Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen, a non-profit, consumer rights
advocacy group and think tank based in D.C., shared some facts regarding
the so-called “Furthering Asbestos Claims Transparency Act”
(FACT Act) in an article published in
Huffington Post
this week.
“Astoundingly, the corporate advocates for this legislation try to
portray themselves as victims of asbestos litigation.”
FACT supporters would have you believe that asbestos companies, which made
untold millions selling deadly products for much of the last century,
are being “victimized” and “ganged-up” upon by
attorneys representing the persons who were injured or killed. Mr. Weissman
reveals, however, that lobbyists representingthe asbestos industry and
its insurers outnumber asbestos victim advocates by seven-to-one. Of the
top 50 lobbying entities most frequently mentioning asbestos, 1,362 of
the mentions are from those associated with the asbestos industry, while
only 186 of the mentions are from those associated with lawyers representing
asbestos victims or labor unions.
“With insurers and asbestos-using companies outdistancing asbestos
victim advocates by a seven-to-one margin, the disparity in insider political
power is evident.”
Then there is the fact that the largest asbestos lobbyist is the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce followed in no particular order by Koch Industries, Chubb
Insurance, Ford Motor Company and WR Grace. Companies under the Koch “umbrella”
and Ford are some of the most commonly-named defendants in asbestos cases.
Not due to fraud, as they would have you believe, but due to the fact
that they knowingly sold products that would cause many users to suffer
painful and untreatable illness. The FACT Act is simply the latest effort
to avoid responsibility for their grave and callous acts.
Mr. Weissman nails it with his closing thought; “It's hard to
imagine that America would pay back the victims of a horrendous corporate
cover-up by invading their privacy and victimizing them yet again.”