Asbestos and Health Risks

Now it's rather common knowledge how dangerous exposure to asbestos can be. When disturbed the mineral will waft through the air and then it can be easily inhaled by people in the vicinity. Because the human body cannot expel the knife-like asbestos fibers, over the course of time potentially fatal diseases such as mesothelioma and asbestosis can develop. However, although many companies in the asbestos industry have known about the dangers associated with asbestos for well over a century, for many, many decades they did absolutely nothing to protect their employees.

Some of these companies even went so far as to deny that there were any potential health problems that were associated with this naturally occurring mineral. However, the facts prove otherwise. Concerns about the relationship between asbestos and health risks go back to 1898. In that year, in his Annual Report to Parliament, the Chief Inspector of Factories of the United Kingdom spoke of the "evil effects of asbestos dust". He said that if the "sharp, glass like nature of the particles" remained suspended in air that they "have been found to be injurious, as might have been expected". And a British Parliamentary Commission, in 1906, confirmed the initial cases of factory deaths that were related to asbestos.

The Commission called for various safety measures including improved ventilation in the factories.In the United States a US insurance company issued a study in 1918 that showed that premature deaths were occurring in the American asbestos industry. Then, in 1926, the first successful asbestos related claim was processed by the Massachusetts Industrial Accidents Board. In 1977 the EPA banned a home insulation product that was made of vermiculite that contained asbestos.

In 1989 the EPA tried to institute a complete ban on asbestos products. However, the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals largely eviscerated the ban in 1991.Approximately 6% of all of the lawsuits that have been filed in US courts since the 1970s have been related to asbestos. There are estimates that it will cost from $200- to $275 billion dollars to settle these lawsuits.In the past 100 years the American Academy of Actuaries Mass Tort Work Group has indicated in excess of 100 million people in the United States were exposed to asbestos while at work.

The plaintiffs in asbestos related lawsuits include workers and their families who have become ill with one of the life threatening asbestos related diseases as well as people who are concerned that their exposure to asbestos poses potential future health risks. People are holding the companies who caused them harm responsible for their actions. If you were to search the Internet for "mesothelioma lawyer" you would find close to 900,000 results.Because so much is at stake, victims of asbestos related diseases search for the most experienced asbestos attorneys available.