With Property Seized and Federal Funding Uncertain, Montana Asbestos Clinic Fights for Its Life
Libby, Mont. – Dozens of tube feet connect Gayla Benefield to her oxygen machine so that she can walk from a room inside her house on the picturesque River Kootenai, surrounded by mountains of the cabinet.
Like many people who live in this city back, about 80 miles from the border in the United States-Canada, the 81-year-old profit has asbestos, or scars of the lungs of the exhibition to asbestos.
His father worked in a now closed mine which provided most of the world’s vermiculite, a mineral with a wide variety of uses in insulation, fire and even gardening. The mine closed in 1990 and, in 1999, a post-intelligence survey of Seattle publicly revealed the link between the mineral contaminated by asbestos and the growing number of residents of Libby Malades.
Benefield remembered the white dust that covered his father’s clothes when he returned from work, and she learned later that the whole family had been exposed to asbestos, a small fiber that lodges in the lungs of the lungs.
“Finally, this scar will completely surround your lungs,” said Benefield, “and strangle you slowly.”
The environmental protection agency declared some parts of Libby in 2002 in 2002. Seven years later, the agency declared a public health emergency for the city – a first in American history. A study revealed that 694 residents of Libby died of an asbestos -related cause from 1979 to 2011. In addition, city health providers of 3,200 estimate that 1 in 10 residents suffer from asbestos -related disease.
This estimate comes from the Center for Asbestos disease, or a card, a 501 (C) non -profit clinic (3) which provided free pulmonary screening for the inhabitants. The clinic, which mainly operates by financing the American government, projected more than 8,900 people. Since the symptoms of asbestos -related disease can take 30 years or more to appear, almost a third of the clinical screenings concern new patients, according to a 2024 card report.
But now, residents of Libby can no longer obtain this care because a judgment in a trial brought by BNSF Railway closed the card clinic in May. Clinical leaders fight the court order and promised to reopen, but the trial is not the only threat to the survival of the clinic.
The federal subsidy which provides 80% of the operating income from the clinic is on a list of discounts that the Trump administration is considering. If the 3 million dollars subsidy is reduced, the clinic would probably close for good, said the director general of cards, Tracy McNew.
The subsidy was frozen then not frozen, after the management and budget office issued, then canceled a memo of freezing of concessions linked to non -governmental organizations; Diversity, equity and inclusion; and other areas. But the White House officials said that they would continue to examine these subsidies for potential cuts, leaving McNew uncertain of the subsidy status while clinical officials – and lawyers from the Ministry of Justice – are fighting before the courts to recover the assets of the seized card in the BNSF trial.
The management and budget office, the White House. And the Ministry of Health and Social Services did not respond to the request for comments from NPR and KFF Health News on the clinical subsidy.
The reduction in the grant may not be easy, said Tim Bechtold, a lawyer who represented the clinic in the BNSF case. The Act respecting affordable care has given patients with asbestos from Libby access to Medicare and calls on the federal government to offer subsidies to finance diagnostic services for them.
In 2020, the Supreme Court of Montana judged that the BNSF could be held responsible for the propagation of asbestos along its tracks when the railway sent Libby Vermiculite across the country.
The previous year, the railroad continued under the law on false complaints, arguing that the map fraud the government wrongly diagnose patients and helping them to request health insurance services. The law authorizes the private parties to take charge of fraud affairs on behalf of the federal government if the federal prosecutors refuse to take the case. The money awarded in these cases dates back to the federal government, but the private parties retain part of the gains.
A jury ranked on the side of BNSF allegations according to which the card falsified the files of more than 300 patients who received federal services. The card officials said that these patients had not received an asbestos-related disease diagnosis, but the clinic determined them eligible for health insurance as part of the ACA on the basis of abnormal radiology readings.
In a statement at NPR and Kff Health News, BNSF denied that the trial was an attempt to avoid legal responsibility for the contamination of asbestos on its traces.
In 2023, the clinic filed for bankruptcy, citing the BNSF trial. In May, the BNSF persuaded a county court to authorize the company to seize almost all of the goods of the card to receive its share of the judicial judgment of approximately $ 6 million. He took control of almost everything, from the clinic building to his lawn mower.
The federal government arrives at the defense of Card. In a judicial file, the office of the American lawyer of Montana, Kurt Alme, said that because card goods have been largely bought with federal funding for subsidies, the BNSF cannot seize it.
The case has moved to the Federal Court and the judge should rule on the question of whether the BNSF can seize the assets of the card to receive its part of the judgment. In the meantime, patients’ patients will have to look elsewhere for screening and treatment, services that may be difficult to find.
Diagnosing people with an asbestos -related disease or showing that other conditions are linked to asbestos exposure require expertise, said Robert Kratzke, an oncologist at the University of Minnesota who is studying asbestos -related cancers.
“Most doctors would be modestly without any idea what to look for,” he said.
Kratzke explained that X -rays or computed tomography should be carried out specificly and read by specialized doctors, called B readers, to diagnose patients.
Kratzke said that the reconstruction of the expertise in the card clinic would be difficult in a small town like Libby.
“It would be very, very difficult for doctors and Libby hospitals to follow these people because they should be followed for the rest of their lives,” said Kratzke.
Jenan Swenson is the only one of the five children of Gayla Benefield who has not yet been diagnosed with an asbestos -related disease.
She received the results of her latest screening at the card clinic the day before her closure in May. For the moment, the 62 -year -old man is clear.
Swenson expects to possibly develop respiratory problems from her exposure to asbestos when she was a child. Her mother, for whom she is a caregiver, also needs continuous projections for lung cancer.
She is worried, they will have to travel outside the state to find this care if the card clinic does not reopen, which Swenson said that they could not afford. She doesn’t think her family will be the only one.
“There will probably be many people who have just lost there without a place to go,” said Swenson.
This article is part of a partnership with NPR And Montana public radio.
