Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 27, 1990 TAG: 9005240566
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BARRY MEIER THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
That is what Monsanto Co., a chemical and drug producer based in St. Louis, said it was ready to market in 1987.
But Monsanto decided against producing the fiber. The company's stated concern was it would attract costly and unwarranted lawsuits.
Today, the Monsanto fiber, a compound known as calcium sodium metaphosphate, is a cause celebre.
Vice President Dan Quayle called it the "quintessential example" of why new federal laws are needed to limit awards in product liability suits.
His comments were made in an article he wrote in the March issue of Product Safety & Liability Reporter, a regulatory newsletter.
"There may well have been a safe, effective asbestos replacement on the market and now there isn't," Richard Mahoney, Monsanto's chairman and chief executive, said in a telephone interview.
Some consumer advocates are skeptical.
They note, for example, the fiber produced cancer in one of a series of laboratory animal tests that were conducted by Monsanto. For its part, Monsanto has dismissed the results, saying the test was not relevant to humans.
And consumer advocates suggest Monsanto's actions may have been caused by fears of substantive lawsuits rather than frivolous ones.
"They may have stopped this product on the basis of real safety concerns and that's correct," said Linda Lipsen, the legislative counsel for Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports magazine.
The debate over the Monsanto fiber comes as Congress discusses revising legislation to limit monetary awards in product liability.
Advocates of the legislation, including the Bush administration and the business community, say consumers are being deprived of certain products because companies are so fearful of lawsuits they will not manufacture them.
For example, eight drug companies produced birth control devices in the 1970s.
Today, after scores of lawsuits and millions of dollars in damage claims paid to women claiming injuries from the products, only one company manufactures them.
A pending bill would among other things eliminate punitive damages for some manufacturers, including drug producers, if those companies comply with government rules when marketing a product.
Punitive damages are sums awarded when juries find that companies acted in a reckless manner, and can exceed injury awards.
For a decade Congress has debated measures to limit product liability awards.
While interest in such legislation is increasing, it is unlikely that the bill will be approved this year.
Consumer advocates and plaintiffs' lawyers are opposed to changes in federal laws covering product liability.
They maintain some corporate executives, without a sufficient fear of lawsuits, would choose profits over public safety.
"There is absolutely no reason to let a negligent company off the hook," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Health Research Group, a consumer advocacy organization in Washington was founded by Ralph Nader.
It was a very different kind of clamor that led Monsanto in the late 1970s to begin exploring substitutes for asbestos.
At that time, asbestos, a naturally occurring mineral fiber, had been identified as a cancer-causing agent in humans.
Workers exposed to asbestos were filing thousands of injury claims against manufacturers and momentum was building to ban the product's use.
With the field opening for replacements, Monsanto created calcium sodium metaphosphate.
It was extremely resistant to heat, but the chemical composition of its fibers, unlike asbestos, suggested it would most likely dissolve after being inhaled into the body, without lodging in the lungs and causing cancer.
To prove the fiber's safety, Monsanto conducted a series of animal studies beginning in 1983.
By 1986, on study, in which fibers were implanted in gelatin and then imbedded in the lungs of rats, showed the substance produced tumors at about the same rate as asbestos, according to Monsanto documents filed with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Monsanto said the test was meaningless since the gelatin coating prevented the fibers from dissolving naturally.
But EPA scientists rejected that argument, concluding that in terms of the specific test, results suggested the fiber could cause cancer.
Agency officials added, however, too little is known about the substance to gauge if it poses a cancer threat to humans.
EPA's finding apparently did little to deter interest in the fiber by Monsanto officials, who said their other tests showed it was safe.
Thus in 1986 the company spent $105 million to build a pilot plant in St. Louis to produce sample quantities of the fiber. The factory began operating in April 1987.
Three months later, Mahoney, Monsanto's chairman, halted the project.
Mahoney said he made the decision after having dinner with an insulation company executive whom he declined to identify by name.
The executive, Mahoney said, told him fiberglass, a widely used insulating material, was coming under scrutiny as a suspected carcinogen and that plant workers were increasingly filing lawsuits against manufacturers.
Fiberglass bundles now have warning labels alerting consumers the material has been identified as a potential carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an internationally respected organization in France.
The Monsanto chief said his decision not to manufacture calcium sodium metaphosphate was based on his belief it would attract lawsuits from trial attorneys who make their living suing asbestos companies.
"I remember saying that all we need are some heavy smokers with lung cancer," he recalled.
The fiber's future is questionable.
Though some companies have expressed interest in making the fiber, no deal is imminent, said Carl Moskowitz, a Monsanto spokesman.
Whether the consumer will miss the fiber is another matter.
Some asbestos substitutes such as those produced from cellulose are already on the market for consumers.
And Japanese manufacturers may soon be producing more, said Thomas Laubenthal, technical services chief for the National Asbestos Council, an Atlanta-based group that represents asbestos control companies.
by CNB