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Volver al Blog de AsbestosAsbestos exposure poses an ongoing concern for people who worked in the mining industry.
Well before asbestos mining began, to ancient people, an ever-burning asbestos ceremonial candle wick was almost like the burning bush. Both were highly prized and almost sacred, at least to some people. Low-level servants usually maintained such items, The property owners cared little about workers’ health and safety. Alas, that pattern persisted for centuries.
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Si cree que estuvo expuesto al asbesto, incluso cuando era niño, hable con un proveedor de atención médica sobre pruebas y exámenes para ayudar a diagnosticar cicatrices pulmonares y detectar enfermedades relacionadas con enfermedades relacionadas con el asbesto.
Historia del Asbesto
Asbestos mining began on a large scale during the Second Industrial Revolution, around 1900. By then, the adverse health effects of asbestos were well-documented. But instead of reducing the use of this harmful substance, companies doubled down. We mentioned asbestos wicks above. Many cigarette lighters made before 1980, especially Zippo lighters, had asbestos wicks.
There were thousands of asbestos products and materials used in the 20th century.
(Unfortunately, many are still around today.)
Small consumer products were just the start. Also around 1900, explorers found large chrysotile (white) asbestos deposits in remote parts of Canada. These mines, and others like them, became the principal source of most asbestos products and materials used worldwide throughout the twentieth century. To keep up with demand, these mines, which are still legal in many parts of the world, still produce over one million metric tons of asbestos every year.
The asbestos industry kept workers and consumers in the dark about the risks they were facing.
Mining companies and other companies had chance after chance to do the right thing, stop using asbestos, and compensate victims. They passed on each chance. So, an asbestos exposure lawyer must now force them to do these things, which they should have done a long time ago. Due to the serious nature of asbestos exposure injuries, and the long-term asbestos health hazard cover-up, significant compensation is usually available.
“La evidencia general sugiere que no existe un nivel seguro de exposición al asbesto”. no hay nivel seguro de exposición al asbesto."Fuente: Instituto Nacional del Cáncer (NIH)1 |
Asbestos Mining: A Primer
The aforementioned one million metric ton figure is a drop in the bucket compared to the mining volume before 1990. Before then, mines in North America and elsewhere supplied millions of tons of asbestos every year.
These mines employed countless people and brought in billions of dollars. In fact, asbestos is California’s state rock. Companies then used this toxic mineral in a wide variety of products and materials.
Products and uses of asbestos included:
| Home Insulation: Asbestos doesn’t conduct heat. This property makes it an excellent insulation material. Fiberglass is almost as effective, but it’s’ more expensive than asbestos. So, guess which material most builders preferred. |
| Construcción naval: For this same reason, until 1980, government and private shipbuilders stuffed everything that floats full of asbestos. The infamous 1967 USS Forrestal fire, which killed almost 200 airmen and sailors, accelerated this process, especially in hot and dangerous areas, like boiler rooms and ammunition storage areas. |
| Commercial Wiring: Asbestos doesn’t conduct electricity. Chrysotile asbestos, a substance that resembles several layers of white tissue paper on top of each other, was and is a particularly popular electric wiring insulator. |
| Home Construction: Fiber-reinforced concrete was invented in 1970. Before then, builders reinforced concrete in driveways, walkways, and foundations with asbestos fibers. In addition to concrete, wiring, and insulation, asbestos showed up in other areas as well, such as decorative ceilings, drywall, and floor tiles. |
Asbestos miners, many of whom worked with little personal protective equipment, weren’t the only workers at risk of asbestos exposure..
Asbestos miners were unmistakably at risk of enfermedades relacionadas con el asbesto como el cáncer de pulmón y mesotelioma. In addition, large-scale mining also created cross-contamination issues, mostly in talc and vermiculite mines.
Overall, asbestos dangers in the mining industry extend to the mining of any other material, because minerals don’t always form separately. Instead, they form in a kind of soup as lava cools slowly, creating a crystallized matrix of various minerals mixed together, which includes asbestos mineral types.
Even mining industry workers involved in mining minerals other than asbestos may be at risk because of contamination.
As a result of cross-contamination, mining industry workers involved in mining minerals other than asbestos may be at risk because of contamination. A study of diamond mine workers in South Africa found they had tremolite asbestos in their lungs from contamination.
“Algunas fibras de asbesto pueden pasar por alto... las defensas naturales de su cuerpo... y alojarse en lo profundo de sus pulmones. Esas fibras pueden permanecer en su lugar durante mucho tiempo y es posible que nunca se eliminen”.Fuente: Asociación Americana del Pulmón |
Talc and asbestos contamination
Back to the Big Two. Chemically, asbestos and talc are nearly identical, mostly because they’re usually close together underground. Therefore, asbestos mines usually contain stray talc products, and vice versa. A handful of talc particles in a sheet of home or commercial insulation usually isn’t a problem. A few stray asbestos particles in talcum powder is a big problem.
