Bush Shields Companies in Asbestos Lawsuits

Re “The Cruel Saga of Asbestos Disease,” Commentary, Feb. 18: The Bush administration’s wholesale assault on the English language continues unabated. The list of mind-numbing euphemisms posing as legitimate legislation is virtually endless. The Medicare bill, which does nothing for seniors, should be titled the “Pharmaceutical Company Corporate Welfare Bill of 2004.”

Social Security reform should be the “Anti-FDR Let Them Die in the Streets Bill.” The class- action reform measure should be the “Promote Corporate Irresponsibility Legal Relief Act.”

The sages throughout history have told the human race that the best way to destroy a culture is to debase its language. We’re not listening.

Dennis M. Clausen

Escondido

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Unfortunately, the Bush administration cares only about shielding corporate bottom lines from well-deserved civil liability, even while its own Justice Department acknowledges that these corporations behaved criminally. Regardless, we shouldn’t expect any more prosecutions, even though there are worse offenders than W.R. Grace & Co.

As one of the rare four-year mesothelioma survivors, I am frustrated that all the focus in the press and in Congress is on taking sides over fair compensation and justice. Criminal convictions and settlements, however large, won’t end the tragic suffering. What we really need is a solution to asbestos disease.

Over the last five years, the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation, the national nonprofit organization working to eliminate mesothelioma as a life-ending disease, has established that a cure may be within reach. For less than 1% of the suggested settlement fund, our nation could support a robust research program to pursue these promising leads in the fight against mesothelioma and asbestosis.

Let’s do more than grouse about a bad law, a complicit administration or evil corporations. Let’s support the effort to invest in a cure and end the carnage and the billions in liability that it engenders.

Klaus A. Brauch

Huntington Beach