Mesohotline.com
June 2, 2006CPMV expresses doubts about $140 billion asbestos trust fund bill
The Committee to Protect Mesothelioma Victims (CPMV) is protesting the introduction of Senate Bill 3274, also known as the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act of 2006. In place of the current asbestos-litigation system, there would be a $140 billion program that “leaves victims out in the cold” and that would “[give] large corporations a traffic ticket while taking away the citizen’s right to sue,” said Susan Vento, chairperson of the CPMV.Vento claims that the bill, introduced by Senators Arlen Specter and Patrick Leahy, make things harder for victims than for perpetrators in the decades-old link between asbestos and mesothelioma. Vento said that Specter’s words during Senate debate make clear that harsher standards for victims would be used as a way to stay within the $140 billion cap.
“If the government cannot find a valid means of rightfully compensating all victims, after having eliminated their legal rights, then it should not create it,” Vento said. “Otherwise, it is nothing more than a scheme to benefit the companies that caused the problem and a travesty for asbestos victims.”
Vento is the widow of Bruce Vento, the Minnesota Congressman who died of mesothelioma in 2000, years after asbestos exposure during a summer job when he was a college student. The CPMV is an organization founded by asbestos victims, their families and friends. It works to raise awareness of asbestos exposure and mesothelioma, and to be sure that victims’ rights are protected and represented.