We mentioned fiberglass as an alternative to asbestos above. Vermiculite is another option. Like asbestos and talc, cross-contamination between vermiculite and asbestos is a significant risk. Unfortunately for victims, mining companies have very poor safety records.
Vermiculite and asbestos contamination
El Grace Mine in Libby, Montana is a good example. GRace Company officials knew for decades that the vermiculite they extracted was laced with asbestos. Yet the company did nothing to warn its customers or protect the health and safety of its workers and their families.
“Todas las formas de asbesto son cancerígenas para los humanos”. 2
The Asbestos Mining Cover-Up
The Libby cover-up wasn’t an isolated incident. Asbestos mining and other companies around the world worked together to bury (no mining pun intended) the adverse health effects of asbestos. This statement isn’t some crazy conspiracy theory. This statement is fact.
In 1934, the heads of large asbestos mining and other companies met in England to discuss a growing problem, namely that asbestos was killing their workers. The suits hatched a three-prong plan:
- Chip away at the emerging science that identified health risks,
- Loudly trumpet asbestos success stories, and
- Quitely transfer sick workers to other positions.
Big tobacco and other large, dangerous industries have copied this plan, or at least parts of it, for many years. The plan didn’t work out for them, and ultimately, it didn’t work out for asbestos companies either.
El asbesto no tiene sabor ni olor.
Es posible que no sepa que lo está respirando.
Asbestos industry: denying the science, muddying the waters, letting people get sick
For many years, the chip-away approach worked well. Asbestos “experts” successfully discredited adverse health reports. Eventually, however, the science simply became too great to ignore.
Los fumadores expuestos al asbesto tienen hasta 50 veces más probabilidades de desarrollar cáncer de pulmón que los no fumadores que no están expuestos.3 |
Asbestos damage became a problem the industry couldn’t ignore (thanks to the victims hiring asbestos attorneys.)
The loudly-trumpet idea worked for a while as well. But they went overboard and played up every success story as a milestone event. As many protest groups have learned, if you scream loud enough and long enough, people stop listening.
Transferring sick workers is usually a good idea, if bosses know they’re sick. But the asbestos illnesses mentioned below often have more than a fifty-year latency period. You cannot quietly transfer employees who haven’t worked there for decades.
Despite these shortcomings, the cover-up remained in place until 1966, when the first asbestos exposure victim filed an injury lawsuit. The dominoes kept falling, and by 1990, asbestos mining was illegal in the United States and many other countries.
| El cristolito | Crocidolita | Amosita | Antofilita | Actinolita | Tremolita |
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Asbestos Risks and the mining industry
Asbestos fibers in the open air are incredibly toxic. Asbestos fibers in confined spaces, like mines, are much more dangerous, especially if miners don’t wear adequate protective equipment.
Mining dust, regardless of the substance mined, often causes silicosis and black lung disease. Tiny dust particles clog tiny breathing passageways. As a result, these victims often suffer from chronic breathing problems.
“Algunas fibras de asbesto pueden pasar por alto... las defensas naturales de su cuerpo... y alojarse en lo profundo de sus pulmones. Esas fibras pueden permanecer en su lugar durante mucho tiempo y es posible que nunca se eliminen”.Fuente: Asociación Americana del Pulmón |
Asbestosis is another health risk for miners (in addition to black lung and silicosis).
Black lung disease and silicosis are bad. Asbestosis is much worse. Asbestos fibers don’t just clog tiny airways, many of which are no larger than the point of a pencil. Asbestos fibers burn these airways and create scar tissue. These scars permanently block these airways. As scar tissue builds up, victims eventually have trouble breathing even while they’re at rest.
“Por lo general, quienes desarrollan enfermedades relacionadas con el asbesto no muestran signos de enfermedad durante mucho tiempo después de la exposición”.Fuente: Instituto Nacional del Cáncer (NIH)4 |
The big issue with asbestosis is that “eventually” is usually a very long time. As mentioned, asbestos exposure illnesses usually have very long latency periods. So, by the time asbestos exposure victims know they have asbestosis, a radical and risky lung transplant may be the only available treatment option.
¿Califica usted para una compensación?
Descubra rápida y fácilmente cómo estuvo expuesto buscando en WARD, la base de datos de asbesto más grande del planeta.
BÚSQUEDA GRATUITA >Legal Options for Asbestos Exposure
If you have been injured by asbestos exposure in the mining industry (or through second-hand exposure), there is compensation available.
Once upon a time, asbestos miners, and people who lived near asbestos mines, had limited legal options. Today, several alternatives may be available, depending on the facts and circumstances of a particular case.
Injured miners are usually eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. These benefits, which usually include lost wage replacement and medical bill payment, are available if the victim has a work-related trauma injury or occupational disease, like one of the aforementioned breathing conditions.
“It has been repeatedly and consistently demonstrated in the medical and scientific literature that family members exposed to asbestos dust from laundering a worker’s clothing have a significantly increased risk of developing mesothelioma.”-U.S. Supreme Court, 2018. Air and Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVries, 139 S. Ct. 986, 586 U.S., 203 L. Ed. 2d 373 (2019). |
Proving asbestos exposure and asbestos-related diseases can be complicated.
