astley Deep Pit disaster
The Astley Deep Pit disaster was a mining accident at the Astley Deep Pit, in Dukinfield, Cheshire, England, that took place on 14 April 1874, killing 54 men and boys. Astley Deep Pit was a coal mine started around 1845 to work the seam of coal known as the "Lancashire Black Mine". When finished, it was supposedly the deepest coal-mine in Britain and cost £100,000 to sink.
Armley asbestos disaster
The judge said of the emissions from Midland Works: "there is no doubt but that every process in varying degree gave off dust ... There was at all material times, a substantial emission of dust from the factory premises", and that "There was knowledge, sufficient to found reasonable foresight on the part of the Defendants, that children were particularly vulnerable to personal injury arising out of inhalation of asbestos dust ... Reasonably practicable steps were not taken to reduce or prevent inhalation of emitted asbestos dust." Regarding the conduct of the case, Mr Justice Holland accused T&N of trying to obstruct the legal action and to wear Hancock and Margereson down "by attrition". He said they had shown "a wish to contest these claims by any means possible, legitimate or otherwise" and that their lawyers had "remorselessly persisted in taking bad points, apparently simply to obstruct the plaintiffs' road." In a press statement, T&N repeated their claim that they could not have known "so many years ago of the risks to individuals such as these plaintiffs" and said they believed "the judge was wrong to find T&N liable in these cases. The factory closed almost 40 years ago."
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
The Tremolite Asbestos Registry contains people who lived in or worked in Libby, Montana, while vermiculite was mined there; these people were at risk for exposure to the tremolite asbestos that was naturally occurring in the vermiculite. ATSDR began addressing public health concerns in Libby in 1999 and created the registry in 2004. The purpose of the registry was to monitor the long-term health effects of people in Libby exposed to tremolite asbestos and to assist with communicating important health information to registrants. Researchers have used the registry to study how asbestos exposure affects human health. This research has yielded several important findings. Registry data was used to conduct the first study of the relationship between asbestos exposure and respiratory problems in children. Another study using registry data found a significant relationship between asbestos exposure and death from cardiovascular disease.
Alice – A Fight For Life
As a result West Yorkshire MP Max Madden lodged an official complaint alleging non-enforcement of the Asbestos Industry Regulations 1931, which led to a Parliamentary Ombudsman Report being submitted to the Ombudsman, Sir Alan Marre. The report, which was highly critical of the behaviour of the Factory Inspectors at Acre Mill, found that since the plant's closure in 1970 10% of the work force had developed asbestosis, a figure far in excess of the previously estimated exposure-risk relationship. The government responded by launching a major inquiry, the Advisory Committee on Asbestos, or "Simpson Committee", in 1976. The committee delivered two interim reports and published their final report in October 1979.
Spodden Valley asbestos controversy
The initial planning application was placed on hold in 2005, and Richard Butler, Principal Planning Officer for Rochdale Borough Council said in October 2008: "The application has not yet been determined and is suspended whilst the applicants and their consultants, together with our own contamination experts, assess a number of issues, the most important being the asbestos risk and the remediation required as part of the redevelopment." In December 2009, despite no decontamination work having been carried out, the council earmarked the site for 568 houses, based on a housing density of 30 dwellings per hectare, in a draft allocation of future brownfield land targets. In January 2010, however, the council deleted references to the redevelopment of the site. Rochdale parliamentary candidate Simon Danczuk warned that the council believe a housing development on the site is an inevitability and iterated that they are "sleepwalking into a catastrophic mistake." MMC have stated that "there is no viable alternative to development led remediation of the site." A National Health and Safety Commissioner who was formerly a Health and Safety Manager at the factory has said that the felling of trees and disturbing of soil on the site is "sheer madness... With the potential amount of asbestos on that site, no development should be built on this land." Hilda Palmer of the Greater Manchester Hazards Centre has said: "Asbestos is a carcinogen and it causes lung diseases. When asbestos gets into the air and can be inhaled by people it can cause those diseases 10, 20, 50 years down the line. So if there is any development on that site there is a potential for serious lung diseases, cancers and death from that development." Spokesman Jason Addy of Save Spodden Valley, stated: "The key issue is contamination. Asbestos from this site has killed far too many people already."
