Document 6BEmmeBa3Dx0GY59DEDqNE37E

FILE NAME: Eternit (ETER) DATE: 1998 DOC#: ETER049 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Fernanda Giannasi's Chronology of Events Re: (F w / Vrhc fight o f the World Ban Asbestos Network mailbox:/c%7C'/f/email/Inbox?id=363 KCADB.45432BF6@telnet.com.br&numberN 40 Subject: Re: (Fwd) The fight of the World Ban Asbestos Network Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 07:20:27 -0200 From: Fernanda Giannasi <giannasi@telnet.com.br> To: editor@hazards.org CC: BARRY CASTLEMAN <bcastle@mail.bcpl.lib.md.us>, DANIEL BERMAN <bermfam@davis.com> Dear Rory Fernanda.... should I circulate this to my lists? Rory O f course you can do this..... Thank you very much to do this for me............. I'm attaching the last version o f the document after Barry's review and me with my poor English..... Our friend Daniel Berman is helping me with the translation...... I'd like to tell you that the things look like better now than before but it doesn't finish.........Etemit/Saint Gobain in Europe has to be pressed to finish with this ridiculous history............ Thnaks again Fernanda LAWSUIT FOR DEFAMATION FILED AGAINST FERNANDA GIANNASI BY ETERNIT IN BRAZIL A CHRONOLOGY OF THE FACTS, by Fernanda Giannasi, Federal Work Safety Inspector, Sao Paulo, Brazil Translated by Daniel M. Berman U.S. Contact: Dr. Barry Castleman Author, ASBESTOS: MEDICAL & LEGAL ASPECTS, 4th ed., 1996 2412 Pickwick Road, Baltimore, Maryland, 21207 USA Tel: 410-448-2648, FAX: 410-448-2368, email: bcastle@mail.bcpl.lib.md.us 1. On March 16, 1998, Fernanda Giannasi, a Safety Engineer o f the Ministry of Labor in Sao Paulo and one o f the leaders of the movement for the ban of asbestos in Brazil, published an indignant manifesto on the Internet regarding the use of scientific medical journals in Latin America - citing the case o f the Argentinean journal SALUD OCUPACIONAL - to serve as propaganda mouthpieces for the asbestos industry. It is well known that these scientific journals are extremely short o f funds. Giannasi's point was also expressed by a scientists from all over the world in an editorial entitled: "Open Letter to the Editor o f SALUD OCUPACIONAL in the INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH (IJOEH), Volume 4, No. 2, April-June 1998, p. 131, o f which Engineer Giannasi was one o f the signatories. 2. This manifesto included the information that ETERNIT S.A. in Brazil, a Brazilian subsidiary o f the multinational corporation Saint Gobain, was promoting Extrajudicial Agreements in Osasco (an industrial city in the Greater Sao Paulo area), making offers o f 5,000 to 15,000 Reais (about US$4,500-US$13,500) to the victims of asbestos. This offer also included a Plan of Medical Assistance(PAME) a private plan which would be administered by ETERNIT itself, which would be provided to all former employees including who had not yet shown any symptoms o f asbestos-related disease, but who had demonstrated suggestive [radiographic] changes which commonly lead to the onset of asbestos-related disease. The actual text of the Agreement claims that this continued medical assistance would be offered at no cost to former workers participating in the plan. This agreement, , . . IT-. .IT. ,1 1 1 1 il 1 r fT % * 1 * -V T - 1 1 ` l of 5 H/4/98 10:11 AM Re: (Fwv'v The fight o f the World Ban Asbestos Network mailbox:/c%7C/f/email/Inbox?id=363ECADB.45432BF6@telnet.com.br&number=140 cauea a Trivate iransacuonai instrument, was proposed oy me law nrm or rinneiro ixeto, wmcn is representing ETERNIT, and has a number of grave faults, which we enumerate below": a. It is 23 pages long and full o f arcane legal and medical terms which are difficult to understand by anyone which lacks a university education; and even the two-page condensed version, which has been sent to all ex-employees, the same difficulty repeats itself. This "light" version coincides with a judicial decision which refused to approved of the agreements submitted to the Judge for consideration. In his opinion the Judge stated, among other things, that the former employee who was petitioning for judicial sanction of the Agreement "demonstrated a complete lack o f understanding o f the content of the extrajudicial agreement." b. In regard to the "person being examined," which is how the