Regulators still concerned about safety of product: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it has found no link between tainted Chinese drywall and the deaths of 11 people exposed to the imported drywall in Louisiana, Florida and Virginia homes. The CDC says the people died without exception due to “preexisting chronic health conditions unrelated to imported drywall exposure.” The findings by the Atlanta-based health agency back up previous findings by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Large quantities of defective Chinese-made drywall were imported during a past housing boom and after a string of Gulf Coast hurricanes five years ago. The drywall has been linked to corrosion in thousands of homes, mostly in Florida, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. The CDC found that seven of the 11 people who died had cancer and seven had heart problems. Still, federal regulators say the health risk of Chinese drywall remains a concern.
Company won’t identify the one recipient: BP’s compensation fund for gulf oil spill victims has issued a final settlement payment to just one of the thousands of people and businesses waiting for checks, records show, and that $10 million payout went to a company after the oil giant intervened on its behalf. BP won’t identify the business, citing confidentiality, but acknowledges it lobbied for the settlement. The amount far exceeds smaller stopgap payments that some individuals and businesses have received while they wait for their own final settlements. The Gulf Coast Claims Facility was set up in August to independently administer BP’s $20 billion compensation fund in the aftermath of the April 20 oil well blowout off Louisiana’s coast. As of Saturday, roughly 91,000 people and businesses have filed for final settlements; but the fund’s administrator, Washington lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, has said those checks won’t start rolling out until February at the earliest. Thousands of people have received some money to tide them over until a final settlement amount is offered, but only that one listed as paid on the facility’s website has so far received a check. A BP spokesman called it “a unique situation in which an existing BP business partner and BP submitted a view on a specific claim” to the facility.
