Lessons from Libby: Understanding the impact of asbestos exposure

Abstract

Lessons from Libby: Understanding the impact of asbestos exposure Jean C. Pfau, Scientific Consultant at the Center for Asbestos Related Disease, shares the devasting story of asbestos exposure occurring in a Rocky Mountain town of Montana and the critical lessons that can be learned from this event. Twenty years ago, Libby, Montana, became known as ‘the town left to die’ after a series of articles appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer exposing asbestos-related deaths linked to one of the largest vermiculite mines in the world. The main product, Zonolite insulation, remains in millions of homes in North America. At that time, Libby was a mining and logging town, only six miles from the mining operations that, for decades, covered the town in dust containing unregulated asbestos. Because the asbestos-containing vermiculite was used in home insulation, gardens, playgrounds, and ball parks, everyone living, working, or visiting in the area was exposed to low, but deadly, levels of tiny needle-like (amphibole) fibers. Disproving the idea that unregulated asbestos does not cause disease, hundreds of people have suffered horrible deaths from lung diseases, cancers, and systemic autoimmune disease (SAID, including rheumatoid arthritis and lupus) from exposure to the Libby Amphibole (LA). (1)