Asbestos Health Risks
Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that has been mined throughout the world for its durability. The dangers of airborne asbestos were unknown during the Industrial Revolution when it was used in nearly every building material and transportation device. The dangers of asbestos were unknown until insurance companies refused to insure people who worked with asbestos. They claimed people who worked asbestos jobs were at high risk for contracting a lung disease and therefore it was not cost effective to insure them which sparked an investigation into the risks associated with this substance.
Many studies proved that airborne asbestos was lethal when inhaled and the fibers attach to the lungs. Immune cells try to break up these fibers during which they die and form scar tissue on the lungs. This process continues until the lungs are covered in scar tissue and stop working. Asbestos companies denied any knowledge of asbestos causing illnesses. Further investigations were done and many documents were uncovered from multiple multi billion dollar asbestos companies that they new the risks of inhaling airborne asbestos for decades. Many construction and mining companies hid this information from their employees and made no efforts to improve working conditions to minimize asbestos exposure. As a result many people who worked an asbestos job filed a lawsuite.
Hundred of thousands of mesothelioma claims flood the courts in the United States. Most of these claims are settled before they go to trial many of them over a million dollars in compensation. This has put many asbestos companies out of business. Asbestos lawyers have become a specialty practice due to the mounting claims, high payouts, and no trials. An asbestos lawyer generaaly doesn’t charge an upfront fee because taking a percentage of the compensation is much higher than their hourly rate.
There has been a new asbestos exposure in the United States. When the World Trade Center came crashing down on 9/11 a cloud of an asbestos dust filled the city of Manhattan. People who volunteered to clean up the site of ground zero inhaled high levels of asbestos dust making them most at risk for contracting asbestos lung mesothelioma. Many have already died and many more cases of asbestos illness are appearing from this exposure. It can take up to fifty years for an asbestos exposure to manifest as mesothelioma. This long latency period makes the long term health effects of this asbestos exposure unknown.
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