Mesothelioma
Attorneys & Litigation
Currently
over 200,000 asbestos litigation cases are in court and 50,000
new cases are expected to be filed each year. Asbestos
products have not been used in construction for many years,
however mesothelioma is a disease that can quietly develop over
decades. A worker might have been exposed to asbestos as long
as thirty or forty years ago only to be recently diagnosed with
mesothelioma. And by this time it is usually too late.
Asbestos
was discovered to be a carcinogen in the first half of the twentieth
century. Around 1900 a British doctor, Dr. H. Montague Murray
noticed the effects of scaring of the lungs (pulmonary fibrosis)
while performing an autopsy on an asbestos factory worker. Doctors
began noticing the negative health effects of factor workers
that wove asbestos fibers
and the miners that mined the mineral. Factory workers and miners
that worked directly with the asbestos would go to their doctors
(usually physicians paid by the asbestos company) they would
be told they are suffering from emphysema caused by smoking.
The
first major victory for people suffering from asbestosis, pleural
mesothelioma and abdominal mesothelioma, pulmonary fibrosis
came in 1972. In a landmark case the defendant was determined
to have knowledge of the harmful effects of asbestos and purposefully
withheld pertinent information. A flood of mesothelioma
lawyers began filling litigation on behalf of their clients
that continues to this day.
Litigation
on behalf of mesothelioma patients has recently hit a road bump.
Legislation is being passed through that would severely limit
the compensation that many victims should rightly receive. While
miners, textile workers, and families exposed to asbestos in
their homes tragically passed away from a disease they did not
understand the industry did everything it could to cover up
the fact that asbestos was the cause of their tragic and unimaginable
suffering. The industry is no longer able to cover up what it
has known for years: that asbestos causes
terminal cancer.
To
learn more about the litigation that is designed to limit your
rights visit Citizen.org
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