contract refers to the ex-employee who had been exposed to asbestos, the Agreement requires that ex-employees who sign on to it, "Expressly and irrevocably renounces any and all attempts to bring suit for any damages, directly or indirectly related to any loss or physical, esthetic, or moral disability caused by potential or actual exposure, temporary or permanent, to asbestos dust at the factory which was maintained by ETERNIT in Osasco". c. The Medical Board, created by the Agreement, to which all asbestos-exposed employees will be subject, will be composed o f the following professionals: Dr. Professor Mario Terra Filho, Department o f Cardiopulmonary Diseases o f the Faculty of Medicine o f the University o f Sao Paulo (USP), Dr. Ericson Bagatin, Assistant Professor o f the Occupational Health--DMPS/FCM(Preventive and Social Medicine Department - Medical Sciences College o f the University o f Campinas (UNICAMP); and Dr. Luiz Eduardo Nery, Adjunct Professor o f Pulmonary Diseases at UNIFESP/EPM (Medicine School in Sao Paulo/ Federal University in Sao Paulo). d. Those former employees exposed to asbestos, totaling almost 800, have already undergone examinations by the following institutions: FUNDACENTRO (the federal occupational health research arm in the Ministry o f Labor), INCOR(Health Institute o f the University o f Sao Paulo) UNICAMP, and the Centro de Referencia da Freguesia do 6 (Health Care Center o f the City o f Sao Paulo)whose physicians volunteered their time without any additional payment, in addition to their normal government or institutional salaries. As it happens, INCOR and UNICAMP now form an integral part o f the Agreement under discussion here as part of the Medical Board created by that Agreement which was unilaterally chosen by ETERNIT. This Agreement states that "in the case that any one o f the members o f the Medical Board shall find it impossible to continue to serve, for whatever reason, the remaining members shall have the responsibility of choosing a replacement, subject to the express approval o f ETERNIT. Letters of protest have been filed by the Brazilian Association o f People Exposed to Asbestos (ABREA) to institutions associated with this agreement, expressing the opinion that it is "anti-ethical." e. The liability assumed by ETERNIT will not be respected if ETERNIT filed for bankruptcy. (The case o f Johns-Manville in the United States and its repetition here in Brazil are a real concern for us, because it there is no successor fund or firm to assume the asbestos-related liabilities). The ex-employees will have to depend also on existing law and future legislation maintaining the use o f asbestos to guarantee their future. (They will loose it in case asbestos is banned in Brazil, as it has already been banned in 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France(the nowadays Etemit s home country), Germany, Holland, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, and Switzerland(the ex-home country of Etemit). f. Lung cancer will be recognized as a compensable disease by the Agreement only where it is proceeded by asbestosis, which is a position lacking in scientific rigor, given the fact that extremely imnnrtant scientific studies have alreadv demonstrated that the nresence o f ashestosis is not neeessarv 2 of 5 11/4/98 10:11 AM Re: (Fwi1, The fight of the World Ban Asbestos Network mailbox:/c%7C/f/email/Inbox?id=363ECADB.45432BF6@telnet.com.br&number=140 for the characterization o f the presence o f asbestos-caused cancer. g. Attorneys who represent the interests o f ETERNIT also represent the interests o f those ex-employees suffering from asbestos-related disease who will be indemnified under the Agreement, as if there were no possibility of a conflict of interest. (See the judicial decision discussed below in regard to this issue and the article published in the newspaper ESTADO DE SAO PAULO on October 21, 1998.) 