Workplace Asbestos Exposure

More than 1.3 million U. S. construction workers are exposed to asbestos each year. It is estimated that there will be about 250,000 cases of malignant Mesothelioma before 2020.

Asbestos Exposure

Over 27 million people in the U. S. are at risk of developing malignant Mesothelioma from asbestos exposure. Asbestos manufactures knew of the long term dangers of asbestos exposure but chose to ignore or downplay the role asbestos played in many reported illnesses.

Diagnosed With Mesothelioma

More than 10,000 Americans in the U. S. will be diagnosed with Mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases each year. Malignant Mesothelioma is a rare cancer that affects the lining of the lungs, abdomen, heart and major organs of the body.

Mesothelioma & Asbestos

The number of people diagnosed with asbestos caused diseases in the U.S. continues to increase. Experts believe 60,000 mesothelioma deaths will occur between 2010 and 2030. The 3 main treatments for Mesothelioma are: surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.

Asbestos Dust

Malignant Mesothelioma is caused by exposure to asbestos through ingestion or inhaling of microscopic asbestos fibers as small .3 microns. Mesothelioma symptoms may not appear for 10-40 years after first exposure.

Our Experience

The Law Offices of Jerry Neil Paul has produced some of the most notable verdicts and highest settlements in the United States. Over 500 of our clients have each obtained in excess of 1 million dollars. Over 250 have recovered multi-million dollar recoveries.

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Is Asbestos Banned in the United States?

NO!

Despite its well documented dangers as a toxic and deadly substance, the use of asbestos in products is not and never has been banned in the United States. Although over 50 countries have successfully banned asbestos, another 200 – including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, India, and Japan – continue to either mine asbestos, buy raw asbestos for remanufacture, or import and sell asbestos-containing products.

The simple fact is that asbestos-containing products are regularly imported, sold, and used throughout the U.S. and continue to endanger the lives of people with whom they come in contact. Despite the emergence of a growing movement to ban asbestos in the U.S., government agencies have issued remarkably few prohibitions regarding the use of asbestos – and even those restrictions did not come without a fight.

In 1989, the Environmental Protection Agency issued the "Asbestos Ban and Phase Out Rule" which sought to gradually implement a ban on U.S. manufacture, importation, processing, and distribution of most all asbestos-containing products. The EPA’s stated rationale for the ban was clear: "Asbestos is a human carcinogen and is one of the most hazardous substances to which humans are exposed in both occupational and non-occupational settings." (54 Fed.Reg. 29,460 at 29,468 (1989).)

Just two years later, in a lawsuit filed by asbestos manufacturers and industry organizations, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana revoked most of the EPA ban. Despite its recognition that "asbestos is a potential carcinogen at all levels of exposure," the appellate court ruled that that the EPA had failed to sufficiently prove that asbestos-containing products posed "unreasonable health risks" such that an asbestos ban was "justified" under the law.

After the Court’s ruling, the ban was reduced to a mere six categories of asbestos-containing products. To date, they remain the only asbestos-containing products banned in the U.S. Those products include:

•Flooring felt
•Rollboard
•Corrugated paper
•Commercial paper
•Specialty paper
•Products that have not historically contained asbestos ("new uses")

The list of asbestos-containing products that are not banned in the U.S., however, is much longer. Those products, among others, include:

•Asbestos-cement corrugated sheet
•Asbestos-cement flat sheet
•Asbestos clothing
•Pipeline wrap
•Roofing felt
•Vinyl-asbestos floor tile
•Asbestos-cement shingle
•Millboard
•Asbestos-cement pipe
•Automatic transmission components
•Clutch facings
•Friction materials
•Disc brake pads
•Drum brake linings
•Brake blocks
•Gaskets
•Non-roofing coatings
•Roof coatings

Ongoing efforts to obtain a total ban on the use of all asbestos in this country continue to date. 

One of the greatest tenets of this country is our professed belief in human rights. It is time we put that belief to work here at home. In the United States, an estimated fifty thousand blue-collar workers die each year from illnesses caused by workplace exposure, according to OSHA. That is an astounding number; yet it is largely unreported and ignored. Blue-collar workers remain what Brodeur once scathingly referred to as "expendable Americans."

~Michael Bowker in "Fatal Deception: The Terrifying True Story of How Asbestos is Killing America 

 

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