Asbestos Victims Organizations Oppose FAIR Act

June 5 , 2006 - In a statement issued by the national Committee to Protect Mesothelioma Victims (CPMV) and with sentiments echoed by other such organizations, the chairperson of the committee called the proposed Senate Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act of 2006 a program that “leaves victims out in the cold” and amounts to "giving large corporations a traffic ticket while taking away the citizen's right to sue."

"Clearly this $140 billion trust fund bill was rewritten to attract a few votes and not to improve the legislation; in fact, what was already bad for asbestos victims has now become considerably worse," said CPMV chairperson Susan Vento in an article released by U.S. Newswire. "Once again the proponents have tried to resolve difficult issues by making things harder for the victim rather than the perpetrator.

The recently revised bill, introduced by Senators Specter and Leahy and recently presented to a Senate judiciary committee, incorporates harsher qualifying medical criteria for victims so as not to exceed the $140 million set aside for compensation, Vento further notes. 

"If the government cannot find a valid means of rightfully compensating all victims, after having eliminated their legal rights, then it should not create it," Vento added. "Otherwise, it is nothing more than a scheme to benefit the companies that caused the problem and a travesty for asbestos victims-many who were employees unknowingly harmed while working for the paycheck that kept the roof over their families' heads."

Vento is the wife of a former Congressman who died of mesothelioma in 2000 after being exposed to asbestos for 3 months during a summer job he held a few decades ago.  As is typical of mesothelioma, the disease took more than 20 years to develop.  Since her husband’s diagnosis, Mrs. Vento has been campaigning for victims’ rights and calls the proposed trust fund a “no accountability heaven for the corporations.”