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Silicosis claims inquiry widens
Congress seeks data from two local law firms
By Neal Falgoust Caller-Times
February 18, 2006 - A congressional committee has widened its investigation into possibly fraudulent silicosis claims and asked for information from two local law firms appointed to the cases.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters Friday to 13 plaintiff law firms and the state health officers of six jurisdictions where many of the lawsuits originated.
The letters ask the attorneys to respond by March 3 with information detailing their financial arrangements and interactions with the doctors and screening companies involved in diagnosing thousands of clients for litigation.
The two local firms named in the investigation are Snapka, Turman & Waterhouse and the Watts Law Firm. Neither firm played a role in bringing the cases to court. Both were appointed by U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack to be the local plaintiff representatives. The Watts firm also provided warehouse space to store documents.
"Those weren't our clients," attorney Mikal Watts said.
The continuing investigation by the House committee follows a July 2005 ruling by U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack in which she questioned the validity of thousands of silicosis diagnoses that landed in her court in 2003.
Silicosis is a potentially fatal lung ailment caused by the inhalation of fine dust particles. Roughly 10,000 people sued dozens of manufacturing companies claiming to have been exposed to the dust, which can be caused by sandblasting and concrete demolition.
Jack determined that several doctors involved in diagnosing the plaintiffs failed to meet even the most basic medical standards.
In its letter, the committee said the litigation raised troubling health issues.
"We are concerned that there appears to be no meaningful doctor-patient relationship established by the screening process at issue," according to the letter.
Contact Neal Falgoust at 886-4334 or falgoustn@ caller.com
Bush's disturbing nomination
By Celeste Monforton
Special to The Courier-Journal
August 24, 2006 - In a year when 55 men have lost their lives at U.S. mining operations, including 15 from Kentucky (14 coal miners and one worker at Powell County limestone mine), it's more important than ever to scrutinize President Bush's nominees for top regulatory posts.
On July 31, the President nominated Susan E. Dudley to head his Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which oversees the administration's (and therefore the nation's) regulatory policies, including rules issued by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. Dudley currently directs the Mercatus Center's Regulatory Studies Program, an industry-friendly think-tank made up of scholars who criticize public health and safety regulations as unnecessary, too onerous or interfering with the free-market system.
Friends of Kentucky's miners might be particularly interested in a recent law review article that she co-authored about silicosis and workplace safety rules. Clearly, Dudley knows little about the adverse health effects of silica, the disabling disease silicosis or workers' struggles for occupational health protections. Most troubling, she feigns expertise and argues that more study is needed before protections for silica-exposed workers can be put in place.
In the article "Defining What to Regulate: Silica and the Problem of Regulatory Categorization" (Administrative Law Review, Summer 2006), this Bush nominee claims, "There are serious problems in identifying the cause of lung damage from silica exposure."
Article untrue
This is not true. The cause of lung damage is exposure to respirable crystalline silica. Despite the authors' assertions, physicians, toxicologists and other experts have known for nearly a century that microscopic particles of SiO{-2} (silicon dioxide, or quartz), when inhaled, can penetrate deep into the lung's alveoli. The body's natural defense mechanisms attack the tiny silica particle, thereby creating scar tissue -- and with too much exposure and too much scar tissue, silicosis develops.
When materials containing SiO{-2}, such as cement, bricks or rock are drilled, sawed or otherwise disrupted and create dust, or when crystalline silica sand is used for abrasive blasting or in foundry processes, workers are at risk of breathing respirable particles containing quartz. This is all well-known, indisputable science.
Dudley and her co-author are following the script first popularized many decades ago by the tobacco industry: When faced with regulation to protect the public health, always raise doubt and manufacture uncertainty about the scientific evidence.
Smoking to silica
Instead of cigarette smoking, the topic is now silica. The authors assert that a workplace regulation to prevent silicosis would be premature because "we do not know whether particular forms of silica are harmful" and the scientific evidence "comes from extremely limited sources."
Not true. The American Thoracic Society's 1997 official statement on the health effects of exposure to respirable crystalline silica includes more than 140 references, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's health hazard review lists nearly 500 scientific papers and documents to support its findings. Claims of scientific uncertainty by two law professors do not make it so.