Alice – A Fight For Life
Alice – A Fight For Life is a documentary featuring 47-year-old Alice Jefferson, a British woman who developed malignant pleural mesothelioma thirty years after working for nine months at Cape Insulation's Acre Mill asbestos plant in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. The film also explored the health issues surrounding the manufacture and use of asbestos products. Described by "The Guardian" newspaper as "a momentous film", the programme also explicitly linked asbestos with cancer, and attacked what it perceived as the government's complacency in limiting the manufacture and use of asbestos in Britain.
Asbestosis
The death of English textile worker Nellie Kershaw in 1924 from pulmonary asbestosis was the first case to be described in medical literature, and the first published account of disease attributed to occupational asbestos exposure. However, her former employers (Turner Brothers Asbestos) denied that asbestosis even existed because the medical condition was not officially recognised at the time. As a result, they accepted no liability for her injuries and paid no compensation, either to Kershaw during her final illness or to her family after her death. Even so, the findings of the inquest into her death were highly influential insofar as they led to a parliamentary enquiry by the British Parliament. The enquiry formally acknowledged the existence of asbestosis, recognised that it was hazardous to health and concluded that it was irrefutably linked to the prolonged inhalation of asbestos dust. Having established the existence of asbestosis on a medical and judicial basis, the report resulted in the first Asbestos Industry Regulations being published in 1931, which came into effect on 1 March 1932.
Mesothelioma
The connection between asbestos exposure and mesothelioma was discovered in the 1970s. In the United States, asbestos manufacture stopped in 2002. Asbestos exposure thus shifted from workers in asbestos textile mills, friction product manufacturing, cement pipe fabrication, and insulation manufacture and installation to maintenance workers in asbestos-containing buildings.
Nellie Kershaw
As a result of Cooke's paper, Parliament commissioned an inquiry into the effects of asbestos dust by Dr E. R. A. Merewether, Medical Inspector of Factories, and , a factory inspector and pioneer of dust monitoring and control. Their subsequent report, "Occurrence of Pulmonary Fibrosis & Other Pulmonary Affections in Asbestos Workers", was presented to parliament on 24 March 1930. It concluded that the development of asbestosis was irrefutably linked to the prolonged inhalation of asbestos dust, and included the first health study of asbestos workers, which found that 66% of those employed for 20 years or more suffered from asbestosis. The report led to the publication of the first Asbestos Industry Regulations in 1931, which came into effect on 1 March 1932.
Armley asbestos disaster
In the UK, questions were raised over whether T&N had any valid insurance in place. Those insurance companies which could be connected to T&N, such as Royal & Sun Alliance, alleged that their policies excluded liability for asbestos-related claims, although this was in breach of the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969. Insurers stated that instead they had an "understanding" that T&N itself would settle asbestos claims and, "in return for premiums received, the insurers would, however, issue a Certificate of Insurance which complied with the terms of the Employers' Liability Act, thereby enabling T&N to continue trading." By 2003, no payments had been received by UK claimants and a request to the government to set up an interim compensation scheme was rejected, as was a request to the US Creditors' Committee of Federal-Mogul to make hardship payments to UK victims. As further litigation ensued to test the validity of the insurers' exclusions, public demonstrations were held outside the Manchester offices of Kroll Corporate Advisory & Restructuring Group, the court-appointed Administrators for T&N. Tony Whitston, spokesperson for North-West Asbestos Victims’ Support Groups, said: "Kroll have charged £17 million in fees to date and their solicitors have charged £6 million. The charge out rate for a senior partner at Kroll is £460 per hour. The financial “killing” being made by the Administrators is reducing the resources [£70 million] left to pay dying victims. We think this behaviour is a classic example of corporate greed and callousness."
Arley, Warwickshire
The village once had an eponymous colliery running beneath part of its central area which employed 1,734 men when it was finally closed on 30 March 1968, by the National Coal Board. It had then been in operation for sixty six years and had once been owned and operated by the Arley Colliery Company Ltd. Production began at the pit on 1 January 1901 and the first coal was extracted from the mine in 1902. The mine was considered no longer economically viable by the NCB led by Lord Robens, officially of the Labour Party, in 1968, due to its relatively high costs and despite the cited fact that one hundred years of coal remained beneath. As production increased the colliery expanded and with this the population within the parish increased. This led to a need for new housing in the area. Between 1920 and 1955 six hundred houses were built on land which had been the Fir Tree Farm, this became New Arley.
