St. Louis Residents at Risk for Exposure

September 25, 2006 - A recent health study conducted near an old W.R. Grace and Company vermiculite plant in St. Louis states that workers and those who lived near the now-defunct plant may have been exposed to dangerous asbestos. 

"We want people to know that if they worked there, we believe they were exposed," said Gale Carlson, chief of the bureau of environmental epidemiology at the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. 

According to an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a 52-page report compiled by state and federal health investigators recommended “educating workers, their families and nearby residents on the potential for asbestos exposure,” and urged those with concerns to consult a physician.

Of 28 W.R. Grace vermiculite facilities located throughout the United States, the Post-Dispatch points out that the St. Louis plant was one of the ones that received the largest quantities of asbestos-containing vermiculite from the company’s mine in Libby, Montana, where hundreds have been sickened by asbestos-related diseases such as asbestosis and mesothelioma.

The report stated that 139,460 tons of the ore were shipped there between January 1966 and September 1988 - the period during which Grace ran the plant.  Records are incomplete, the report added, so the quantities may actually have been greater than stated. 

One health expert expressed his dismay at the report, stating that it doesn’t go “far enough” to protect those who may have been affected.

“It doesn't take a Harvard medical degree to say that if you worked with Libby vermiculite, you are going to be exposed to asbestos," said Dr. Michael Harbut, director of the National Center for Vermiculite and Asbestos Related Cancers.

He believes the government needs to take more aggressive steps to locate former plant workers to let them know what they’re facing; namely, an increased risk of lung cancer and colon cancer.

Of greater concern, Harbut added, are the 15 million to 30 million homes with the tainted insulation and the people living in them.