Vento's widow urges ban on asbestos

By Tom Webb, Pioneer Press

The widow of Rep. Bruce Vento, D-St. Paul, on Tuesday will join Minnesota's two U.S. senators in urging a nationwide ban on asbestos products.

Vento, a 24-year congressman, died in 2000 from mesothelioma, a type of cancer usually caused by exposure to asbestos fibers. On Capitol Hill today, Susan Vento, along with Sens. Paul Wellstone and Mark Dayton, both D-Minn., will urge support for a bill that would ban asbestos from any new product, finance research into asbestos-related diseases, and support treatment centers.

Although asbestos was removed from most construction materials in the mid-1970s, the material is still produced and used in automobile brake pads, roofing shingles and other products. The federal government's earlier attempts to ban asbestos have been overturned or blocked, leading to a widespread misconception.

"The conventional wisdom in this country is that asbestos has been banned, but the reality is, it has not been," said Todd Webster, a spokesman for Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the bill's main author. "It continues to be put in products to this day."

Doctors have known for decades that repeatedly inhaling asbestos fibers greatly increases the risk of mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs that's usually fatal. The cancer can take decades to appear. It most often strikes men who've worked in the construction, manufacturing, mining and shipbuilding industries, where exposure to asbestos was once commonplace.

The growing toll from asbestos-related illnesses — and the mountain of lawsuits they produced — prompted both industry and government to work for the removal of asbestos from most products since the 1970s. Several foreign countries, including France and Great Britain, have adopted bans.

Murray's office estimated the cost of the bill at $32.5 million, half of it for the Environmental Protection Agency to implement the ban.

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