“If more congressional representatives developed mesothelioma, maybe Congress would be more sympathetic to the concerns of the victims of asbestos-related illnesses, like mesothelioma,” Susan Vento, the wife of the late Rep. Bruce Vento, writes in opposition to an Orwellian-titled bill currently working through the Congress. The bill is the Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency Act (FACT Act), which the industry portrays as protecting the asbestos trusts from multiple claims by victims.
In reality, this is a solution in search of a problem, and the real purpose of the bill is to create numerous, complex procedural requirements that would make the process of filing a claim with an asbestos trust more difficult, in the hopes of frustrating the claimant or delaying claims until the victims have died.
When Susan Vento and another woman, who was herself a victim of asbestos, asked to testify in hearings on this bill, their request was denied. In the intervening time since their request, the other woman died of her asbestos-related disease.
Mrs. Vento experienced the horror of watching her husband, who had been a powerful, 12-term congressman, suffer the unrelenting onslaught of mesothelioma. He had a lung removed in a desperate attempt to slow the progress of the disease, but it was to no avail. With the highest quality of medical care from the Mayo Clinic, Rep. Vento died within eight months of his diagnosis.
Even with an example like this of one of a fellow member, Congress still insists on passing legislation that panders to the industry that has irrevocably poisoned millions of Americans, and which callously refused to were unknowingly exposed to.