Mr Fluffy
Prompted by growing public concern about the hazards of asbestos in general and Mr Fluffy's product, a Commonwealth audit in 1988 identified most of the homes in the ACT containing the insulation. A clean-up program was conducted by the new ACT Government between 1989 and 1993 and was thought to have fixed the problem in those homes identified in the audit, but residual asbestos has since been found in some houses. This led to the creation of a community action group by affected homeowners that campaigned for a shift in policy concerning the future of their residences.
Libbey High School
On August 15, 2011 two large dumpsters were placed (one at the south entrance and one at the east entrance) of the Career Center. These were to be used in the asbestos abatement of Libbey High School. On August 24, 2011 large poles were driven into the ground and concrete surrounding the buildings and parking lots. On August 25, 2011 chain-link fence was strung from these posts to keep the public away from the areas were asbestos would be removed. This link shows the beginning of the process of the demolition of Libbey High School, Toledo, Ohio. The demolition of the building began on January 9, 2012.(years marked with an asterisk (*) denote a shared title)
Armley asbestos disaster
T&N allegedly sought wherever possible to delay proceedings, including slowing and obstructing the process of disclosure of documents, by claiming that "within the interlocking structure of companies T&N could not be construed as liable for its subsidiary’s actions" and by conduct, as the judge later ruled, "reflecting a wish to contest these claims by any means possible, legitimate or otherwise... simply to obstruct the plaintiff’s road." In parallel with the delaying tactics, T&N pursued "a resilient re-affirmation of the safety of asbestos products and manufacturing processes" in the press, spending £500,000 on PR in just six weeks.
Astley's Amphitheatre
The Amphitheatre opened in 1773 with "The Wallet of Time". The structure was burned in 1794, then rebuilt. With increasing prosperity and rebuilding after successive fires, it grew to become Astley's Royal Amphitheatre and this was the home of the circus. The location of the theatre was Westminster Bridge Road in Lambeth.
Asbestosis
The first lawsuits against asbestos manufacturers occurred in 1929. Since then, many lawsuits have been filed against asbestos manufacturers and employers, for neglecting to implement safety measures after the link between asbestos, asbestosis and mesothelioma became known (some reports seem to place this as early as 1898 in modern times). The liability resulting from the sheer number of lawsuits and people affected has reached billions of U.S. dollars. The amounts and method of allocating compensation have been the source of many court cases, and government attempts at resolution of existing and future cases.
Mesothelioma
Commercial asbestos mining at Wittenoom, Western Australia, took place from 1937 to 1966. The first case of mesothelioma in the town occurred in 1960. The second case was in 1969, and new cases began to appear more frequently thereafter. The lag time between initial exposure to asbestos and the development of mesothelioma varied from 12 years 9 months up to 58 years. A cohort study of miners employed at the mine reported that 85 deaths attributable to mesothelioma had occurred by 1985. By 1994, 539 reported deaths due to mesothelioma had been reported in Western Australia.
Jim Ferraro
After graduating from law school in 1983, Ferraro worked briefly for a civil litigation defense firm. On May 13, 1985 he opened his own mass tort litigation practice, The Ferraro Law Firm, where he began working to represent blue-collar workers such as workers that had been exposed to asbestos. By 1990 his firm was representing thousands of blue collar workers. On June 15, 1997 he opened a second law firm, Kelley & Ferraro, along with Michael V. Kelley in Cleveland, Ohio. The two firms combined have handled over 50,000 asbestos cases, as well as nationwide environmental toxic tort cases.
