Articles Posted in Asbestos Exposure

Asbestos exposure may seem like a relic of the past since the dangers of asbestos have been known for decades and asbestos is now tightly controlled and no longer used in new buildings or other common products. Unfortunately, mesothelioma lawyers in Boston know that people continue to be exposed to asbestos far too frequently. Not only that, but new cases of mesothelioma and asbestosis are diagnosed every day as people who were exposed decades ago finally become ill as a result of the damage the asbestos fibers have done to their bodies over decades.

As a new National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study reveals that Americans are still losing hundreds of thousands of years of productive life because of asbestos, it is more important than ever before for employers and employees to be aware that there are still significant risks that workers will be exposed to and injured by asbestos.
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Our Boston mesothelioma lawyers know that many victims who developed mesothelioma as a result of exposure to asbestos fibers were exposed on the job. However, there were also a lot of products that were widely sold for decades that contained asbestos. One such product was a patented “Micronite” filter found in Kent cigarettes.

Lorillard Tobacco introduced Kent cigarettes with the Micronite filter in 1952, with the filter containing a form as asbestos that the Sacramento Bee describes as “particularly virulent.” The product with the asbestos-filter remained on the market until it was changed in 1956. Decades later, Lorilland Tobacco faced numerous lawsuits because of the filter as did the company, Hollingsworth & Vose, that supplied the filter material containing the asbestos.
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Firefighters are exposed not just to smoke, but also to chemicals and old building materials when they save people’s lives while fighting fires. Unfortunately, our Boston mesothelioma lawyers know that many of the buildings where firefighters do their work have asbestos materials within them. This puts firefighters at risk of developing asbestos-related illnesses including mesothelioma.

A new report from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) underscores just how serious the increased risk of mesothelioma is for firefighters. As the CDC reports, firefighters as a population had two times greater the rate of mesothelioma than the population as a whole. The new NIOSH study was the first to identify an increased risk of mesothelioma among firefighters and it is cause for major concern as mesothelioma can be difficult to treat and has a high fatality rate.
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It has been over a decade has passed since the tragedy of September 11, 2001, but for many victims and their families, the most severe consequences are only recently setting in. In addition to the thousands who were lost in this national travesty, over 1,100 people have been diagnosed with cancer, including mesothelioma, caused by exposure to toxins at the time of the collapse and during clean up. In addition to public workers, including police and firemen, many civilians who were breathing in soot, ashes and debris were exposed to the asbestos exploding from the fallen Twin Towers.

In September 2012, federal authorities added 58 types of cancer to the list of illnesses covered by those who were exposed to World Trade Center toxins. This list includes mesothelioma caused by asbestos exposure. Our Massachusetts mesothelioma attorneys are dedicated to protecting the rights of victims and their families and in recovering compensation for medical expenses, pain and suffering and other losses resulting from the deadly exposure.

Recent publications indicate that after years of resistance 9/11 cancer victims are finally afforded relief. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,140 victims have been diagnosed with cancers related to toxic exposures after September 11th. In addition to mesothelioma, victims of 9/11 have also been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and myeloma, a blood cancer that multiples the body’s plasma cells to deadly levels. While many of these victims are being offered medical insurance under the World Trade Health Program, the cancer treatments are often too late.
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Workers who expose unsafe conditions, risks, illegal activity and other misconduct are known as “whistleblowers.” Recently, a nurse was reprimanded for reporting on Facebook and to media sources that he was concerned about safety standards as the hospital where he worked. Specifically, the nurse voiced concerns about asbestos, the dangerous substance linked to the cancer, mesothelioma.

Many forms of asbestos have been banned, but it is not uncommon to identify asbestos in some industrial and other workplaces. Victims who are exposed to asbestos could contract the deadly cancer, mesothelioma in years or decades after the exposure. Our Massachusetts mesothelioma attorneys are dedicated to raising awareness about the dangers of asbestos and protecting the victims who are impacted by cancer. We will aggressively investigate any suspected exposure and protect victims against all liable entities, including employers.

According to reports, the nurse warned that the wards at his hospital were unsafe. He also mentioned on Facebook to friends that the hospital had asbestos and that the hospital did not have enough money to pay nurses wages. He threatened to go public with the allegation of asbestos. These Facebook posts came 2 years after he wrote another article exposing other deviations in hospital care.
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Unwitting exposure to asbestos over the last 100 years has given way to an ongoing proliferation of untimely deaths resulting from mesothelioma and asbestos, which developed as a direct result of exposure to the killer microscopic fibers.

