Don’t let Missouri lawmakers cheat sick veterans out of justice for asbestos exposure

Between 1999 and 2017, more than 4,700 Missourians died of diseases triggered by asbestos exposure, according to a recent analysis of federal mortality data by the nonprofit EWG Action Fund. Asbestos took their lives and devastated their families, who not only lost loved ones but also struggled to pay the huge costs of medical treatment.

In Jefferson City, state lawmakers are considering three bills that would erect a series of almost insurmountable roadblocks to prevent those who already do or could one day suffer from getting the compensation they are due. These bills would strip asbestos victims and their families of constitutional protections meant to hold asbestos companies accountable.

Military veterans face an outsize burden of falling sick and dying from exposure to the deadly carcinogen because of the military’s decades-long heavy use of asbestos in naval ships and in Army, Air Force and Marine barracks.

Veterans make up about 8% of the country’s population but account for roughly 30% of Americans diagnosed with mesothelioma — the extremely painful, fatal cancer that attacks the lining of the lungs, stomach and other organs and is caused only by asbestos exposure.

There are about 465,000 veterans in Missouri. Many who have fallen ill with asbestos-triggered diseases have so far been able to receive compensation for their illness.

But two bills in the state Senate and one in the House would change that. Senate Bill 200, by state Sen. Bill Eigel a St. Charles Republican, and House Bill 363, by state Rep. David Gregory, a Sunset Hills Republican, would give asbestos companies the power to run out the clock on sick and dying veterans. Senate Bill 331, by state Sen. Eric Burlison, a Battlefield Republican, would place unjustified bureaucratic hurdles before veterans seeking to hold asbestos companies responsible for the harm they caused.

Rather than supporting veterans suffering from deadly mesothelioma or other asbestos cancers, this legislation would allow the asbestos industry to unfairly delay and deny justice to veterans and their families.

Asbestos companies betrayed our brave military service members by knowingly exposing them to unnecessary harm. These three pieces of legislation would make it harder for our sick and dying veterans and their families to hold the companies that hurt them accountable.

There is no justification for these bills. They are political, special interest concessions to an industry that has for years covered up the dangers of asbestos products that have killed hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters. If allowed to become law, they would deny veterans — and the many other Missourians who have been poisoned by asbestos — their day in court.

Contrary to what supporters of these bills would have you believe, this package of legislation was not born out of some urgent need for reform. These bills are the result of years of extensive lobbying efforts in statehouses across the nation, paid for by the same companies that peddled this poison for decades without remorse.

On behalf of its 30,000 members and their families, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Department of Missouri, strongly opposes these unjustified and unfairly lopsided proposals.

In the memory of those who have already died, we call on all Missourians to urge your representatives in Jefferson City to stand with veterans and non-veterans alike who suffer from the devastating, deadly consequences of asbestos exposure.

This story was originally published March 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Don’t let Missouri lawmakers cheat sick veterans out of justice for asbestos exposure."