Amzi L. Barber
In 1878, he became actively involved with asphalt pavement work with his brother-in-law John J. Albright, a Buffalo industrialist. In 1880, Barber partnered with U.S. Senator John Sherman for the purchase and sale of the "Stone" property, then on the outskirts of Washington D.C. This led to an interest in asphalt for paving city streets, after a government study determined it to be the best available method. He incorporated "Barber Asphalt Paving Co." in 1883 to produce asphalt, and in 1887, secured a 42-year monopoly concession from the British Government for the Pitch Lake in Trinidad, the largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world. He was also managing director of "Trinidad Lake Asphalt Co., Limited", incorporated in London in 1898. Barber moved the Washington-based business to New York City, and it continued to expand, becoming, against Barber's wishes, part of an asphalt trust. By 1900, he had laid over 12 million square yards of Trinidad asphalt pavement in 70 American cities at a cost of $35 million. Barber retired from the business in 1901, just before the trust collapsed, but returned to the industry in 1904.
Rachel Reeves
In her maiden speech, delivered on 8 June 2010, Reeves praised the work of her predecessor John Battle, and pledged to fight for jobs, growth and prosperity for Leeds West. She also pledged to follow in Battle's footsteps and fight for justice for the victims of the Armley asbestos disaster and their families. In a series of questions in Parliament, she enquired whether the government would honour promises by the previous government to compensate victims of asbestos diagnosed with pleural plaques, and bring legislation into force making it easier to pursue claims against insurers.
Mesothelioma
Asbestos was known in antiquity, but it was not mined and widely used commercially until the late 19th century. Its use greatly increased during World War II. Since the early 1940s, millions of American workers have been exposed to asbestos dust. Initially, the risks associated with asbestos exposure were not publicly known. However, an increased risk of developing mesothelioma was later found among naval personnel (e.g., Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard), shipyard workers, people who work in asbestos mines and mills, producers of asbestos products, workers in the heating and construction industries, and other tradespeople. Today, the official position of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the U.S. EPA is that protections and "permissible exposure limits" required by U.S. regulations, while adequate to prevent most asbestos-related non-malignant disease, are "not" adequate to prevent or protect against asbestos-related cancers such as mesothelioma. Likewise, the British Government's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) states formally that any threshold for exposure to asbestos must be at a very low level and it is widely agreed that if any such threshold does exist at all, then it cannot currently be quantified. For practical purposes, therefore, HSE assumes that no such "safe" threshold exists. Others have noted as well that there is no evidence of a threshold level below which there is no risk of mesothelioma. There appears to be a linear, dose-response relationship, with increasing dose producing increasing risk of disease. Nevertheless, mesothelioma may be related to brief, low level or indirect exposures to asbestos. The dose necessary for effect appears to be lower for asbestos-induced mesothelioma than for pulmonary asbestosis or lung cancer. Again, there is no known safe level of exposure to asbestos as it relates to increased risk of mesothelioma.
Astley Green Colliery Museum
Astley Green Colliery exploited deep coal seams of the Manchester Coalfield underneath the peat bog known as Chat Moss, and was driven by the high demand for coal during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the exhaustion of supplies of coal in the Irwell Valley. Shaft sinking began in 1908 by the Pilkington Colliery Company, a subsidiary of the Clifton and Kersley Coal Company, and the pit began production in 1912. In 1928 the colliery was amalgamated with other local collieries to form Manchester Collieries. The mine was modernised when the coal industry was nationalised in 1947. Astley Green Colliery was closed in 1970 and was subsequently opened to the public as a museum.
Asbestos Mountains
Serious mining of crocidolite in these mountains started in 1893 when open-cast quarrying produced 100 tons of material. By 1918 underground mining had started and scattered mines were to be found from Prieska to Kuruman along the length of the range, and mills were constructed at both of these towns. Between 1950 and 1960 production had risen to 100,000 tons, each mine was doing its own milling and the tailings dumps had grown in size.
Spodden Valley asbestos controversy
In December 2004 plans were submitted, in partnership with Countryside Properties, to build an 'urban village' over two-thirds of the site, comprising residential and business developments, a retail site and doctor's surgery. MMC director Mark Russell stated that the plans were in 'everyone's interests' and would be carried out without harming the environment or causing problems with old asbestos: "At the end of the day this is a contaminated site with lots of old, ugly, dilapidated buildings on and it needs something doing with it. It is in everyone's interests that this happens. There is not any danger of asbestos." The planning application summary claimed: "of particular note is the absence of any asbestos contamination". A report submitted by the developers said only one out of the 86 soil tests they carried out showed any traces of asbestos dust, and that traces of lead and copper were more prevalent on the site. A working party of six councillors expressed concern that many areas on the site might have been unchecked, however, and Councillor Elwyn Watkins said that he had personally observed asbestos containing materials hanging on trees when he joined campaigners on the north side of the site. Heavy winds in January 2005 felled several trees, revealing asbestos-like fibres on the exposed roots. Residents eventually had the waste tested themselves at an independent laboratory where it was confirmed to be Amosite ("brown asbestos"), the most hazardous of the asbestos minerals because of its long persistence in the lungs of exposed people.