But an asbestos attorney like AsbestosClaims.Law can help.
These victims don’t have to prove negligence or fault. But they must prove that their asbestos exposure injury was ambient (work-related) as opposed to non-ambient (environmental).
Más de $ 30 mil millones todavía están disponibles (sin demandas. Sin tarifas a menos que reciba dinero. Sin riesgos). Haga su reclamo.  |
Additional compensation is available if an asbestos exposure lawyer successfully sues the mine’s owner for damages. These victims must prove negligence, or a lack of care. Failure to provide proper equipment, as discussed above, is just one way a mining company might be negligent.
This additional compensation often includes money for noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering. Moreover, because of the long-term asbestos cover-up, punitive damages may be available as well.
Once the jig was up, many companies, like Johns Manville y Turner Newall, established large victim compensation funds. These claims are rather straightforward, but limited discovery, as well as limited compensation, is usually available.
AsbestosClaims.Law
Asbestos claims aren’t just a day in the office for Justinian C. Lane.
Son una misión.
En el pasado, los trabajadores expuestos al asbesto no sabían acerca de los peligros de la exposición al asbesto. Entre esos trabajadores estaban los abuelos de Justinian y su propio padre.
Desafortunadamente, también se les mantuvo en la oscuridad acerca de las opciones de compensación disponibles para ellos, como las demandas por asbesto y los fondos fiduciarios. En sus últimos años, murieron de cánceres relacionados con el asbesto.
Debido a que nadie en la familia de Justiniano conocía sus opciones, nunca recibieron compensación alguna por la muerte de sus seres queridos.
Hoy, estamos trabajando para cambiar el rumbo.
Puede haber una compensación significativa disponible para usted si ha contraído una enfermedad o lesión relacionada con el asbesto. Esto incluye tanto a los trabajadores como a los miembros de la familia que han estado expuestos.
La compensación es su clave para recibir el tratamiento médico que necesita, financiar los servicios de remoción de asbesto y mantener su bienestar físico.
¿Quiere conocer una de las formas más rápidas y fáciles de recibir una compensación? Permítanos hablar con usted sobre las reclamaciones de fideicomiso de asbesto. Esta opción a menudo puede evitar demandas por completo.
Queremos escuchar su historia y, lo que es más importante, queremos redimirla.
¿Necesita ayuda para presentar un reclamo? No hay problema, puede enviarnos un correo electrónico a [email protected].
¿Prefieres hablar por teléfono? Simplemente llámenos o envíenos un mensaje de texto al (206) 455-9190.
No nos pagará ni un centavo a menos que reciba el dinero primero, por lo que no hay riesgo.
Además de demandas legales, discapacidad de veteranos, seguridad social y protección del empleo como compensación de trabajadores, FELA y La ley de Jones para los trabajadores marítimos, hay fideicomisos de asbesto que se han establecido para indemnizar a los perjudicados por el asbesto sin tener que presentar una demanda.
Los peligros del asbesto solían ser un secreto guardado por la industria para evitar que personas como la familia de Justiniano sufrieran. Ya no. Te traemos la verdad.
Hemos creado numerosos recursos para ayudarlo a responder sus preguntas y brindarle la información que necesita saber y actuar.
Nuestro sitio web tiene una gran cantidad de información dedicada a cosas como la salud y la seguridad, prueba de asbesto, asbestos removal, y información legal sobre la compensación por lesiones de asbesto.
¿Eres un aprendiz visual? ¡Ningún problema!
Nuestro página de YouTube tiene infografías, una serie sobre la historia del asbesto y otros recursos útiles que puede consultar!
| ¿No está seguro de dónde o cuándo estuvo expuesto al asbesto? ¡Deja que WARD te ayude! La base de datos de investigación mundial sobre el asbesto (W.A.R.D) es la base de datos de información sobre el asbesto más grande, y punto. Si necesita respuestas relacionadas con ubicaciones específicas, productos o qué tipo de compensación puede estar disponible para usted debido a la exposición al asbesto, WARD es el lugar para comenzar. |
Trabajar con nosotros es libre de riesgos. A menos que reciba dinero de compensación, ¡NO HAY HONORARIOS! Háblenos sobre litigios de asbesto hoy.
1 Instituto Nacional del Cáncer (NIH) Hoja informativa sobre asbesto.
2 IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans. Arsenic, metals, fibres, and dusts. IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans. 2012 ;100(Pt C):11-465. PMID: 23189751.
3 Klebe, S., Leigh, J., Henderson, D.W. and Nurminen, M., 2020. Asbesto, tabaquismo y cáncer de pulmón: una actualización. Revista internacional de investigación ambiental y salud pública, 17(1), p.258.
4 Instituto Nacional del Cáncer (NIH), Hoja informativa sobre asbesto.
