Libby, MT Residents Struggle with Asbestos Poisoning Fallout

For decades, asbestos-laced vermiculite poisoned the residents of Libby, Montana. These victims now face dwindling treatment options as court cases continue winding through the system.

The town’s vermiculite mine closed in 1990. In 1999, an investigation publicly revealed the connection between the asbestos-contaminated mineral and the increasing number of sick Libby residents. For years, the nonprofit Center for Asbestos Related Disease offered free lung screenings and other services. In May 2025, an unrelated whistleblower lawsuit forced the clinic to temporarily close. As appeals courts consider the matter, the clinic is fighting to keep a $3 grant, which provides 80% of its budget, from falling victim to budget cuts.

In the meantime, CARD patients will have to look elsewhere for screening and treatment, services that could be difficult to find. Diagnosing people with asbestos-related disease or showing that other conditions are tied to asbestos exposure requires special expertise, said Robert Kratzke, an oncologist at the University of Minnesota who studies cancers tied to asbestos.

“Most physicians would be modestly clueless about what to look for,” he said.

Asbestos Cross-Contamination Issues

Asbestos-vermiculite cross-contamination issues are not limited to the former Grace Mine area in Montana. After miners extracted tainted vermiculite, they refined it and shipped it across the country. At one point, Grace provided 80 percent of the nation’s vermiculite, which was the go-to asbestos substitute.

As Grace officials turned a blind eye, victims all over the country handled asbestos-laced materials without knowing it. Asbestos causes serious diseases, such as:

• Pleural Mesothelioma: Asbestos fibers cause tumors in the mesothelium, a thick membrane layer between the heart and lungs. Environmental and occupational cancer is notoriously hard to detect. Therefore, by the time doctors properly diagnose mesothelioma, the disease is usually in Stage III.
• Asbestosis: Inhaled asbestos fibers usually burn tissue in the lung’s airways. The resulting scar tissue accumulates and blocks these airways. A radical lung transplant is the only effective asbestosis treatment. Many asbestosis victims are in their 70s, and such a radical procedure isn’t a realistic option.
• Peritoneal Mesothelioma: Swallowed asbestos fibers often settle in the abdominal cavity. These toxic fibers alter cell DNA, causing tumors to form, as is the case with PlM. PtM may be treatable in some instances. However, as is the case with asbestosis, PtM treatments are often worse than the disease, which is saying quite a bit.

Asbestos exposure disease latency periods complicate matters even further. Many of these victims are sick for decades before they show any outward signs of illness.

A nationwide asbestos lawyer can obtain significant compensation for these victims, including significant punitive damages in most cases.

Cross-Contamination Ambient Exposure

Workers who handled asbestos-laced vermiculite are highly at risk for these diseases. So are people who lived or worked near an asbestos-vermiculite hot spot. Some of these hot spots were located in:

• California,
• Pennsylvania,
• New Jersey,
• Texas,
• Illinois,
• Arizona,
• Kentucky,
• Michigan,
• Oregon, and
• Nebraska.

People in these areas diagnosed with environmental cancer often chalk their disease up to bad luck. In some cases, that might be true. But there may be a connection between a victim’s illness and asbestos-laced vermiculite. Only a nationwide asbestos lawyer can tell for sure.

Furthermore, asbestos fibers cause many kinds of cancer, other than mesothelioma. Asbestos fibers increase the production of free radical particles. Researchers have connected these particles with many kinds of cancer, mostly digestive tract cancer (throat, stomach, kidney, etc.)

Count on a Thorough Attorney

Mesothelioma victims need and deserve significant compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced nationwide mesothelioma lawyer, contact the Throneberry Law Group. The sooner you reach out to us, the sooner we start working for you.