Dudley also asserts in her article that epidemiological studies of silica-exposed workers may not be relevant because the studied workers "were exposed to silica of particular types, which may or may not be representative of silica found elsewhere."
Again, this tactic follows the uncertainty script, and, again, it is not true: SiO{-2} is SiO{-2}. If confirmed to the White House post, is this how Dudley would interpret scientific evidence, even such settled science as the cause of silicosis or coal workers' pneumoconiosis?
Following her logic, might she declare that the coal mine dust from the Upper Harlan seam and the Pocahontas seam are substantially different? If so, would she require MSHA to develop "coal-seam specific" regulations before miners could be protected from the deadly dust?
Delaying regulations
Sounds ludicrous, but stranger things have happened when ill-qualified idePlogues are appointed to decision-making posts for the sole purpose of delaying or stopping all regulations.
As The Courier-Journal noted in its Aug. 17 editorial "Tolerating a killer," better protection for miners will not materialize without strong commitment from federal regulators. But, if the U.S. Senate confirms Bush's nominee for OIRA, expect her to question whether coal mine dust and respirable silica actually cause lung disease, and expect the long wait for personal dust monitorS and tougher rules to protect miners from black lung disease to continue.
Celeste Monforton, M.P.H., is a senior research associate with the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy at George Washington University School of Public Health. She was a policy analyst at OSHA and MSHA from 1991-2001, and most recently, assisted J. Davitt McAteer with the West Virginia Sago Mine Disaster investigation.
Dudley's Disturbing Views on Worker Health and Safety
August 25, 2006 - Former OSHA and MSHA policy analyst Celeste Monforton blasted OIRA nominee Susan Dudley in yesterday’s Courier-Journal for her “disturbing” position on worker health and safety. Dudley recently wrote a law review article on OSHA’s regulation of respirable crystalline silica, a breathable dust that causes silicosis, an irreversible and potentially fatal lung disease. According to the CDC 1.7 million U.S. workers in occupations such as construction, sandblasting and mining are exposed to crystalline silica. Despite this evidence, Dudley claims that more information is needed before OSHA can regulate silica exposure to protect workers. Says Monforton:
Despite the authors' assertions, physicians, toxicologists and other experts have known for nearly a century that microscopic particles of SiO{-2} (silicon dioxide, or quartz), when inhaled, can penetrate deep into the lung's alveoli. The body's natural defense mechanisms attack the tiny silica particle, thereby creating scar tissue -- and with too much exposure and too much scar tissue, silicosis develops. . . . This is all well-known, indisputable science.
Dudley and her co-author are following the script first popularized many decades ago by the tobacco industry: When faced with regulation to protect the public health, always raise doubt and manufacture uncertainty about the scientific evidence.
Instead of cigarette smoking, the topic is now silica. The authors assert that a workplace regulation to prevent silicosis would be premature because "we do not know whether particular forms of silica are harmful" and the scientific evidence "comes from extremely limited sources."
Not true. The American Thoracic Society's 1997 official statement on the health effects of exposure to respirable crystalline silica includes more than 140 references, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's health hazard review lists nearly 500 scientific papers and documents to support its findings. Claims of scientific uncertainty by two law professors do not make it so.
15 miners have died in Kentucky in 2006. As Monforton points out, Dudley’s approach of questioning the underlying science could be used to delay needed protections for mine workers. “[S]tranger things have happened when ill-qualified ideologues are appointed to decision-making posts for the sole purpose of delaying or stopping all regulations,” says Monforton.
Silicosis doc surrenders license
More repercussions from Judge Jack's exposure of "red flags of fraud" among repeat silicosis/asbestos claimants, per the Associated Press: "A doctor who made thousands of questionable diagnoses of the lung disease silicosis has surrendered his Texas medical license amid an investigation by the Texas Medical Board. Raymond A. Harron, 74, last week agreed to no longer practice medicine in Texas and not seek renewal or re-issuance of the license he got 44 years ago. His Texas medical license expires May 31."
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