Asbestos
Amphiboles including amosite (brown asbestos) and crocidolite (blue asbestos) were formerly used in many products until the early 1980s. Tremolite asbestos constituted a contaminant of many if not all naturally occurring chrysotile deposits. The use of all types of asbestos in the amphibole group was banned in much of the Western world by the mid-1980s, and in Japan by 1995. Some products that included amphibole types of asbestos included the following:Cigarette manufacturer Lorillard (Kent's filtered cigarette) used crocidolite asbestos in its "Micronite" filter from 1952 to 1956.
Wittenoom, Western Australia
In 1917 the Mines Department first recorded the presence of blue asbestos in the Hamersley Ranges. Langley Hancock discovered Wittenoom Gorge on the Mulga Downs property in the early 1930s. In 1937 Langley (Lang) Hancock showed samples of blue asbestos crocidolite that he had picked-up in the Gorge to Islwyn (Izzy) Walters and Walter (Len) Leonard who were at that time mining and treating white asbestos at Nunyerrie and at Lionel near Nullagine. When Hancock learned the fibre would fetch £70 per ton he immediately pegged the best claims in Wittenoom Gorge. Leo Snell, a Kangaroo shooter on Mulga Downs pegged a claim on Yampire Gorge, where there was a lot more blue asbestos. Walters and Leonard purchased Yampire Gorge from Snell and moved their treatment plant there and began mining and treating the fibre. When Leonard cabled London that there was two miles of asbestos in sight at Yampire Gorge, they cabled him back saying he should take a holiday. Leonard had to send a photograph before it was believed Yampire Gorge contained this much asbestos. Walters and Leonard cleared the way into Yampire gorge by blasting the biggest rocks and pulling them out the way with a camel team. Even after that it took them seven hours to drive their lorry the fifteen miles from the workings to their treatment plant. By 1940, twenty-two men were employed at the Yampire Gorge workings and about 375 tons were mined and transported to the coast (Point Samson) by mule team wagons. During the war communications with England became difficult and de Berrales acquired an interest in the mines. Finally in 1943 the Colonial Sugar Company through its subsidiary, Australian Blue Asbestos Ltd. took over both the Wittenoom and Yampire Mines. Lang Hancock who watched his station property transform to a town stated (1958), "Izzy Walters was the man who stuck it and produced the market that made Wittenoom of today possible. Walter's partner Len Leonard, put it this way (1958), "But for his (Islwyn Walters) sheer grit and hard work there would be no such thing as Wittenoom. We have him to thank for that."
Asbestos and the law (United States)
A federal grand jury indicted W. R. Grace and Company and seven top executives on February 5, 2005, for its operations of a vermiculite mine in Libby, Montana. The indictment accused Grace of wire fraud, knowing endangerment of residents by concealing air monitoring results, obstruction of justice by interfering with an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) investigation, violation of the Clean Air Act, providing asbestos materials to schools and local residents, and conspiracy to release asbestos and cover up health problems from asbestos contamination. The Department of Justice said 1,200 residents had developed asbestos-related diseases and some had died, and there could be many more injuries and deaths.
Health impact of asbestos
Asbestos was also used in the first forty floors of the World Trade Center north tower causing an airborne contamination among lower Manhattan after the towers collapsed in the September 11 attacks, causing Steven Milloy of the libertarian Cato Institute to suggest that the World Trade Center towers could still be standing or at least would have stood longer had a 1971 ban not stopped the completion of the asbestos coating above the 64th floor. This was not considered in the National Institute of Standards and Technology's report on the towers' collapse, on the basis that all fireproofing materials, regardless of their construction, are required to obtain a fire-resistance rating prior to installation, and all fiber-based lightweight commercial spray fireproofing materials are vulnerable to the dispersive effects of high speed/high energy impacts, as these are outside the fire testing upon which all ratings are based. Therefore, asbestos would have made little or no difference in preventing the towers' collapse, if used as fireproofing, and upon collapse any asbestos, however used, would still have been largely dispersed into the air within the massive dust cloud.
