Fatal Deception: The Terrifying True Story of How Asbestos Is Killing AmericaSTILL LEGAL, STILL LETHAL Most Americans mistakenly believe asbestos was banned long ago. In fact, it is still legal and can still kill you. Its microscopic fibers cause painful and incurable diseases. Despite being outlawed in nearly every other industrialized country, asbestos remains a legal component of more than three thousand common products in the United States. These include toasters, washers/dryers, ovens, building supplies, and automobile brakes. Our confusion about asbestos is no accident. Fatal Deception is a chilling exposé of the asbestos industry's successful seventy-year campaign to hide the deadly effects of its products from the American people. The stakes are high -- tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Michael Bowker rips the cover off the decades of deceit, including the treachery in Libby, Montana, site of the most deadly environmental disaster in U.S. history. He also unveils a startling and ongoing cover-up at Ground Zero -- where thousands of New Yorkers may still be suffering from exposure to dangerous levels of asbestos fibers. Compelling, enraging, and very timely, Fatal Deception is not just a fascinating story, it is a plea to the government and to the American people to help sponsor research into asbestos-related diseases -- and a call to arms to ban asbestos now. |
Contents
A Plague of Epic Proportions | 15 |
The Disease of Slaves | 43 |
Following the Toxic Trail | 61 |
Death by Millions of Cuts | 109 |
Justice Denied | 131 |
A Legal Reckoning | 161 |
The EPA Lands in Libby | 187 |
Why Asbestos Remains Americas Most Lethal Secret | 211 |
A Town Divided | 225 |
Targeting Third World Markets | 241 |
Bankruptcies and the Cowardly Lion | 259 |
CoverUp at Ground Zero? | 277 |
The 500 Million Silver Bullet | 293 |
Toward Banning Asbestos | 309 |
What to Do If You Suspect Asbestos Is in Your Home | 323 |
Common terms and phrases
agencies American amphiboles asbestos claims asbestos companies asbestos contamination asbestos diseases asbestos dust asbestos exposure asbestos fibers asbestos industry asbestos products asbestos victims asbestos workers asbestos-related diseases asbestosis attorneys ban asbestos began Benefield bestos Bob Wilkins buildings cause Chapter 11 chrysotile cleanup company's corporate court crocidolite dangers deadly death decades diagnosed died doctors dollars employees EPA team EPA's experts exposed fact federal filed Gayla Grace officials hazards hundred insulation Johns-Manville Kaylo knew lawsuits levels of asbestos Libby Libby residents Lovick lung cancer manufacturers Manville Martz memo mesothelioma Miller million miners mines Monokote Montana nearly never percent Peronard Peter Grace plant pleural potential problem Racicot safety samples Selikoff shipyards sick Skramstad stoner rock story studies suffering Superfund thousands tion told town tremolite vermiculite W. R. Grace Weis wrote York Zonolite