Asbestos - The Big Cover Up

Asbestos is a naturally occurring, yet potentially hazardous mineral. Nonetheless, throughout the centuries it has been admired for many of its advantageous chemical properties.

However, as good as these properties are, there is an extensive history of documentation that proves that exposure to asbestos has been the cause of many severe health problems. And although many of these well-documented cases occurred more than 100 years ago, the mineral was still heavily mined and processed into thousands of different products well into the 20th century.

Commercial asbestos mines began to open around the world in the late 1800s. Once the Industrial Revolution was underway many of the companies that produced products that contained asbestos started to see their profits substantially increase. As a result the asbestos business became a major industry, one that enjoyed high profit margins and employed thousands of people.

Although many of the companies in this industry say otherwise, they weren't in the dark about the health problems that are associated with being exposed to asbestos. Over time a number of previously secret internal documents were made public. If you read even a few of them you will see that for many years the asbestos industry had knowledge of the dangers they were exposing their employees to.

The first case of asbestosis was diagnosed about 100 years ago. It happened to a 33-year-old textile worker who had died, apparently as a result of the disease. In the first decade of the 20th century a London physician who examined his lungs found asbestos fibers lodged in them.

The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in 1917, examined asbestos factory workers and found that their lungs were scarred. Then, in 1918, the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics issued a report that claimed that the premature deaths of a large number of young asbestos workers had led the insurance companies to deny coverage to these workers. The insurers based their decision on the "assumed health-injurious conditions."

A number of years later numerous medical papers about asbestos were reported in the British Medical Journal. These papers found that indisputable links existed between asbestos, cancer, and death. Over the years, study after study has proven that there is a direct link between asbestos exposure and mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, and other life-threatening diseases.

The asbestos industry was well aware of these reports and other documents. And there is conclusive evidence proving that the asbestos industry knew of the serious health problems related to asbestos exposure. In courts throughout the country, many of these documents have helped to prove that these companies were negligent.

Subsequently, U.S. courts have awarded billions of dollars to people who developed asbestos-related diseases because of the negligence of their employers.


------

Next, to find out about mesothelioma go to http://www.mesorc.com/mesothelioma/info/what-is-mesothelioma

Wendy Moyer on behalf of Sokolove Law.