Asbestos the way to dusty death 1982

Asbestos the way to dusty death 1982
This is clipped from the 1982 documentary film – Asbestos : the way to dusty death – by ABC News. It was an updated version of an earlier ABC film from 1978. The film focuses on the dangers of asbestos, one of the biggest industrial killers in history. It reveals original investigative material showing that the US Navy and other Federal agencies knew long along about the hazards of asbestos, but failed to act. The film shows stories of men, women and children who have been afflicted with mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer whose only known cause is asbestos. Three of them, whose interviews with ABC in 1978 are reshown, had since died. Legally opposed to the afflicted workers and their families stands the Manville Corporation, then the country’s largest manufacturer of asbestos products, which had filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Federal bankruptcy code in 1981 in an effort to block thousands of lawsuits that were piling up against it. The company remained highly profitable. The plaintiffs – and the producers of ”Asbestos: The Way to Dusty Death” – view the ”bankruptcy” action as a ploy to avoid dealing fairly with the victims. Jules Bergman, the ABC News science editor, closes by charging Manville with attempting to establish a ”a dangerous precedent” in depriving the plaintiffs of their ”day in court.” The widow of a Manville worker frames the charge more bitterly and with fewer cliches: ”Lives are not worth as much as their third quarter profit …
Video Rating: 5 / 5