UM researchers consider different aspects of asbestos
A mile south of the courthouse where the drama of the W.R. Grace trial is playing out, University of Montana researchers are continuing their efforts to better understand asbestos, the mineral at the heart of the case.
“It’s an important issue for our state; it’s not just Libby,” said Elizabeth Putnam, UM associate professor in the Center for Environmental Health Sciences who is researching Libby asbestos. “It’s been transported across the state. It’s more than just the fibrosis and the cancer; there are a lot of different diseases that can result from this (asbestos). That’s why it’s important to study.”
The federal prosecution of W.R Grace & Co. and five of its executives or managers started in Missoula’s U.S. District Court on Feb. 23. Grace is charged with hiding the health risks of the company’s asbestos-laced vermiculite that was mined in Libby. Although UM asbestos researchers won’t likely testify in the trial, their research continues to stand as important testimony to people around the world concerned about asbestos contamination.
Putnam, in partnership with the laboratories of five other UM professors, is studying the effects of Libby’s asbestos on mice, she said. The study aims to identify specific characteristics of the Libby asbestos and then to formulate ways to medically treat it.
“We do what we do because we are trying to get to a particular route of therapy for people — once asbestos fibers are in your lungs, they don’t come out; you have it for life,” Putnam said. “Since we can’t remove the asbestos, we need to find ways to modify how the body reacts to it.”
Others focus on protecting people from future exposure to asbestos.
Tony Ward, UM research assistant professor within the Center for Environmental Health Sciences, is one of those protectors.
He identified the presence of asbestos in stands of trees near the Libby mine, confirming that deadly fibers were embedded in the bark of hundreds of trees in the area. This created an especially dangerous health risk for U.S. Forest Service employees logging in the region.
“There is a lot of asbestos in the whole forest,” Ward said. “Our focus has shifted to protecting the people that work up there. The whole idea of harvesting the trees is secondary at this point.”
His team’s research was published in peer review journals in scientific literature, and the EPA followed up the Forest Service’s tests with some of its own in 2007, Ward said.
Other researchers aim to identify diseases caused by asbestos.
Former UM associate professor Jean Pfau worked alongside Andrij Holian, UM professor and the director of the Center of Environmental Health Sciences, to identify autoantibodies in Libby residents. Their study found that these autoantibodies, which are produced by the immune system to destroy a person’s own cells, were more prevalent in Libby residents than in a control group of Missoula inhabitants who were not exposed to asbestos. They followed their 2005 study with another in 2007 that linked the autoantibodies to lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. These health problems are more prevalent in Libby than other communities due to asbestos exposure, Pfau said.
The language used by various parties to tell the stories of asbestos in Libby has been the focus of a different kind of study.
Steve Schwarze, UM associate professor of communication studies, organized a symposium that brought asbestos experts to Missoula. He teaches an environmental rhetoric class that often discusses the issue.
“The story that has been told about Libby is a melodrama,” he said. “It was a way of framing the situation in Libby as a public problem, not just a personal one.”
Despite the dire health affects of asbestos, Putnam continues to keep a positive outlook for the future of her team’s research.
“If we could get a lead on something that could potentially be a treatment for people (affected by asbestos) that would be the most satisfying thing,” Putnam said. “We have some promising leads that we’re following.”
–Carmen George
This article first appeared in the Montana Kaimin on March 6.