A Short History of Asbestos Exposure

Would it surprise you to know that for almost two thousand years people have suspected that there are serious health problems associated with exposure to asbestos?

Pliny the Elder, in the first century AD, observed that there was a high degree of "lung sickness" amongst the slaves that worked in the Roman quarries. Because many of these slaves died while still young he advised his fellow Romans against buying any of them.

If you were to "fast forward" to the United States during the mid 1920s you would find that the asbestos industry in the U.S. had already settled its first claim.

For the next forty years the industry tried to hide the dangers of asbestos from its employees and the general public. One of the ways that they accomplished this was not to fight the claims in the courts. Instead they opted to resolve asbestos related problems by paying asbestos settlements as worker's compensation claims.

Initially the asbestos manufacturers conducted significant research in order to find out exactly how fatal asbestos was. By the time 1930 rolled around the asbestos industry was totally aware that their product was killing a vast number of its employees.

Numerous studies came to the same conclusion. Sickness and death was so predictable that the asbestos manufacturers then decided to take a different approach.

They realized that they could earn even bigger profits if they continued selling asbestos products, knowing that they had to keep paying for worker's compensation claims. In other words, the amount of money they would make would far outstrip the cost of any claims.

And these companies would not admit to any wrongdoing. They would also adamantly deny any liability.

This abuse of employees might have continued even longer if two things had not happened. First, forty years had passed, and it often takes up to four decades before asbestos related diseases show up.

In addition, asbestos laws and litigation started to increase at a faster pace.

By the time President John F. Kennedy had taken office the asbestos companies' secret began to seep out.

That's because many of the corporate executives that were in the asbestos industry kept incriminating documents in their files that showed that their companies had known for over thirty years that asbestos was indeed killing its workers.

By 1964 a definitive link between lung-related diseases and the inhalation of asbestos fibers was established by Dr. Irving Selikoff. And yet, even many years after its release, asbestos companies were still saying that this was the first time that they had just heard about such a link.

Over the course of time, attorneys representing asbestos victims proved that was untrue.

1966 represents a watershed year for asbestos victims. It was the first time that an asbestos lawsuit was filed on behalf of a client.

Then, in 1974, what came to be known as the "Sumner-Simpson papers" came to light. These letters detailed how Johns-Manville, Raybestos, and other asbestos manufacturers formed a conspiracy to determine asbestos hazards, devise strategies to deal with the hazards, and to keep the information secret from both their employees as well as the general public.

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Posted in: Asbestos,Exposure,History,Short