3. Judges o f the 27th and 3rd Civil District in Sao Paulo rejected the approval o f these Agreements, in the following words: "transactions which were not licit"; "ETERNIT tried to create an Agreement as a way o f preventing a judicial condemnation on even worse terms;" "this transactional instrument can be considered unconstitutional" and it was created ".... only in order to give the appearance of judicial sacrament of legality to a negotiation o f doubtful validity made between a powerful economic group and workers who are evidently incapable of understanding what they are agreeing to." The judges decided to "refuse their approval" on the grounds that their approval, in any case, "would be a decision without legal effect, because it would have no validity," and Dr. Alexandre David Malfatti, the Judge o f the 27th Civil District, expedited a memorandum to the Public Prosecutor and the Order of Attorneys of Brazil recommending the opening of civil and criminal inquiries against Pinheiro Neto-Advogados law firm and against all attorneys working on the case. 5. Another important judicial decision ordered ETERNIT to pay to Joao Batista Momi, who suffers from asbestosis, an indemnity for material damages equivalent in amount to a monthly pension for life beginning as o f November 17,1977; for material damages for the costs o f his medical treatment, beginning with a payment of 11,700 Reais (about US$10,300), without infringing in any way on his right to sue for future medical or hospital expenses; and finally to pay a reparation o f 100,000 Reais (about US$90,000) for moral damages. 6. Engineer Giannasi has followed closely the cases o f the workers who have been submitted to medical exams, (764 had been examined as o f October 16, 1998), and so far there have been diagnosed 70 cases of active asbestosis, 2 deaths from asbestosis, 154 cases of pleural plaques, 97 cases of diminished respiratory capacity, 3 cases o f lung cancer in ex-employees who are still alive, 1 case of pleural mesothelioma in a deceased former employee (the descendants received 25,000 Reais (about US$22,500) in compensation, 5 cases of death by lung cancer and 7 cases of death by gastrointestinal cancer without official recognition or compensation, and 28 other cases of deaths still under investigation in which the final illnesses were related to the respiratory or gastrointestinal system, though the filling out o f death certificates and medical records was found in general to be incomplete with regard to cause of death. 7. On August 11, 1998, based on Article 144 o f the Penal Code, the ETERNIT company served Engineer Giannasi in the Regional Forum o f Pinheiros, Sao Paulo, in the 2nd Criminal District, with a summons which gave her 48 hours in which to give testimony to ETERNIT, which was done by Dr. Idibal Pivetta, her attorney in the case. 8. In articles published in the newspaper O ESTADO DE SAO PAULO on October 20,21, and 22 ETERNIT claimed that it had brought a lawsuit for the "crime o f defamation" in the 2nd Criminal District o f Pinheiros, alleging that MWE WILL NOT ALLOW THE REPUTATION OF OUR COMPANY TO BE ATTACKED WITH LIES"; 9. That criminal lawsuit unleashed a series of reactions o f protest on the part of experts, scientists, labor unionists, workers, scholars, and o f institutions listed below and addressed to the Judge o f the 2nd 3 of 5 11/4/98 10:11 AM Re: (Fwd> The fight o f the World Ban Asbestos Network N - * mailbox:/c%7C/f/email/Inbox?id=363ECADB.45432BF6@telnet.com.br&number=140 Criminal District of Pinheiros: *APHA-American Public Health Association *SOEH- the Society for Occupational and Environmental Health *Metal Workers Union o f Osasco and Sao Jose dos Campos/Sao Paulo state and Caxias do Sul/Rio Grande do Sul state, Petroleum Workers from Campinas and National Chemical Workers Union and CUT-Central Unica dos Trabalhadores(letters addressed to the International Labor Organization in Geneva) *Association Pour L'Etude des Risques du Travail (ALERT), Paris *ANDEVA- Association Nationale de Defense des Victimes de L'Amiante *Reseau International Ban Asbestos *Federation de La Chemie CGT *White Lung Association. 