Vermiculite
The vermiculite deposit at the mine in Libby, Montana, was (and is) heavily contaminated with asbestos. Numerous people were knowingly exposed to the harmful dust of vermiculite that contained asbestos. Unfortunately, the mine had been operating since the 1920s, and environmental and industrial controls were virtually non-existent until the mine was purchased by the W.R. Grace Company in 1963. Yet, knowing the human health risks, the mining company still continued to operate there until 1990. Consequently, many of the former miners and residents of Libby have been affected and continue to suffer health problems. Over 400 people in the town have died from asbestos-related disease due to contamination from vermiculite mining from nearby Zonolite Mountain, where soil samples were found to be loaded with fibrous tremolite (known to be a very hazardous form of asbestos), and countless others there who insulated their homes with Zonolite have succumbed to asbestos-related diseases, most of whom never were employed in environments where asbestos was an issue.
Asbestos and the law
Litigation related to asbestos injuries and property damages has been claimed to be the longest-running mass tort in U.S. history. Since asbestos-related disease has been identified by the medical profession in the late 1920s, workers' compensation cases were filed and resolved in secrecy, with a flood of litigation starting in the United States in the 1970s, and culminating in the 1980s and 1990s. A massive multi-district litigation (MDL) complex filing has remained pending in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for over 20 years. As many of the scarring-related injury cases have been resolved, asbestos litigation continues to be hard-fought among the litigants, mainly in individually brought cases for terminal cases of asbestosis, mesothelioma, and other cancers.
Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mills
The earliest record of Armley Mills dates from the middle of the sixteenth century when local clothier Richard Booth leased 'Armley Millnes' from Henry Saville. A document of 1707 describes them as fulling mills. One contained two wheels and four fulling stocks, while another was used to grind corn mill and two fulling stocks'. The mills expanded and by 1788 were equipped with five waterwheels driving eighteen fulling stocks. Fulling was a necessary but dirty process where woven wool is felted. The bundles of cloth are hit repeatedly by large hammers, the fulling stocks, while soaked in water, urine and a clay known as Fuller's earth. The urine which is a source of ammonia was collected from neighbouring houses, who specially saved it for the purpose.
In re Garlock Sealing Technologies, LLC
In 2010, Garlock filed under a special section of the bankruptcy code (Chapter 11, section 524(g)), which Congress enacted in 1994 because many asbestos companies were facing the prospect of bankruptcy due to the number of victims. Beginning in the 1930s, the asbestos industry engaged in a cover-up of the lethal of effects of asbestos that went on for decades. The product, which has not been banned in the United States, still kills over 3,000 people a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
The special bankruptcy law allows a company to set aside money in a trust to compensate - to a limited extent - its victims, while staying operational and profitable. Filing under 524(g) allows most asbestos corporations to remain economically healthy, although trusts typically lack sufficient funds to fully pay every claim. The median payment percentage to an asbestos victim is 25 percent of a claim's value. Garlock's bankruptcy filing came after it exhausted its insurance due to about thirty years of asbestos-related litigation.
Mesothelioma
Despite proof that the dust associated with asbestos mining and milling causes asbestos-related disease, mining began at Wittenoom in 1943 and continued until 1966. In 1974, the first public warnings of the dangers of blue asbestos were published in a cover story called "Is this Killer in Your Home?" in Australia's "Bulletin" magazine. In 1978, the Western Australian Government decided to phase out the town of Wittenoom, following the publication of a Health Dept. booklet, "The Health Hazard at Wittenoom", containing the results of air sampling and an appraisal of worldwide medical information.
Mr Fluffy
Jansen started using asbestos as an insulation as early as 1967, and began using it in loose form in 1968, prompting a Commonwealth Government investigation within months. However, despite a subsequent report that indicated community exposure to asbestos was potentially "undesirable", he kept working until 1978. Jansen died in 2001.