Mesothelioma is caused when there has been asbestos exposure. It becomes lethal when it is airborne. Inhaling these dust particles overtime in large quantities will give you mesothelioma or asbestosis. If you inhale small quantities for a short period of time you are also at risk. Mesothelioma is most commonly found in the pleura, lungs, peritoneum, abdomen, or pericardial, heart. The most common area is in the lungs. There is currently no known cure for mesothelioma. Over 3,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year. This number is much larger worldwide. Asbestos is in use all over the world, exposing hundreds of thousand of people to this deadly natural occurring mineral.
The dangers of this mineral were not understood for a very long time. As a result it was used in hundreds of materials during the greatest expanding time in history, the industrial revolution. It is found today in old buildings, railways, and cement. Working with asbestos exposed hundreds of thousands of people to airborne asbestos. It was originally hard to pinpoint where this disease came from because of the latency period. As a result, people who were exposed early in their life could not link the inhaling of asbestos dust to their injury. The latency created twenty and sometimes fifty-year gaps from the period of exposure to diagnosis. This created many challenges in understanding the cause of mesothelioma. It wasn’t until insurance companies stopped insuring people that worked with asbestos that there was a greater understanding of the causes of mesothelioma. This led to further research into the dangers of asbestos.
When the dangers of asbestos were known hundreds of thousands of people who had previously held asbestos jobs came to the forefront of the courtroom to be compensated. Many asbestos companies new the dangers of asbestos and hid medical facts from employees. As a result mesothelioma claims flooded the courtrooms and bankrupted tons of construction, roughing, and mining companies.
Exposure to asbestos did not just affect the people who worked with asbestos but entire families who acquired asbestos related illnesses. Asbestos was often carried home on clothing and was then inhaled by other people. Inhaling even small quantities of asbestos through clothing or dust particles that remain in someone’s hair can be extremely dangerous. People who are most at risk of indirect exposure to asbestos dust are those who washed the clothing of an asbestos worker. Contacting a lawyer who specializes in mesothlioma claims is imperative in receiving fair compensation from working asbestos jobs.