Whenever it is found that a Government, or a Corporation, or in this case an entire industry was doing wrong, the cry always comes up:
What did they know,
and when did they know it?
This is important when considering if you are due any Asbestos compensation. Most people want nothing to do with lawyers or the court system, and are content to live out their lives never having to deal with either of them. However, when you look on this page, and consider that the asbestos product producing companies knew full-well that they were manufacturing and selling a poisonous product. When you discover that they were happily putting your money in their pockets, without even having the decency to warn you to protect yourself from breathing the dust from their poison, I believe that you will want them to have to help those who have been poisoned by their product, and their families.
If you have any of the symptoms of mesothelioma or Asbestosis, please see a doctor right away and tell them what you fear. If you are the loved one of someone who has been stricken, you are able to act in their behaf, and contact an attorney who specializes in Asbestos Compensation cases.
Here is some history, a timeline. What did they know, and when did they know it?
1890s – Asbestos is used as a raw material in large manufacturing operations, exposing large numbers of workers to asbestos dust for the first time.
1898: Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for the Year 1898 in the United Kingdom noted the hazardous effects of asbestos exposure.
1900: British physician H. Montague Murray diagnosed lung disease caused by asbestos exposure as the cause of death of a thirty-three year old asbestos worker.
1900-1910 – Lung disease is reported among asbestos milling and manufacturing workers.
1918 – A report is released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that reveals abnormal early deaths among asbestos workers.
1918: Frederick L. Hoffman, a statistician with Prudential Insurance, issued a report for the US Bureau of Labor Statistics which indicated asbestos workers attempting to purchase life insurance were “generally declined on account of the assumed health-injurious conditions of the industry”, and that asbestos worker died abnormally early.
1924 – The first clear case of death due to asbestosis was published in The British Medical Journal. The UK regulated ventilation and made asbestosis an excusable work-related disease, about ten years sooner than the U.S.
1926 – The Massachusetts Industrial Accidents Board processed the first successful compensation claim by a sick asbestos worker, which was eventually settled without a trial.
1930 – Major asbestos company Johns-Manville produces a report, for internal company use only, about medical reports of asbestos worker fatalities. That same year the first medical survey of asbestos workers was published by researchers Merewether and Prince, publicizing that one in every four asbestos workers suffered from asbestosis. Its investigation and findings prompted improved regulation and inclusion of the asbestos industry into the British Workers’ Compensation Act
1931 – England adopts regulations to reduce workers’ exposure to asbestos.
1932 – A letter from U.S. Bureau of Mines to asbestos manufacturer Eagle-Picher said, “It is now known that asbestos dust is one of the most dangerous dusts to which man is exposed.” That same year a maintenance worker in a federal hospital filed an asbestosis claim that resulted in the first disability award.
1933 – Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. doctors determine that 29 percent of workers in a Johns-Manville plant have asbestosis. Company settles in lawsuits brought by 11 of those employees.
1934 – A chapter in Aetna Insurance’s Attorney’s Textbook of Medicine notes that asbestosis is an incurable disease that typically disables and then kills its victims. That same year officials at Johns-Manville and Raybestos-Manhattan, edited an article about the diseases of asbestos workers written by a Metropolitan Life Insurance Company doctor. The changes downplayed the danger of asbestos dust.
1935 – Several asbestos companies agree to sponsor research on the health effects of asbestos dust, but only if the companies maintain complete control over disclosure of results.
1942 – Dr. Heuper, the first chief of the environmental cancer section of the National Cancer Institute, suggested that asbestos caused a cancer risk for those in all lines of production and installation of asbestos based products. The following year, the first case of an asbestos-linked mesothelial tumor was reported. That same year an internal Owens-Corning memo referred to: “medical literature on asbestosis….scores of publications in which the lung and skin hazards of asbestos are discussed.”
1942 or 1943 – the president of Johns-Manville said that the managers of another asbestos company were “a bunch of fools for notifying employees who had asbestosis.”
1944 – A Metropolitan Life Insurance Company report found 42 cases of asbestosis among 195 asbestos Miners. (21.5%)
1947: Physicians from Massachusetts General Hospital established a causal link between asbestos exposure and malignant mesothelioma.
1949 – Over two hundred published references of asbestos-related disease were available to the public, including a warning by Dr. Heuper that asbestos causes a cancer risk to the general population, another being the 1949 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica which also made a note that asbestos poses a risk of occupational and environmental cancer.
1951 – Asbestos companies removed all references to cancer before allowing publication of research they sponsored.
1952 – Dr. Kenneth Smith, Johns-Manville medical director, recommended (unsuccessfully) that warning labels be attached to products containing asbestos.
1953 – National Gypsum’s safety director wrote to the Indiana Division of Industrial Hygiene, recommending that acoustic plaster mixers wear respirators “because of the asbestos used in the product.”
1955 – A major epidemiological study conducted concluded that asbestos workers faced a risk of developing lung cancer tenfold from that of the general population.
1958 – An internal office memo at National Gypsum Co. declares, “Just as certain as death and taxes…if you inhale asbestos dust, you get asbestosis.”
1964 – The Journal of the American Medical Association publishes a study of asbestos workers, revealing that people who work with asbestos-containing materials have a greater-than-normal incidence of asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma.
Mid-1960s – a major researcher at New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital released a report on the occupational safety hazards of asbestos. Medical and trade literature continued to describe asbestos as a dangerous occupational and environmental hazard.
1970 – Congress approves Clean Air Act, allowing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin regulating asbestos as a hazardous air pollutant. At this point the issue of asbestos-related disease reached a crisis stage, forcing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to place severe restrictions on the use of asbestos. Although the EPA lifted the ban for certain kinds of asbestos in 1991, the public’s faith had been severely shaken, and most manufacturers had removed asbestos from their products.
1971: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration set a permissible exposure limit for asbestos-containing dust. That same year Federal court verdict against asbestos makers is the first awarding damages to a worker to be upheld on appeal.
1973 – The EPA bans spray-on asbestos insulation as an air pollution hazard. Also in 1973, an industry expert forecasts that approximately 25,000 past and present employees will die of asbestos-related diseases. He also confirms, “…the good news is that despite all the negative articles on asbestos health that have appeared in the press over the past half-dozen years, very few people have been paying attention.”
1976 -Even with all of this information available, asbestos production in the United States hits all-time high at more than 1 million tons per year.
1978 – In the face of evidence that some asbestos companies conspired as early as 1930 to suppress knowledge of asbestos hazards; a judge rules there had been “a conscious effort” by the asbestos industry to suppress information on the dangers of asbestos in order to avoid lawsuits.
1979 – The EPA announces intention to ban all uses of asbestos and begins advising building owners and industry about the handling of asbestos.
A note: If you think they’ve all learned their lesson, there are still companies exporting Asbestos to 3rd world countries, and other countries that have yet to enact any bans on the product. If you or a loved one have been impacted by this product, please seek asbestos compensation to assist in paying your medical bills.
