Surviving The Unsurvivable

In a 2005 letter to the IRRRB, whose $34 million annual budget comes primarily from taxes paid by the mining companies, the association's executive director urged the agency not to pay for a study of mine workers mesothelioma survival rates.

That official, George Ryan, also accused Health Department officials of misleading the public and using a "scare tactic" to garner support for a study. "We strongly condemn the ill-advised efforts of the Minnesota Department of Health to promote such a study by using the Press to enflame the cancer fears ..." he wrote.

Today, Ryan says he felt the Health Department was "raising the old specter of asbestos" in an effort to justify a study. He says the taconite industry already has studied the health of its workers and found no evidence of asbestos-related illnesses. Although he says the higher rate of mesothelioma in northeastern Minnesota concerns him, he knows the taconite industry is not to blame.

But epidemiologist Bender says health officials never singled-out the taconite mines as the source of asbestos. In fact, Bender and Professor Muir wonder why the industry hasn't been willing to support a Health Department study, if only to remove all suspicion. Regardless, Ryan defends the mining industry's role in trying to dissuade the IRRRB from paying for the study.

"The IRRRB is unique in the way that it is funded. And the industry that funds it has a responsibility to give advice on studies or on projects that are undertaken," Ryan says. "Naturally, the IRRRB makes their own decisions."

Besides, says IRRRB commissioner Gustafson, even former health commissioner O'Brien downplayed the need for a study. Gustafson says he recalls O'Brien telling him in 2004 that a study was "more for p.r. than anything."

O'Brien, who wrote long letters to Gustafson outlining the need for a study, says she never made the statement. Bender also disputes the characterization, saying Gustafson and others "may have heard what they wanted to hear."

For some, the lack of definitive answers has given rise to other theories about what may be to blame for the high mesothelioma rate. At least one scientist who served on the 15 panel worries that contact with fibers of a mineral called minnesotaite may result in lung diseases similar to those caused by asbestos. Other residents - some miners or the relatives of miners - aren't certain what to believe. Neither are state health officials.

"Do we think the mining industry is responsible for this? The best evidence to date says it isn't," epidemiologist Bender says. "But it leaves a larger question: If it isn't the mining industry, what is it?"

Twelve years after some of the nation's top medical and scientific minds urged a study into lung diseases on the Iron Range, the money for a study may finally materialize.

Arla Storbeck, for one, hopes that happens.

Like the widows of some of the other mesothelioma victims from around the state, she has had to hire lawyers to investigate where her husband breathed the deadly asbestos.

She believes he contracted mesothelioma whose survival rates are very low from working near an asbestos furnace covering - a black goo he called "bear grease." The mining company, LTV, has agreed to pay workers' compensation to the family but disputes the allegation. And Arla Storbeck, now 72, wonders whether she'll ever know for certain.

Mesothelioma