Conspiracy Theory #2: Bring Back Asbestos! It's Safe Now

Conspiracy theorists are nuts because they are naive enough to believe that people get together and conspire. People do.

I recently visited ground zero. There was still a lot of dust in the area, along with a great number of vendors selling American flags, fire department caps and other world trade center memorabilia. I must admit that I felt a little bit of hatred for these vendors' freedom to profit off tragedy through a manipulation of emotions and promotion of jingoism. But that's nothing compared to the president, who used September 11, 2002 to sell a false need for war against the people of Iraq for the people of Iraq, and September 11, 2003 to push the PATRIOT Act II. As a conspiracy theorist, you ask why Bush would push the PATRIOT Act II at a moment when the first USA PATRIOT Act is under fire even from many Republicans. No one in the media asked. Don't you think Bush knows PATRIOT Act II doesn't stand a chance to pass in Congress? In the extreme long shot that it does, he gets what he wants. If it doesn't pass and there is another terrorist attack, he gets to say that the Democrats prevented him from fighting terrorism, which is good enough to get him re-elected.

But I digress. I'm writing about something else here. I spent more than a quarter of my life working in asbestos litigation. Asbestos litigation gets a bad rap sometimes, because there are too many lawsuits, and with that I agree. There shouldn't be lawsuits for pleural plaque cases or other asbestos cases not involving any impairments. Anyone who gets mesothelioma, however, should have a lawsuit and they should get a lot of money, because they are going to die and they will suffer miserably until they do. The asbestos companies knew of the dangers of asbestos and suppressed that information, because profit was more important than people. Most people today know that asbestos is bad, but there is still much ignorance about the fibers. After the World Trade Center fell, this ignorance has been encouraged by the Bush Administration and the Republican Party.

After 9-11, the White House instructed the EPA to mislead the public regarding the air quality around the World Trade Center. The EPA reported on September 18, 2001 that the air was safe to breathe without sufficient data or analysis to confirm that statement. Turns out there was plenty of bad stuff in the air, including asbestos, and at dangerous levels.

Leave it to the science fiction writers at Fox News to report on September 14, 2001, that the World Trade Center might not have fallen so quickly if asbestos wasn't banned*. Asbestos was used as fireproofing only up to the 64th floor. The article fails to mention that the insulation that replaced asbestos on the higher floors was tested to be thermally as effective as asbestos or that the problem arose from fireproofing spray, asbestos or otherwise, not being uniform at cross beams so that heat was allowed to enter the steel frames, not to mention that when an airplane crashes into it, the fireproofing crumbles off anyway. I suggest you do some Google searches for the Cato Institute and Steven Milloy to figure out where this guy is coming from. Apparently asbestos litigation combined with a strong hatred of our freedoms is responsible for all those deaths. How many more thousands of people would have died from asbestos exposure in the past 30 years if asbestos wasn't banned? Not to mention there would be even more asbestos in the WTC debris for the EPA to lie about.

OK, so why does the White House order the EPA to mislead us about the air? A good argument can be made regarding panic. It doesn't help much to freak everyone out, like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. But what about when there is a fire? What other reasons exist?

Here's where there's a series of coincidences that together stink of "working together" or conspiring. Our vice president Dick Cheney was formerly the CEO of a company called Halliburton. Halliburton has been awarded plenty of contracts in Iraq and has even overcharged our government by $61 billion dollars for delivering gasoline to Iraq during reconstruction. Halliburton looks like it will receive plenty of contract work on the moon and Mars in the future, too. Listen to Gil Scott-Heron's "Whitey on the Moon" for my opinion on that one.

While under Cheney, Halliburton had acquired two companies with major asbestos liability issues: Dresser Industries and Kellogg Brown & Root. On December 16, 2003, Dresser and KBR filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but will continue to be wholly owned by Halliburton and continue with their normal operations, according to the Halliburton website. Never fear, investors, Halliburton will not be affected.

Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is in the process of trying to pass legislation that will eliminate asbestos litigation. The bill will be brought to the Senate floor for a full vote by the end of March 2004. Read this article about how the Hatch bill will bail out Halliburton, though I'm wondering what effect Dresser's and KBR's chapter 11 protection now has. [Editor's note: the day after this column came in, KBR made headlines at the center of a kickback scandal in Iraq.]

A misinformed or uninformed public believes that the air is safe, that asbestos would have saved lives, that litigation caused the towers to fall (not 2 jumbo jets), and that cleaning up the mess can be done more simply and cheaply with a vacuum cleaner. Microscopic asbestos fibers are too small to be trapped in a standard vacuum cleaner bag (gets sucked up and blows out the other end in the air). Only 3385 residences have requested cleaning and testing by the EPA according to the EPA website. I am sad to say that I will not be surprised at all when an abnormal rise in lung cancers and mesotheliomas in New York residents is revealed around 2015. But they will be plenty surprised when they find out that they will not have their day in court because our politicians catered to the corporations while keeping the public in the dark.

So I ask: Is there a connection between Cheney, Halliburton, asbestos, the EPA mislead after 9-11, and the Hatch bill? Or is this all just a series of convenient coincidences?

Neil Shibata
22 January 2004

*Note: Asbestos isn't entirely banned in the U.S. In 2001, the U.S. consumed over 13,000 metric tons of asbestos.