June, 06 2012, 03:33pm EDT
Congressional Proposal Designed to Run Out the Clock on Asbestos Victims
Even the asbestos industry has its defenders on Capitol Hill. Their support for the deadly carcinogen and the industries that use it was on display when the "Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency (FACT) Act of 2012" was introduced last month.
WASHINGTON
Even the asbestos industry has its defenders on Capitol Hill. Their support for the deadly carcinogen and the industries that use it was on display when the "Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency (FACT) Act of 2012" was introduced last month.
The proposal, authored by Rep. Benjamin Quayle (R-Ariz) with the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the industry-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC would place new burdens on asbestos trusts, which exist solely to compensate present and future victims of asbestos disease. The Quayle bill would allow companies responsible for these trusts to squander their assets, force victims to submit mountains of information and even deny compensation to victims. In short, the bill is designed to swamp the claims process with paperwork so that victims seeking compensation may never collect.
"Asbestos, a known human carcinogen, remains a lethal public health hazard. On behalf of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), we are strongly opposed to the Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency Act of 2012 (H.R. 4369), which creates another burden for patients and families to overcome during an extremely difficult time," said Linda Reinstein, co-founder, president and CEO of ADAO. "Delayed or denied compensation would gravely impact patients' pursuit of medical care and justice. As a mesothelioma widow, I am disappointed when Congressional legislative efforts continue to focus on litigation instead of education. Americans need legislation that will prevent environmental and occupational asbestos-caused diseases and stop the continued import of asbestos across our border to meet manufacturing demands. As consumers and workers, it is Americans that deserve transparency to prevent exposure."
"The only thing transparent about this bill is the blatant support for the industry's decades' long effort to run out the clock on a victim's ability to collect a claim before he or she dies," said Heather White, chief of staff and general counsel for the Environmental Working Group.
An estimated 10,000 Americans die each year from asbestos-related diseases. Many live only months after being diagnosed.
EWG has documented the asbestos epidemic and the industry's aggressive campaign to hide the dangers from the public and deny justice to those who have died.
White has written the chairman and ranking members of the House Judiciary Committee where the legislation will first be considered:
Touted as a sunshine proposal, the bill fundamentally fails to understand health problems related to asbestos exposure and how the legal system compensates victims of asbestos disease. If signed into law, the FACT Act would significantly delay or deny justice for thousands of victims of the great asbestos tragedy. The public deserves better.
The Environmental Working Group is a community 30 million strong, working to protect our environmental health by changing industry standards.
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Mercedes-Benz workers move to unionize in Alabama
"We're here to tell you that we are the majority. Mercedes workers are ready to stand up."
Feb 27, 2024
The United Auto Workers announced Tuesday that a majority of around 6,000 workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama have indicated they support joining the union.
That's the largest Mercedes-Benz plant in the U.S., and getting more than half of its employees to sign union cards is a major win for the UAW. Around 6,000 people work at the plant.
"We're here today to make a major announcement. A majority of our co-workers at Mercedes here in Alabama have signed our union cards and are ready to win our union and a better life with the UAW," Mercedes worker Jeremy Kimbrell said in a statement. "We haven't taken this step lightly. For years, we've fallen further behind while Mercedes has made billions."
"We’re here to tell you that we are the majority.
Mercedes workers are ready to stand up.
This is our decision.
It’s our life.
It’s our community.
These are our families.
It's up to us."#StandUpMercedes pic.twitter.com/tV0ctaPW2M
— UAW (@UAW) February 27, 2024
Kimbrell cited insufficient wage increases and the abuse of temporary workers as reasons the plant should be unionized. Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee achieved majority support for joining the UAW earlier this month. This indicates the UAW is making gains in the South, which has historically been a difficult task.
The UAW has been working hard to fight for autoworkers and expand the union over the past year, and it was able to able to get improved contracts with the "Big Three" auto companies—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis—after a six-week strike last year.
President Joe Biden even became the first sitting U.S. president to join striking workers on a picket line. The UAW later went on to endorse Biden for reelection and declare that former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee, is a "scab."
Rather than slowing its efforts to improve conditions for autoworkers after its win with the Big Three, the UAW instead proceeded to launch "the largest organizing drive in modern American history." The union clearly has momentum and no plans to stop its fight for workers' rights, and the Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama achieving majority support for unionization is just the latest example.
