Abstract

Educating Senator Frist

In the Senate, majority leader Bill Frist has said he will make it a "personal priority" in the present session of Congress to deal with what he calls "the current asbestos litigation crisis." In a speech before the Senate in November, Frist described the Johns-Manville Corporation and W.R. Grace & Company as "reputable companies" that had been driven into bankruptcy because of asbestos litigation. What he apparently did not know was that Johns-Manville had not only been aware since the early 1930s that incurable asbestos lung disease was disabling and killing its own workers but also had instituted a corporate policy not to inform sick workers about X-ray findings showing that they had developed asbestos disease. Is it any wonder that when presented with such evidence from internal company documents, jurors in what Senator Frist calls "the flawed tort system" began meting out punitive damages against Johns-Manville for outrageous and reckless misconduct? Equally puzzling is the manner in which Senator Frist, a physician, managed to mislead his fellow senators about the relationship between asbestos inhalation, cigarette smoking and the development of lung cancer. All of which should serve as a warning to Frist's Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle that they should do their own homework on the nature of asbestos disease and not be swayed by shrill criticism of the tort system.