10. International scientists repudiated ETERNIT's suit, considering it "an act o f villainy" and "an irresponsible action" (Declaration o f Joseph LaDou of the School of Medicine of the University of California in San Francisco in an interview to the ESTADO DE SAO PAULO on October 22, 1998; 11. Other grave facts to consider in this case which have been published in the press: * Interview with Dr. Manildo Favero, Coordinator of the Area of Occupational Health at UNICAMP who asserted that "we were unable to encounter any more information in the international medical literature regarding the consequences of white asbestos in the lung." [The international medical literature has thousands of articles that prove that white ("chrysotile") asbestos exposure is related to the appearance of asbestos-related diseases.] A great number o f these specialists, 200 among them, were in attendance at a meeting in Washington, DC from October 19-21, 1998 called by the Society for Occupational and Environmental Health(SOEH) at the National Institutes of Environmental Health (NIEH) o f the U.S. Department o f Health and Human Services, considered to be the greatest center of medical research in the world, and gave interviews to the ESTADO DE SAO PAULO, commenting that they were "perplexed" with the declaration o f the medical doctor at UNICAMP; * the fact that Giannasi's suit is being brought in a criminal court and not in a civil court which is what is expected in any democratic society; * The fact that there is no personal offense and the fact that Giannasi has made declarations against business practices which are harmful to health of the workers, practices which are recognized as such throughout the world and in a very extensive medical literature and in legal actions which prohibit the use o f this industrial carcinogen, which are characterized as "corporate crimes;" * a lawsuit of this importance which can cause damages to a professional recognized for her work of 15 years protecting the health o f the workers, in countless article with in Brazil and throughout the world, as is the case with Engineer Fernanda Giannasi, who was invited to testify before the British Parliament regarding an asbestos ban in February o f 1998 and who was honored by the City Council of Osasco for her work in protected the health o f the workers and in support o f asbestos victims, "to the detriment of the public welfare" in the case of her conviction for this offense, or of being prevented from exercising her profession. 12. To prevent this from happening, a report with suggestions was addressed to Federal Senator Eduardo Suplicy and to Federal Deputies Eduardo Jorge and Fernando Gabeira, suggestions o f Dr. Barry Castleman, Doctor o f Science from the Johns Hopkins University, one o f the greatest Schools o f Public Health in the United States, and perhaps the entire world, and an environmental consultant with American environmental and occupational health agencies, and also the author o f the 4 of 5 11/4/98 10:11 AM Re: (FwujA'he fight o f the World Ban Asbestos Network mailbox:/c%7C/f/email/Inbox?id=363ECADB.45432BF6@telnet.com.br&number=140 magisterial 940-page work (now in its 4th edition), ASBESTOS: MEDICAL AND LEGAL ASPECTS, with the recommendation that a law be proposed in Brazil which would have the goal of complete elimination o f the crime of "criminal defamation" in Brazil, or, in other words, that this concept be eliminated from the Criminal Code and transferred to the Civil Code; or, as another alternative, that the crime of defamation be limited to individuals alone and not to corporations; and allowing this type of crime to be judged by a jury o f ordinary citizens; and that the common Brazilian citizen be granted full rights of complete freedom of expression. 13. We also ask that all those who read this manifesto address e-mails o f support to Fernanda Giannasi, femanda@base.com.br for, her work to ban asbestos in Brazil, in order that we are able to include those in her defense before the Court of the 2nd Criminal District of Pinheiros and that these letters be published in those people's newspapers, scientific journals, and thus that these protests gain widespread democratic distribution, all based on information which can be proven to be true at any time. Thank you for your support and all the helps that you have been able to give us, sending letters also to: Jean-Louis Beffa - Prsident-Directeur Gnral du SAINT-GOBAIN - Les Miroirs - 92096 La Dfense Cedex - France or opinion@saint-gobain.fr; Eterbras Tech Ltda - Av. Pres. Juscelino Kubitschek NR 1830Torre 3 - 5 Andar, 04543-900 So Paulo - SP - Brasil; Jean-Calude Breffort- Dlgu Gnral au Brsil et en Argentine du Saint Gobain- Av. Prsidente Juscelino Kubitschek - 1830-Torre III - 8. Andar - 04543-900 -SO PAULO -Brasil Fax: (55) (11) 829.20.66. Fernanda Giannasi 5 of 5 11/4/98 10:11 AM