Our Boston mesothelioma lawyers know this is true for Massachusetts, throughout the country and even across the globe.

The illness are no longer mysterious and the long-running manufacture cover-ups are no longer secret. However, that companies, employers and schools, even knowing these risks, would continue to put people in harm’s way or fail to enact measures to protect them is unforgivable.
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The world could use more Charles Varnadores, whose complaints regarding workplace safety at his Tennessee lab ultimately resulted in enhanced whistleblower protection and shed light on dangerous working conditions – including those involving asbestos.

Varnadore passed away recently, at the age of 71, in his home in Knoxville. Our Boston mesothelioma lawyers understand his passing in March occurred with little fanfare, with no more than a short blurb in the local newspaper. It wasn’t until The New York Times received word of it that they ran a full-length, feature obituary, detailing his contributions to safety for all American workers.

Varnadore’s story began back in 1990. At the time, he worked as a technician at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the country’s largest energy and science laboratory, operating under the Department of Energy. The federal nuclear research center had a part in helping to develop the atomic bomb.

Varnadore became aware of numerous safety practice violations that jeopardized the well-being of workers at the facility. He had just returned to work following a colon cancer surgery, and discovered that the person who replaced him had not been cautious in handling certain lab samples. He reported this to his employers, who then moved him to a new assignment.

However, the new position involved operating a mechanical arm that handled radioactive materials. The problem was that he had been blinded in one eye as a child, so his depth perception was off. This posed a critical safety risk in his operation of machinery. He said he tried to do the work, but ultimately made a mess and put other workers in harms’ way.

Suddenly, after many years of positive reviews, his employment evaluations were all negative. He was shuffled from assignment to assignment so frequently, his co-workers began to joke about his being a technician on roller skates.

A year after his return to work, he was given a storage room to serve as an office. Inside that storage room were bags of asbestos, chemical waste and radioactive waste.

Still, he was not silenced. He took his concerns to CBS Evening News, where he went on the record to say he was deeply concerned about the heightened risk of cancer that he and his co-workers faced. At that point, he filed the first of what would be several whistleblower complaints to the Labor Department.

A whistleblower complaint is one in which an individual invokes the promise of immunity in order to come forward to report a dangerous situation.

While the company didn’t deny that Varnadore was put into an office with all of these dangerous materials, it argued that such substances weren’t present in quantities that were large enough to be dangerous to his health.

In early 1992, the agency’s wage and hour division ruled in his favor. However, the case dragged on through a series of appeals, and there were a number of high-level reversals that were ultimately upheld.

In this sense, one could say that Varnadore lost the fight. However, his former attorneys point to a number of changes that came about as a result of his efforts. Those included:

• A renewed willingness among nuclear workers to report safety concerns;
• Energy Department reforms that resulted in overall safer practices within the industry;
• Increased protections established for whistleblowers soon after his high-profile fight.

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Massachusetts law requires that if asbestos is discovered in the course of a renovation or demolition project, you must tap a contractor qualified to properly handle the deadly material.

Our Boston asbestos exposure attorneys know that these are firms you are supposed to be able to trust to safely dispose of the material in a way that is going to minimize the health risk both to the workers themselves, as well as the general public.

However, one company based in Worcester was reportedly failing in that duty. The firm was red-flagged following an inspection in which the employees were seen mishandling the removal of shingles that contained asbestos from a home in Worcestor.
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While renovating a town building in Hyannis, workers fear they were not only exposed to asbestos, but town officials in Barnstable knew it and didn’t tell them.

Cases like this reveal why our Boston mesothelioma attorneys know that diagnoses of this deadly cancer aren’t going to disappear completely this century. The disease stems solely from airborne contact with this toxic organic fiber, and it’s everywhere – in homes, school and government buildings, motor vehicle parts, construction materials and insulation – the list goes on.

It’s bad enough that the workers who originally installed it likely became ill due to their exposure, about which their employers knew the risks but failed to warn. But now, we are seeing a whole new generation of workers being placed at severe risk for illness when these older structures require renovation or demolition.

The dangers are more widely known today by the general public than they were 40 years ago. However, workers rely on their employers to conduct due diligence in not only determining whether asbestos is present in a structure but in then following state and federal law to minimize the danger in its handling and disposal. Responsibilities also include informing workers when asbestos is present and providing respiratory protection when necessary.

