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Asbestos is a mineral compound used in an estimated 3,000 different products from brake linings to insulation. Workers, backyard mechanics and people involved in home improvement can be exposed to asbestos and never know it. It can break into fine fibers invisible to the eye that can cause devastating illness and death to anyone who inhales them into their lungs.
Asbestos companies and their insurers have known these facts for at least 30 years, and perhaps as long as 70 years. Yet they continued then and now to expose their workers to the deadly fibers without warning them of the dangers. Even though there was clear evidence that asbestos was a cause lung of disease in workers, the asbestos industry has taken the public position that their workplaces were and are completely safe.
That’s what asbestos companies and insurers said in public. Privately there was another story. One of the original asbestos manufacturers, Johns Manville acknowledged that "The fibrosis of this disease is irreversible and permanent so that eventually compensation will be paid to each of these men."
Contrary to public perception asbestos has not been banned and is still being used today, exposing hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the nation. Most workers being exposed are in construction trades or working as mechanics.
The U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) says 13,100 metric tons of asbestos was used in America in 2001. Major manufacturing uses are asphaltic roofing compounds (9,250 tons), gaskets (2,300 tons), and friction products, such as brake linings and clutch facings (608 tons).
Asbestos is a public health catastrophe that has killed 300,000 Americans so far and will eventually kill an additional half a million or more. Millions more people exposed to asbestos suffer from asbestosis and pleural diseases. Hundreds of thousands more workers suffer from a debilitating scarring of the lungs.
Asbestos is associated with four specific diseases:
Mesothelioma: Malignant mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining or the abdomen, is the most serious of the asbestos-related diseases. It is considered a "signature" cancer because it is caused by virtually nothing besides asbestos. Mesothelioma is almost always fatal, and the life expectancy at diagnosis is usually about one year.
Lung cancer: Various forms of lung cancer are caused by asbestos. People exposed to asbestos have a 5-to-10 time’s greater risk of developing lung cancer than those with no exposure. For people who have had a significant exposure to asbestos, and who also smoke, the risk of cancer is 50-to-90 times greater than normal.
Asbestosis: This is a scarring of the lung tissue that slowly reduces the ability of the lungs to function. It is progressive and irreversible. Symptoms often start with shortness of breath. In later stages the damage to the lungs is so severe that the victim can barely walk or talk and ultimately it can be fatal. An X-ray or a breathing test usually diagnoses asbestosis.
Pleural Disease: This is a thickening of the lung lining that interferes with breathing. Pleural disease increases the risk of developing asbestosis or lung cancer.
Damage Develops Slowly but Begins Early
Mesothelioma takes a long time to develop and often does not strike until 25 to 45 years after a person is first exposed to asbestos. Lung cancer generally develops 20 to 30 years after exposure. For asbestosis the length between exposure and diagnosis is usually 20 years and for pleural disease about 15 years.
Nonetheless asbestos causes a physical injury from the beginning that worsens progressively. Evidence obtained through litigation corroborates that the asbestos industry itself and its insurance carriers were well aware of the corrosive effects of exposure.
"The undisputed medical facts are that actual bodily injury, in the form of tissue or cellular damaged caused by lodged asbestos fibers, begins shortly after such fibers are first inhaled." Statements of Pittsburgh Corning Corp. in Pittsburgh Corning Corp. v. The Travelers Indemnity Co. v. PPG Industries, Inc., U.S. District Court (E.D. Pa) (October 24, 1984).
"The injury to the body begins at the first inhalation of the asbestos fibers. Although the eventual change in the lungs begins to develop at this time, it is not until the disease is relatively advanced that a firm diagnosis of asbestosis can be made." Internal Memo of the Travelers Ins. Co., Liability Claims Administration, Injurious Exposure Claims at sec. 18.1.
"The only conclusion that can be drawn from the medical evidence is the conclusion that is virtually uniform in the medical literature – asbestos-related injuries are the result of a continuous injurious process, beginning with first exposure and continuing through clinical manifestation." Post-Trial Phase III Brief of Policy Holders on the Medical Evidence, Superior Court of State of Ca, City & County of San Francisco (Dec. 9, 1986).
Once the lungs are injured due to asbestos exposure they do not recover.
"The accumulation of scar-like tissue decreases the functional volume of the lungs, stiffens the passage ways, and impedes the transfer of gases in and out of the blood. If the process continues, the functional capacity of the lungs becomes inadequate to support normal activities and may eventually be unable to support life." Brief of The Travelers Insurance Co., re Exposure v. Manifestation, Commercial Inc., Co. v. Pittsburgh Corning, (U.S.D.C., E.D.Pa) (July 14, 1981).
"[a]s the fibrotic process progresses, shortness of breath becomes apparent at lesser levels of physical activity and ultimately occurs at rest. . . . As the disease progresses, lung volume reduction leads to a pattern of rapid, shallow breathing." Post-Trial III Brief of Policy Holders on the Medical Evidence, Superior Court of the State of Ca, City and County of San Francisco (Dec. 9, 1986).
"Asbestos fibers may alter, or cause serious mutations in, the chromosomal structure of the cells of the pleura." [This immediately renders the person a candidate for developing lung cancer.] Affidavit of Dr. John Craighead, M.D. (November 3, 1992), filed as an expert witness on behalf of Insurers American Motorist, Republic and Constitution State, in Stonewall Ins. Co. v. Nat’s Gyp. (S.D.N.Y. 86 Civ. 9671).
Merely on the basis of exposure, asbestos workers routinely have difficulty obtaining life, health, and workers compensation insurance.
"In the practice of American and Canadian life insurance companies asbestos workers are generally declined on account of the assumed health injurious conditions of the industry." (Frederick Hoffman, Prudential Life, Mortality from Respiratory Diseases in Dusty Trades, U.S. Dept. of Labor Bulletin 231, 1918).
An insurance industry training manual recognized that: work involving the use of toxic materials like asbestos would cause severe losses and cautioned against writing workers compensation policies where asbestos was involved. (Insurance Company of North America Education Department, Casualty Insurance Course, 1947).
"A diagnosis of pleural disease affects the underwriting process of an applicant’s insurance policy, often causing an increase in the applicant’s insurance premium, or causing the applicant to be declined coverage." (Affidavit of Dr. Lawrence D. Jones, M.D. (March 12, 1991) in Multi District Litigation-875).
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