STILL LEGAL, STILL LETHAL Most Americans mistakenly believe asbestos was banned long ago. In fact, it is still legal and can still kill you. Its microscopic fibers cause painful and incurable diseases. Despite being outlawed in nearly every other industrialized country, asbestos remains a legal component of more than three thousand common products in the United States. These include toasters, washers/dryers, ovens, building supplies, and automobile brakes. Our confusion about asbestos is no accident. Fatal Deception is a chilling exposé of the asbestos industry's successful seventy-year campaign to hide the deadly effects of its products from the American people. The stakes are high -- tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Michael Bowker rips the cover off the decades of deceit, including the treachery in Libby, Montana, site of the most deadly environmental disaster in U.S. history. He also unveils a startling and ongoing cover-up at Ground Zero -- where thousands of New Yorkers may still be suffering from exposure to dangerous levels of asbestos fibers. Compelling, enraging, and very timely, Fatal Deception is not just a fascinating story, it is a plea to the government and to the American people to help sponsor research into asbestos-related diseases -- and a call to arms to ban asbestos now. Michael Bowker is an investigative journalist specializing in telling the human stories behind today’s health, science, and environmental issues. A former contributor to the Los Angeles Times, he has written four books and more than one thousand articles for a variety of publications. He lives in Placerville, California. CHAPTER 1: SERPENT IN THE ROCK Tucked into a wild, verdant valley in the northwestern part of Montana, surrounded by a deep wilderness that extends well beyond the Canadian border ninety miles to the north, lies the town of Libby. John Steinbeck once called Montana "A Love Affair," and so it is with Libby. Those who love the solitude, natural beauty, and physical independence that the town offers are compelled to live here, even though jobs often are scarce. The twelve thousand or so folks who live around Libby are friendly, open, and trusting, for the most part. They are aware of their backwater status and are quick to make self-deprecating jokes about it. But, the truth is, they love Libby and wouldn't live anywhere else. The bucolic, pine-rimmed valley, the jade-colored Kootenai River, and the snowcapped Cabinet Mountains that arc some seven thousand feet above the town combine to make Libby an idyllic village of postcard views. Life is simple and quiet here. Everyone knows one another. The crime rate is low. Bar fights and moose-poaching reports take up most of the police ledger, and it has been that way for more than a hundred years. That's why the last thing anyone expected was that Libby would suddenly become Ground Zero for the most lethal environmental poisoning in U.S. history. No one could have predicted that this small American town was about to become the center of a medical, legal, and political storm over asbestos that would make headlines around the world. And no one could have imagined that hundreds and perhaps thousands of people would ultimately die in Libby from tiny fibers no one could see. A snake had entered Paradise, and nobody saw it coming. Asbestos is the general term for a number of naturally occurring fibrous forms of several mineral silicates. These grow in chainlike crystal structures of billions of microscopic fibers that are so light they can float in the air for hours or even days. The fibers are so pliable they can be woven into cloth. Because it is literally a rock, asbestos is waterproof, fireproof, and corrosion-proof. Manufacturers quickly found that this "magic mineral" had hundreds of applications in buildings, homes, appliances, automobiles, and in a variety of common products from ironing board pads and cigarette filters to hair dryers and children's clothing. Besides its insulating and fireproofing properties, asbestos has the tensile strength of piano wire, making it perfect for use as a binding agent in thousands of building products such as cement, tile, mastics, and vinyl wall and floor coverings. More than thirty-three million tons of it have been incorporated in buildings, vehicles, and products in the United States, greatly boosting the fortunes of dozens of great American companies such as Johns Manville, Raybestos-Manhattan, Owens Corning, and W. R. Grace. Asbestos was indeed a "miracle mineral" when it came to profit margins. The problem with asbestos is the fibers. They break off at the slightest provocation. Needle-sharp and shaped like spears, they can be inhaled by the thousands with each breath. Some physicians believe even one of the fibers, lodged in the wrong place, can eventually kill a person. While many of the fibers find their way safely out of the body, others inevitably embed the