Libby Residents Faced Imminent Asbestos Risk
April 23, 2009 by admin
Filed under Asbestos & Mesothelioma
From ‘The Western News’:
The W.R. Grace & Co. environmental trial entered its eighth week on Monday with testimony from a government witness that described the imminent risk of asbestos exposure to Libby residents.
Expert witness Richard Lemen said the mineral’s needle-like fibers build in a person’s lungs over time. Lemen said that the more asbestos one inhales over time, the more they are pushed toward disease, thus an exposure poses an imminent threat.
“Asbestos-related disease is dose response related … that is, the higher the exposure, the higher the risk of getting a disease,” Lemen said. “The risk is how much a person takes into their body, as their body accumulates these indestructible fibers, that’s when we see disease.”
Lemen was allowed to testify Monday only as an expert epidemiologist after Judge Donald Molloy ruled that the prosecution could not also offer him as an expert industrial hygienist because they did not previously disclose him as one. Lemen served in the U.S. Army assessing health issues before going on to a decorated career in the Public Health Service, reaching the highest non-politically appointed position in the agency.
After retiring in 1996, Lemen went on to teach public health at Emory University and also to work as an epidemiological consultant for legal matters. Lemen said that he charges $350 an hour for his services as a trial witness and has made $38,000 in the four years since the government began building their case against W.R. Grace.
Lemen said that his opinion on the threat posed to the residents of Libby was based on his career, education and also time spent reviewing thousands of articles on asbestos exposure. Lemen described an epidemiologist as a medical detective, looking into diseases and trying to determine their cause.
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