The United States Capitol
The United States Capitol is becoming a battleground over proposed measures to limit asbestos related litigation.Photo used under GNU license.		 Washington- One by one, from veterans and their families to health organizationsm to doctors have come out against congressional plans to limit asbestos litigation.Yet members of the US Senate are defying their calls and continuing to push for corporate sponsored legislation against victims of asbestos exposure.The "Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act of 2005" came to existence shortly after March of 2004 after Pres. Bush. proposed limits on asbestos related "junk" lawsuits at a speech in Detroit.

Originally introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Act would establish a $140 billion trust fund to supplant litigation as a means to compensate victims of asbestos and limit liability. On April 26, 2005, Dr. Philip Landrigan, Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Chairman of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine at Mount SInai School of Medicine, testified before the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary against this proposed legislation.

He testified that many of the bill's provisions are unsupported by medicine and would unfairly exclude a large number of people who have become ill or died from asbestos: "The approach to the diagnosis of disease caused by asbestos that is set forth in this bill is not consistent with the diagnostic criteria established by the American Thoracic Society. If the bill is to deliver on its promise of fairness, these criteria will need to be revised." Also opposing the bill are the American Public Health Association and the Asbestos Workers Union.

The bill was initially defeated last year but has stuck around the Senate Judiciary Committee which last week approved new amendments to the bill including support for those exposed during 9/11 and hurricane Katrina. However the bill includes an exposure length minimum of 5 years which effectively eliminates both groups.

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