Veterans with Mesothelioma

It is generally not widely known by veterans, but asbestos exposure has a tremendous effect on their health, particularly those with service from the post WWII era through the mid 70’s. Increasingly, as these men get further away from their years of active service, veterans are being diagnosed with asbestos related lung cancer or mesothelioma. They are most often stricken with this disease as a result of their exposure to asbestos while they were in the service. It is well documented in the medical literature that in the United States, the cause of mesothelioma in recognized to be exposure to asbestos.

Veterans usually get mesothelioma by working with and around asbestos during their active service years.

Our experience has been that most of the veterans that we serve who later get mesothelioma are Navy veterans. If you were in the Navy, especially if you served your time below decks in the machinery spaces, this comes as no surprise to you. Over the decades our clients have reported to us about the asbestos laden products that resulted in a snow shower of asbestos fibers around them and their shipmates when this equipment was repaired. Unfortunately, these fibers were breathed in and retained by these sailors. Decades later they often come down with mesothelioma or lung cancer as a result of this heavy, concentrated exposure to asbestos that they experienced while serving our country.

Shipyards, of course, are another very common source of asbestos exposure in sailors and others. We are very familiar with the shipyards across the country and with naval records that exist relative to the ships that were built and maintained in these yards over the decades. We have access in house and also via the naval archives in Washington DC to the records of most naval vessels on which you served.

We are staffed and equipped to handle these cases in a way that most firms simply are not.

The government is not responsible for your exposure to asbestos and veterans are in the same position that the most of the service branches were in for much of the time prior to the 80’s: they did not recognize that asbestos was dangerous. We recognize this, and WE DO NOT BRING SUIT AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT or any branch of the service on your behalf. Rather, we recover monies for you from the companies who manufactured and distributed the asbestos containing or asbestos covered products that were aboard ship or other wise used by veterans.

Compensation for Mesothelioma is possible only from the companies that made the asbestos product. For years many of these companies provided products to the Navy and other services without adequate warning of the hazards associated with their use from the asbestos that they designed their equipment to work with. The medical literature of the 40's and 50's were already developing a wealth of information about the hazards of asbestos. The medical and industrial fields were well aware of the dangerous nature of asbestos by this time.

It was around this time that the many companies began to gather and form trade associations in order to strengthen their industry. Long ago, the asbestos trade associations and industry giants began to fund scientific studies to prove that asbestos was safe. Their scientists, however, came back with a different conclusion. Asbestos, they warned, was a highly toxic carcinogen. It caused respiratory illnesses, including cancer, in laboratory animals and, it was believed, in humans.

Faced with this evidence, some in the asbestos industry did the unthinkable-they covered it up. Scientific reports were edited and modified, test results were altered or destroyed, and funding was stopped. The asbestos industry then embarked on a campaign to keep the information from reaching the general public. All the while, manufacturers continued selling millions of dollars worth of equipment asbestos containing products to the public. It was used in massive amounts in shipyards, commercial construction and residential construction. Manufacturers of safer, non-asbestos insulations were bought out by the asbestos industry giants, stifling competition and safeguarding the cover-up.

Through the tireless efforts of some pioneering scientists, the United States government finally realized the hazards of asbestos, and began a slow campaign to curtail, and ultimately prohibit, its use in the United States.