Financial aid for cancer treatment may be the most pressing problem that asbestos exposure victims, and their loved ones, face. In 2022, despite the availability of government-subsidized health insurance, the number of medical bill-related bankruptcies increased over 80 percent. Additionally the number of petitioners with more than $100 million in debts almost doubled.

Bankruptcy, which discharges most medical bills, is a good option in a few cases. 

However, many doctors refuse to treat patients with unpaid bills, whether they file bankruptcy or not. Finding another provider may be a problem as well. Many people with unpaid bills wind up on the naughty list. Finally, a bankruptcy filing remains on a credit report for about ten years. It takes time to recover from a filing, and time is something many asbestos exposure victims do not have.

A partnership with an asbestos exposure lawyer is usually a much better option. Attorneys obtain compensation so victims can pay their bills. Moreover, injury claims help victims and survivors obtain closure, because these claims hold polluting companies responsible for the damages they cause. In many cases, as outlined below, this compensation and justice may only be a few months away.

Asbestos-Induced Diseases

Asbestos exposure-related diseases are very difficult to diagnose. Since doctors cannot get a head start on treatment, these treatments must be more aggressive and therefore more expensive. 

Most asbestos exposure-related diseases have at least a forty-year latency period. People who handled asbestos-laced products before 1989, when a partial ban took effect, may be sick and not know it. These diseases include:

  • Pleural Mesothelioma: Toxic asbestos fibers can form lung cancer tumors that form near the heart. When initial symptoms, like coughing and trouble breathing, finally appear, doctors usually look for NSCLC (non-small cell lung cancer) spots. NSCLC is much more common. By the time doctors rule out this possibility, the PlM tumor has metastasized and is almost untreatable.
  • Asbestosis: Toxic particles don’t just alter cellular DNA. They also burn tissues, specifically the tissue in the lung’s tiny airways. The burns create scar tissue that ultimately blocks these airways. When that happens, victims have trouble breathing even at rest. So, this disease is almost always debilitating or fatal.
  • Pleural Thickening: Toxic fibers also inflamed tissues. Pleural disease occurs in the pleural space, which is the thin fluid-filled area in between the two pulmonary pleura in the human body. By itself, pleural thickening usually isn’t too serious. However, several disorders and complications that can occur within the pleural area, and the surrounding tissues in the lung, such as pleural mesothelioma.

Other asbestos exposure-related illnesses include brain cancer, laryngeal cancer, abdominal cancer, and ovarian cancer.

Indirect asbestos exposure can cause ovarian cancer. Asbestos fibers often seep into talcum powder and other cosmetic products, usually during the mining or manufacturing process. This issue highlights the plight of indirect exposure victims, or take-home asbestos victims, in general.

Under a microscope, asbestos particles resemble kidney stones. Sharp spikes extend from a solid core. These durable fibers easily cling to pretty much any surface, such as clothing, hair, or car upholstery. Therefore, many industrial, construction, or other at-risk workers carried asbestos fibers home, where these fibers infected drones and loved ones.

Cancer Treatment Costs

These expenses vary significantly in different geographical areas. However, cancer treatment methods don’t vary much.

Traditional

Sometimes, asbestos exposure-related cancers respond to traditional cancer treatments. For many years, doctors have relied on a three-prong approach to treat this disease. This approach has been effective for the most part, as the cancer survival rate is much higher today than it was in the 1990s. But the traditional approach often doesn’t effectively fight asbestos exposure-related tumors:

  • Chemotherapy: Superheated chemotherapy drugs are effective against some forms of mesothelioma. But in general, mesothelioma is a very painful kind of cancer and these victims are quite old. Powerful chemotherapy drugs usually aren’t an option under such conditions.
  • Radiation: These treatments usually shrink early-stage tumors. But mesothelioma and other asbestos exposure cancer treatments usually don’t start early. Byt the time doctors diagnose these conditions, the tumors are too big to shrink with radiation.
  • Surgery: Skilled surgeons can often remove tumors after they’ve been shrunk by radiation. But, since radiation usually isn’t an option in asbestos exposure cancer cases, surgery usually isn’t an option either.

Despite these obstacles, some traditional plans are available in some cases. An asbestos exposure lawyer connects victims with doctors who focus on such matters and, in most cases, charge nothing upfront for their professional services.

Nontraditional

Toxic particles, like asbestos fibers, alter cell DNA and cause cancer. If cell DNA can be altered once, it can be altered again. That’s the basic premise of CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) gene editing technology.

Researchers who developed CRISPR shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2020. But the technology is much older than that.

In 1987, researchers at Osaka University almost accidentally stumbled upon what would become CRISPR gene editing while they worked on cloning technology. They did not follow up on their CRISPR research, mostly because they didn’t know what they’d found. Other scientists picked up the ball and ran with it.

As for the cost, we hope you’re sitting down. Currently, these treatments cost between $2 and $3 million each. Furthermore, most group health insurance plans don’t cover CRISPR treatments, as the therapy is new and, except on a theoretical basis and in laboratory trials, unproven.

Funding for Asbestos Victims

The diseases mentioned above not only cause tremendous, and expensive, physical damage. They also cause tremendous, and expensive, emotional damage. An asbestos exposure lawyer can obtain compensation for both these losses in civil court.

Funding for asbestos-related medical bills, so long as these bills are reasonably necessary, could be available through:

  • Strict Liability: Manufacturers are, as a matter of law, liable for the injuries or illnesses their dangerous or defective products cause, at least in most cases. Compensation in these matters includes money for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering. Additional punitive damages are usually available as well.
  • No-Fault: These matters include Social Security Disability (everyone), workers’ compensation (job-related asbestos exposure illnesses) and VA disability (service-related). Compensation in these matters usually includes lost wage replacement and medical bill payment, or in SSD and VA cases, free medical care.

To obtain maximum compensation in these cases, an asbestos exposure lawyer usually partners with an independent doctor, who confirms information like diagnosis, reasonably necessary treatment, and the date of exposure.

Some charitable groups also help offset the enormous cost of traditional or nontraditional cancer treatments, especially in ancillary areas, like transportation and housing.

Mesothelioma Financial Support

A bankruptcy victim compensation fund claim is basically a hybrid between a civil claim and a no-fault claim. However, in most cases, bankruptcy VCF claims don’t go through the legal system.

Many asbestos providers declared bankruptcy, so they would not have to face the music, or so they thought. As a condition of these bankruptcies, federal courts ordered these providers to establish large victim compensation funds. Today, some forty years after the first of these funds was established, they still contain over $30 billion.