"There comes a time when enough is enough," Kimbrell said. "Now is that time. We know what the company, what the politicians, and what their multi-millionaire buddies will say. They'll say now is not the right time. Or that this is not the right way. But here's the thing. This is our decision. It's our life. It's our community. These are our families. It's up to us."
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Florida Lawmakers Shelve 'Fetal Personhood' Bill After Alabama IVF Backlash
The bill would allow civil lawsuits over the "wrongful death" of an "unborn child," including in potential cases involving in vitro fertilization.
Feb 27, 2024
Florida Republicans are unlikely to pass a so-called "fetal personhood" bill during the current legislative session following a Senate committee's decision on Monday to postpone further consideration of the proposal, which had been approved by several committees before an Alabama Supreme Court ruling last week sparked a national uproar over the right-wing push to secure rights for "the unborn."
The panel said it was temporarily postponing Senate Bill 476, which would define a fetus as an "unborn child" with the protections of civil negligence laws. The proposal is aimed at making abortion providers and others who help secure abortion care for pregnant people liable in potential civil lawsuits.
Under the law, said opponents, prospective parents could also potentially seek damages in the "wrongful death" of an embryo, in the case of in vitro fertilization (IVF).
"Florida's legislature needs to really take a hard and careful look at what the unintended impacts to IVF in Florida could be going forward."
The proposal garnered national attention in recent days after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that IVF patients could sue a clinic for the "wrongful death" of embryos that were accidentally destroyed, with the court claiming embryos have the same rights as children.
Republicans have backpedaled since the ruling was announced, claiming to support IVF—even though attacks on fertility treatments are hardly a rarity in the anti-abortion rights movement. During her confirmation hearing in 2020, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett sparked rebuke by refusing to oppose criminalization of IVF.
Florida's legislative session ends March 8, and the Senate Rules Committee canceled a hearing for a companion bill that had been scheduled for Monday.
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said that the Alabama ruling—but not genuine concern for the fact that IVF could be implicated in the bill—forced Republicans to shelve the proposal for now.
"‘If the Alabama ruling didn't happen last week, Florida's fetal personhood bills would likely have passed during legislative session," said Fried.
The public backlash over the ruling, said the state Democrats, "set an important tone with Republican lawmakers and sent a strong message that banning abortion and limiting a full range of reproductive healthcare is deeply unpopular."
The ACLU of Florida urged lawmakers to completely "shut down" the bill to prevent IVF clinics from shutting down for fear of liability due to the loss of embryos that is inherent in the IVF process.
"What we know from this past month in Alabama and what we've seen so far in Florida, is that anti-abortion extremists are not going to stop at a six-week ban, they are not going to stop with allowing frivolous civil lawsuits against providers and friends, and families, they are not going to stop with banning IVF," said Kara Gross, legislative director and senior policy counsel for the group. "Their goal is complete government control over any individual reproductive freedoms and this is one more step that takes them closer to that goal. Enough is enough."
"What was unthinkable a year ago is now a reality in Alabama," Gross added. "IVF clinics are pausing their operations. Florida's legislature needs to really take a hard and careful look at what the unintended impacts to IVF in Florida could be going forward."
Gross pointed out that Florida residents who suffer pregnancy loss "due to the wrongful acts of another are permitted to recover money damages" already—making the bill "unnecessary for that purpose."
In addition to opening IVF clinics up to liability, the bill would pave the way for cases like that of Texas resident Marcus Silva, who filed a civil lawsuit last year against friends of his ex-wife who helped her secure an abortion.
"This bill would have a chilling effect on doctors providing necessary healthcare," said Gross, "on patients seeking the care they need, and on family members and friends who support their loved one seeking access to abortion care."
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UN Expert Says Israel's Forced Starvation of Gazans Is Genocide
"Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime."
Feb 27, 2024
The top United Nations expert on the right to food on Tuesday accused Israel of perpetrating genocide by intentionally starving Palestinians during the relentless assault on Gaza.
Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people—around 90% of whom have been forcibly displaced by Israeli bombardment and invasion—are starving. Israeli forces are bombing food production and distribution centers, destroying crops and killing livestock, attacking fishers, and firing on and blocking aid convoys.
Children are dying, while people desperately trying to survive are resorting to eating whatever they can get into their stomachs, including grass, livestock feed, and horses.
