"Once touted as the next asbestos, a mass tort involving welding rods is starting to look like a textbook case in the manufacturing of an epidemic." Mary Ellen Egan at Forbes has more on the litigation in which plaintiff's attorneys Dickie Scruggs and John (Don) Barrett, backed by Milwaukee physician Paul Nausieda, charge that manganese in welding fumes causes Parkinson's or other neurological impairments (see here, here and here).