Fact Sheet: The Frist/Hatch National Asbestos Trust Fund (S.1125)
March 2004

• Terminates legal rights of all current and future asbestos victims. Forces them into national trust fund where there won’t be enough money for victims today who have already been promised compensation nor those in the future who will file valid claims.
• The current version of the Frist/Hatch bill is a step backwards. The current version of the Frist/Hatch bail out bill is under-funded by as much as $90 billion and will fail to meet the needs of millions of future asbestos victims.
• Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist cut $30 billion dollars from the original proposal enacted from the Judiciary Committee over the summer. Experts say the original proposal was under-funded by at least $60 billion because it faces likely future claims from an estimated 1.9 million to 2.4 million asbestos victims
• Today assets available to asbestos victims with negotiated settlements and pending trusts total at least $21.4 billion. The Frist/Hatch bail-out bill would take away $15.5 billion – nearly three quarters of the money promised to asbestos victims.
• That money would go to a dozen asbestos companies which would save billions of dollars. For example, Halliburton would save $3.7 billion from the confiscation of its promised future trust. Honeywell would save $1.5 billion. W.R Grace would save $1.7 billion.
  Insurers have refused to pay more than $46 billion into the trust fund, even though they should be able to pay at least $120 billion over the next 20 years.
  • $19 billion in existing asbestos reserves
  • $41 billion of the industries required statutory surplus
  • $10 billion in non-asbestos reserves
  • $50 billion from future earnings.
• All victims receive much less under the S. 1125 trust fund than they would get in court –some get nothing at all. The sickest victims -- those with mesothelioma, a fatal cancer -- would receive about one-third of their average compensation in court. This is barely enough to cover their health and hospital bills, and leaves virtually nothing for their families when they are gone.
• Some very ill former asbestos workers and some whose diseases are still in their earliest stages would be out of luck and would receive no compensation under the Frist/Hatch bail-out bill –even if they have been forced into early retirement or cannot find work or health insurance of their medical condition.
• Victims would be shut out of the court system and forced to navigate a new and untested federal program. They would face new rules and regulations with harsh and unnecessary requirements to prove they qualify for benefits. It is unlikely that more than a very few of those injured by asbestos could meet the necessary paperwork requirements to be eligible for compensation.
• Victims also would have to meet new, stringent health criteria standards that have been rejected for decades on medical grounds by doctors and other experts on asbestos-related illnesses.

Asbestos is a killer. Inhaling asbestos fibers causes immediate physical injury leading to incurable and progressive diseases that are often fatal.

• Asbestos companies and their insurers knew about the lethal dangers of asbestos, yet they hid what they knew and exposed their workers to the deadly product anyway.
• Asbestos is a public health catastrophe that has killed at least 300,000 Americans so far and will eventually kill an additional half a million or more. Millions more people exposed to asbestos suffer from asbestosis and pleural disease – progressive and incurable illnesses that restrict breathing.
• Exposure to asbestos, even for a very short time, can cause progressive, irreversible lung damage.  Victims often rapidly deteriorate. Those who contract mesothelioma, the most severe asbestos-induced illness, rarely live more than a year.
• Many others get lung cancer or scarring of the lung tissue—asbestosis and pleural disease—resulting in progressive and irreversible reduction in lung capacity.  People with these illnesses eventually require the use of oxygen tanks and can no longer walk up stairs, carry their children, or work. In fact, most cannot work or obtain affordable health or life insurance.
• Millions of Americans continue to be exposed to asbestos and many will become seriously ill or die as a result. If the Frist/Hatch bail out-bill becomes law they will be shut out of the civil justice system and forced into the new trust fund with more obstacles, fewer rights and lower compensation.
• Family members of asbestos workers and others who are exposed to asbestos outside of the workplace and become sick would be required to go before a "Medical Advisory Committee," which will determine whether they qualify for compensation.
• This medical committee would create yet another obstacle for the families of asbestos workers. These victims who were poisoned through no fault of their own would be forced to maneuver through this new and untested bureaucracy before receiving any compensation for their injuries
• Workers today are still being exposed to asbestos. The US Geological Survey estimates that 29 million pounds of asbestos were used by American industry in 2001.
• Even today, asbestos is not banned, and more than one million Americans are exposed to asbestos each year on the job, doing home improvements, replacing brake pads and other activities, according to the U. S. government’s Occupational Health & Safety Administration.
• Medical experts estimate that the World Trade Center attack on 9/11 spread a storm of asbestos-contaminated dust throughout lower Manhattan, creating a risk as high as one additional cancer death for every 10 people exposed.

Tell your senator to vote no on S.1125 – the Frist/Hatch asbestos bailout bill - and give the money back to asbestos victims and their families.