This case study of asbestos in society, addressed from multiple perspectives, is designed to provide an understanding of what often drives US health policy in the public interest when corporate profits are at stake. The asbestos industry effectively suppressed information about the harmful effects of asbestos for decades. Although armed with insurance company studies and internal company reports early in the twentieth century, businesses failed to protect employees and consumers from asbestos exposure until policy was passed decades later. Independent medical stud- ies conducted as early as 1917 pointed to serious health consequences of asbestos exposure, yet this information was withheld from workers and did not become widely known to the public until the 1960s when asbestos worker lawsuits began to emerge. While scientists were busy conducting studies, few people were taking this information and advocating for worker and consumer safety. The tide turned, per- haps, once lawsuits were filed in the 1960s and the dangers associated with asbestos exposure became a matter of public record and a media focus. Lawyers may very well have been the agents for change.
The asbestos litigation served as a catalyst for public health policy, as well.
At that point, mainstream media combined with consumer advocacy efforts, led to regulatory actions. Rather than science and government, grassroots efforts bolstered by the mass media accelerated the process. Once health studies became widely available to the general public with the media’s coverage of asbestos victim lawsuits, asbestos’ deadly effects could no longer be hidden from society. Public debates and policies regarding asbestos abatement in pub- lic schools also brought heightened attention to critical health issues. Lawyers, occupational health professionals and environmental organizations advocated for those who did not have the educational background or expertise to do so on their own.
The media aroused the public’s emotions with stories of asbestos victims, inci- dents of deception and cover-up by the asbestos industry, and stories of Congressional members being influenced by special interest groups. These stories resonated and heightened public interest in the topic. The media also put a human face on a serious health problem that is actually quite complicated. For example, an investigative documentary on the Libby, Montana, asbestos case was released in 2005, and has received some awards at independent film festivals. Although it has not been distributed to mainstream theaters, word-of-mouth and the Internet keep it in the public eye.
Surprisingly, 40 years of national attention to asbestos dangers have not led to corresponding tough regulations to protect workers and consumers or compensate victims and future victims. Instead, the asbestos industry was able to employ the same tactics that have been successful for other special interest groups and busi- nesses, such as the tobacco industry. As this case study reveals, several strategies were employed by the asbestos industry to protect their profits in the face of immi- nent regulation and lawsuits:
1. Establishment of credible doubt. The asbestos industry raised doubts about the science of assessing asbestos exposure levels and the threshold at which humans become affected. The new findings that countered decades of research came from industry-supported laboratories.
2. Strategic use of industry money. Front groups masquerading as victim advocacy groups were financed by the asbestos industry. The front groups and industry coalitions poured millions of dollars into lobbying government to shape legal reform and, again, to block efforts for more rigorous asbestos regulations.
3. Support of favorable political candidates. The 1980s, under President Ronald Reagan, represented a decade of deregulation, when businesses enjoyed greater freedoms and less controls. Asbestos industry leaders, such as W.R. Grace, enjoyed status on key political commissions.
4. Engineering of public sympathy. The asbestos industry orchestrated a shift of public sympathy away from asbestos victims toward regulatory action “victims.”
The industry and government created fears of an economic collapse should the class-action lawsuit be allowed to continue without placing limits on victim compensation.
5. Good lawyers. Industry lawyers have been very effective at using the law to their clients’ advantage and delaying proceedings that could negatively affect their client.
In addition to industry efforts, lawmakers favorable to the asbestos industry helped gain public support for their actions by employing two key strategies:
1. Creation of a false image of government action. Minor actions that had little overall impact were touted, making it appear that government was actively work- ing for the public’s best interests in regard to asbestos policy. In reality, a back- wards step was taken.
2. Discrediting asbestos victim lawsuits. The asbestos class-action lawsuit was rhe- torically aligned with highly publicized litigation that the public saw as frivolous or junk lawsuits. This was an effort to gain support for legal reforms that appeared to be fair but instead rewarded corporate malfeasance.
Failings on the part of public health advocates also paved the way for industry dominance in political maneuvering:
1. Missed opportunities. In the 1990s, public health advocates failed to take advantage of a favorable regulatory political climate. While the 1990s invited greater government scrutiny of the asbestos industry, the 2000 election ush- ered in another decade of deregulation. Advocates failed to take advantage of the opportunity to manage asbestos policy in support of workers, consumers, and victims.
2. Lack of effective strategy to gain public support. By keeping the media and pub- lic focus on vulnerable publics such as school children, public health advocates may have been more successful at putting a sympathetic face on asbestos regula- tion. The public might believe that workers knowingly took risks, but children are seen as innocent victims.
Other issues continue to delay action for asbestos victims. A lack of agreement prevails within the asbestos industry, the insurance industry, and trade organizations and unions representing asbestos workers, regarding the best approach to litigate the tens of thousands of victim claims. This makes it complicated to determine which organizations have the best interests of asbestos victims in mind rather than corporate bottom lines. Corporations that have the financial backing to lobby gov- ernment for their own financial benefit have successfully shaped the regulatory and legal environment for asbestos, in spite of overwhelming evidence of corporate malfeasance and criminal negligence.
Ambiguity surrounds this case; there is much to be gained or lost financially from eliminating this ambiguity, depending on what asbestos-affected party you represent. It is presumptuous to assert that if guerilla media tactics were prevalent in the early twentieth century, that asbestos regulation would have followed scien- tific discovery more closely. Scientists often blame media for creating alarmist public concerns over threats that actually pose little risk to human life (Ratzan 1998). Scientists also argue that the media’s science reporting is often inaccurate or fails to provide the critical details for citizens to make an informed decision. This is partially true, due to the limited space and time afforded to such topics and the media’s drive to provide news in easily digested sound bites. Many public health professionals, however, now view the media as an important tool for activating citi- zens to become informed participants in the public policy process.
Corporate Social Responsibility
It is difficult to determine if case studies such as this one will encourage more efficient health policy development to protect the US public. First, a culture of change must occur in both business and government. The triple bottom line (TBL), sometimes known as “People, Planet, and Profits,” is a term coined by John Elkington (1994) to describe a standard of accountability for businesses to engage in sustainable practices. According to Elkington, business success should be mea- sured in three areas: the economic (financial) bottom line, the social bottom line, and the environmental bottom line. The social bottom line calls on corporations not only to practice ethical conduct in their labor practices and in relationships with the communities in which they operate, but also to create objectives that maintain mutually beneficial relationships with all internal and external publics.
The environmental bottom line requires businesses to “do no harm” to the environ- ment and even to make it a better place than they found it. Finally, the economic bottom line is the traditional measure that most businesses use to gauge success, but instead it is viewed as being shared by the business, host community, and workers. Elkington suggests that following the tenets of TBL will make businesses more successful and communities healthier. Corporate critics warn, however, that the triple bottom line can be staged to give the appearance of corporate responsibility, when it is just business (and public relations) as usual. Although triple-bottom-line
reporting is voluntary, it is possible to create a culture where consumers and government support corporations that follow these principles, and they should follow them both locally and globally.
As the federal lawsuit involving the Libby, Montana, mine and mill finally comes to trial this year, more attention will be drawn to asbestos. Consumers may turn to the media to explain the risk associated with living around asbestos. Perhaps the result will be the public’s heightened awareness of the prevalence of corporate corruption at the expense of human lives. This, in turn, may create a more active citizenry, although lessons learned from the tobacco lawsuits suggest otherwise.
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