WHAT THE ASBESTOS COMPANIES KNEW

The death and destruction caused by the asbestos industry is one of the great tragedies of the 20th Century. This is a story of corporate greed and disregard for the safety of workers and military personnel. Our law firm, which specializes in claims against the asbestos manufacturing companies, sometimes encounters persons who have been diagnosed with asbestos-caused cancer or lung disease, yet are reluctant to make claims against the asbestos companies, expressing the feeling that they are somehow "picking on" these companies, or that they do not wish to be seen as "lawsuit happy." If these people knew the full picture of what the asbestos companies knew, and when they knew it, about the hazards of asbestos, they would realize that the asbestos companies, and the persons who ran them, deliberately set out, for decades, to cause injury and death, and are to this day continuing to cause injury and death.

In the 1920s, medical articles showed that asbestos factory workers had scarring in their lungs on autopsy. In the 1930s, numerous studies of asbestos miners and factory workers showed they were dying of lung disease and cancer. In response, the asbestos company executives wrote letters to each other, in which they agreed to suppress this medical evidence. The "Sumner Simpson Papers" are a series of letters, from the 1930s, between asbestos companies, saying such things as "the less said about asbestos, the better off we are." In the 1940s, various asbestos companies, such as Owens Illinois and Owens Corning Fiberglas, commissioned medical studies, to prove asbestos was safe. When the scientists reported that asbestos was in fact not safe, these companies attempted to force the scientists to alter their conclusions.

The asbestos companies have attempted, in numerous jury trials, to explain away the medical literature regarding lung disease in factory workers and miners, by saying, basically, "Sure, we knew asbestos caused lung disease in factory workers and miners, but we had no way of knowing it could cause disease in people who worked around asbestos-containing products." This, of course, is a ridiculous argument. Asbestos fibers injure people regardless of trade or occupation. The asbestos companies knew this fact, and they had a duty to, at the very least, warn the public, and allow its customers, such as the Navy, a choice as to whether or not to purchase asbestos-containing products, and to allow workers and service men a choice as to whether or not to work around these products.

The bottom line of this sad story is that the asbestos companies viewed the future cost of injury and death claims as a cost of doing business, and continued to make huge profits from the sale of its deadly asbestos products. People who are diagnosed with asbestos-caused lung disease, lung cancer, and mesothelioma are fully entitled to, and deserving of, the compensation they receive.

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