UM Grace Case

Kathleen Kennedy, an epidemiologist who served on a federal research team looking at occupational vermiculite exposure, said that her agency’s requests to undertake a study at the Grace’s Libby facilities met initial resistance followed by attempts to completely cancel the study.

Kennedy worked for NIOSH, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“The primary purpose was to find out if there was a health hazard in the exposure of vermiculite,” she said of the study, initially requested by the Mine Safety and Health Administration after O.M. Scott employees working with vermiculite at a fertilizer plant suffered bloody pleural effusions. “We thought we would begin with Libby since we thought that would be most likely to have a health hazard.”

Kennedy, on her first job since completing graduate school, said that Grace attorney Mario Favorito contacted NIOSH and said the company disagreed with the proposed study but would meet with the agency. Kennedy said that during that meeting, Grace officials acknowledged the risks associated with vermiculite and said that they had adequate safety standards in place to protect workers.

“They said that they knew that there was contamination of the vermiculite … and that there would be no reason for us to do the study,” Kennedy said.

Despite the company’s opposition to the study, Kennedy said that her team requested documents from Grace on employee health and asbestos exposure. According to Kennedy, after the meeting, Grace officials went to the Secretary of Labor to get the study withdrawn and refused to provide any documents or information.

“We wanted some results from the actual sampling that they had done,” she said. “When we presented our proposed [study] protocol to W.R. Grace, we were acknowledging that we wanted to use information that they had compiled.”

During his cross examination of Kennedy, Grace attorney David Bernick questioned how she could testify regarding Grace’s refusal to supply documents to NIOSH but not remember the documents that she consulted while preparing for the study. Bernick presented several documents that he said showed an ongoing dialogue between Grace and the government.

“Grace was solicited by the Public Health Service to provide information that would be used for a mortality study of Libby miners,” he said, refering to documents from the mid 1970s.

According to the defense, such evidence shows that Grace had complied with the government and was not attempting to cover up or hide information. Bernick presented a document Kennedy wrote outlining some of the information she researched while preparing for the study. Bernick drew some similarities between information in the note and NIOSH files, but Kennedy said that she was unable to recall what documents she referenced.

“I don’t know what information I was looking at when I made my notes,” she said.

-Kyle Lehman (posted 4:55)