A union leader for the workers says that whether the actions of the town’s management were intentional is not yet clear. But if the town didn’t know asbestos was present in the construction site, they had a responsibility to know. At the very least, the union leader pointed out, a failure to warn and protect workers would rise to the level of gross negligence.

The renovations were being conducted to a building to that houses a number of the town’s government offices, including school administration.

The material was discovered by a number of workers, shortly after the renovations got underway. The workers took the material to their supervisors, and demanded to know whether the material was in fact what they suspected it was. They wanted it tested.

However, the supervisors assured them that no asbestos was present in the area where they were working, as the town had already conducted appropriate testing. The workers kept pushing to have the material tested. It eventually was tested, and the results were sent to the town within 24 hours. The test was positive.

Yet that finding wasn’t shared with the workers until almost a month later, and even then only after the workers filed a labor grievance.

The testing revealed that the materials contained chrysotile asbestos, known definitively to cause mesothelioma, even with minimal contact.

The workers have grave and legitimate concerns because at one point during the project, an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner was used to blow some of the asbestos material into the air as part of the clean-up. None of the workers in the area wore masks or respirators. Some were covered with dust. They wiped their hands on their faces and, in some instances, they were eating immediately afterward.

Still, town officials insist that the asbestos material was limited to part of the floor that hadn’t yet been removed. We question this, however, because the workers reportedly came in contact with enough of it to provide a sample for testing.

Workers are now demanding that the state’s attorney general launch an investigation into the matter.

Although mesothelioma isn’t likely to reveal itself for years if not decades, early detection is critical, so we would encourage anyone who might have been exposed to visit with their doctor and be vigilant regarding any symptoms as time wears on. We would also encourage at least meeting with an asbestos injury lawyer to learn about your possible options for compensation.
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There are some who say the town in eastern Russia, in the valley of the Ural Mountains, is a nice place to live. The 70,000 or so residents are friendly. Crime is low.

But there is danger every time the wind blows in Asbest, the town named after its livelihood: the asbestos mines that daily continue to be stripped by explosion to fill the global demand.

Our Boston asbestos exposure lawyers know that despite the knowledge that the substance causes a form of terminal cancer known as mesothelioma, not to mention chronic, painful lung diseases such as asbestosis, the people continue to live their daily lives literally shrouded in it.

The New York Times recently chronicled a day in the life of Asbest dwellers, who describe how it collects in a layer on their living room floors. It collects on their linens that hang out in the backyard, to the point that they must shake it off before bringing their laundry inside. Out in their gardens, vegetables and fruits are caked with asbestos dust and women describe sweeping off their windows in the morning.

The town is just one of a number of Russian locations that continue to supply asbestos to various industries around the globe. While a number of nations have barred the substance, the U.S. isn’t among them. Prior to the 1970s, the fibrous mineral was widely used for insulation, fireproofing, bonding and numerous other functions. But the evidence soon began to grow that the substance was harmful and led to a host of respiratory ailments. (In fact, the companies that used asbestos often knew of these dangers, and yet failed to to take action to protect or warn workers or consumers. That is why we continue to see so many lawsuits to this day.)

A previous effort by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban asbestos was later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Still, there continue to be regulations about how the material must be handled, particularly in renovation and demolition projects. Such protections aren’t in place in Asbest or in many overseas towns just like it. It’s an issue of supply-and-demand like anything else. China and India continue to buy the product in bulk. As long as there continues to be a demand for it, there will be towns like this one where the people continue to be put at risk to supply it.

In Russia, the Russian Chrysotile Association, which is an industry trade group, reports annual sales to about $540 billion. The industry is actually expanding as other countries exit the trade.

The judicial system in Russia overwhelmingly favors powerful producers. There is little chance that those who have been affected or die from exposure to the substance would have any real chance of winning a case in court.

Many in Asbest say they know the dangers, but many say they have grown up there and have no where else to go. Many have persistent cough. Some have odd skin ailments, including strange welts and inflammation.

Scientists have homed in on this location, due to its widespread exposure, to determine whether asbestos may be responsible for other chronic or terminal ailments, such as ovarian cancer. The question isn’t whether asbestos causes cancer, but rather how many kinds of cancer does asbestos cause.
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