"In my view as a U.N. human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide."
"Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime," Michael Fakhri, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food and a law professor at the University of Oregon, toldThe Guardian.
"Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian," he continued. "In my view as a U.N. human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide. This means the state of Israel in its entirety is culpable and should be held accountable."
"There is no reason to intentionally block the passage of humanitarian aid or intentionally obliterate small-scale fishing vessels, greenhouses, and orchards in Gaza—other than to deny people access to food," Fakhri added.
Under Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the crime of genocide is defined as killing members of a group, causing serious physical or mental harm, intentionally inflicting on the group conditions meant to destroy it "in whole or in part," imposing measures meant to prevent births, or forcibly transferring members of the group.
The amount of food entering Gaza—which even before the war was under an Israeli economic stranglehold—has fallen dramatically in recent weeks amid Israeli attacks targeting police escorting aid convoys. This has exposed the convoys to attacks and looting by criminal groups and desperate civilians, forcing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to suspend humanitarian deliveries.
Israeli civilians are also taking it upon themselves to block humanitarian aid from reaching starving Palestinians by traveling in caravans to border crossings to prevent aid trucks from entering Gaza. Their actions have sometimes taken on a perversely festive atmosphere; last week, right-wing extremists
set up a giant inflatable bouncy castle where aid trucks are meant to pass through the Kerem Shalom border crossing.
"Get ready, there will be inflatables, cotton candy, popcorn, and slushies," the organizer of an aid blockade announced.
The following day, Mahmoud Fattouh, a 2-month-old baby,
starved to death in Gaza City. He wasn't the only one.
"Unfortunately many kids have died in the past weeks," Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the head of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, told Al Jazeera. "If we don't get the proper aid urgently, we will be losing more and more to malnutrition."
Fakhri said Tuesday that the speed at which malnutrition is spreading among Gaza's children is "astounding."
"The bombing and people being killed directly is brutal, but this starvation—and the wasting and stunting of children—is torturous and vile," he added. "It will have a long-term impact on the population physically, cognitively, and morally... All things indicate that this has been intentional."
As
The Guardian noted:
Intentionally starving civilians by "depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies" is a war crime, according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Indispensable objects include food, water, and shelter—which Israel is systematically denying Palestinians. Starvation is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute. It was also recognized as a war crime and general violation of international law by the U.N. Security Council in 2018.
Experts say an immediate cease-fire is the best and quickest way to avert further catastrophe.
"What's important to point out is, in case of a cease-fire now, we would be saving around 75,000 lives," Zeina Jamaluddine, a nutritionist and epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, toldDemocracy Now! on Monday.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Mohammed al-Ansari said Tuesday that he is "optimistic" that a cease-fire can be brokered before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts March 10. U.S. President Joe Biden said Monday that he hopes to have a cease-fire by next Monday.
However, Israeli and Hamas officials on Tuesday dismissed reports of an imminent agreement, with Israel blaming "excessive" Hamas demands and Hamas calling Biden's remarks "premature."
The death and suffering in Gaza increase with each passing day without a cease-fire. Gaza's Health Ministry said Tuesday that at least 268 people were killed or wounded by Israeli bombs or bullets over the past 24 hours, with many victims still buried beneath rubble.
Since Israel launched its retaliatory assault on Gaza following the October 7 attacks, Palestinian officials say at least 29,878 Gazans—mostly women and children—have been killed, more than 70,200 have been wounded, and over 7,000 others are missing and feared dead and buried beneath the ruins of bombed buildings.
Last month, the International Court of Justice issued a preliminary ruling in a South Africa-led case that found Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza and ordering the Israeli government to "take all measures within its power" to prevent acts of genocide.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International this week accused Israel of defying the ICJ order.
"Not only has Israel created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, but it is also displaying a callous indifference to the fate of Gaza's population by creating conditions which the ICJ has said places them at imminent risk of genocide," Amnesty regional director Heba Morayef said Monday.
"As the occupying power, under international law, Israel has a clear obligation to ensure the basic needs of Gaza's population are met," she added. "Israel has not only woefully failed to provide for Gazans' basic needs, but it has also been blocking and impeding the passage of sufficient aid into the Gaza Strip, in particular to the north, which is virtually inaccessible, in a clear show of contempt for the ICJ ruling and in flagrant violation of its obligation to prevent genocide."
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