Mesothelioma, asbestos and the military

I have been asked to post this article concerning the danger of mesothelioma in the armed services and I happy to do so.  pl

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[Sidney O. Smith III]

About twenty years ago, I was involved in asbestos products liability litigation for a couple of years. A casual link does indeed exist between long term exposure to high levels of asbestos (although it exists in the ambient air and is a natural substance) and lung cancer as well as mesothelioma.

Only asbestos can cause the horrendous cancer called mesothelioma, while other factors, most particularly cigarette smoking (camels, anyone?), can contribute to lung cancer. At the time I was involved, the tobacco industry was all but immuned from liability, so in the lung cancer cases, if the plaintiff was a long term smoker, a negotiated settlement turned on whether a person was suffering from restrictive or obstructive pulmonary disease to try to distinguish b/t damage(injury) from asbestos from that caused by cigarette smoking. Hence "hired medical experts” from both sides.

Ron Motley from Barnwell South Carolina, as much as anyone, started the asbestos litigation after filing cases against JManville in the 1970’s. From what I was told, a few of his earlier cases were thrown out, if not laughed out, and then a hit. The litigation broke wide open, with JM filing for bankruptcy a few years later.

Typically, the plaintiffs from twenty or so years ago had worked in shipyards during WWII (as did one of my relatives, who also smoked, and died probably due to exposure to both) as well as pipefitters.

From a legal standpoint, some fascinating issues arose that are not worth the time to explore in detail. But one was whether or not to third party the tobacco industry.

A plaintiff’s attorney typically named as many corporate defendants as possible in a lawsuit. But many of the corporate defendants were going belly up. Then the Wellington Agreement was tried, where the resources were pooled among several corporations, some would say as an attempt to save resources for future cases of mesothelioma and the like, some would say not.

[WP]

Some get purple hearts and others get mesothelioma and both may be deceased. My first cousin, a Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer was in Navy boiler rooms for his whole career and died of mesothelioma. When he was buried, most of the Navy Chiefs at Corpus Christi showed up to honor him. Kindly, the Navy kept him on full active dury on sick leave until he died. He gave his whole life for his country and is a hero. There should be special honors for men like him! Unfortunatly, there is no medal for honorably doing a job in an extremely dangerous work environment so other can fight openly.

Where do we get such good men like these!