Asbestos Mesothelioma: It's All in the Family

December 27, 2008

Detroit, MI A growing trend with regard to asbestos mesothelioma is the infecting of family members by workers who bring asbestos fibers home with them on their clothes, causing mesothelioma and cancer. A woman, for example, who washes her husband's asbestos-laden work clothes, is diagnosed with mesothelioma cancer even though she has never set foot in her husband's workplace.



This could have a huge impact on the litigation community. Primarily, mesothelioma cancer patients were individuals who worked directly, and in harm's way, of an asbestos-laden environment.



The fact that asbestos mesothelioma can lay dormant for decades before it emerges only furthers the expectation, over the long term, for mesothelioma cases. While asbestos use has been reduced over the decades, as more information became known as to its harmful characteristics, workers who toiled in asbestos-choked environments 30, 40 or even 50 years ago are only now seeing their symptoms emerge.



And now, it appears, their families are at risk, given recent revelations that asbestos fibers can migrate home with a worker on his work clothes, and can gather in the upholstery of the family car, or on the furniture at home.



One woman in the US died from mesothelioma cancer after decades of washing her husband's work clothes. Sadly her husband, who unwittingly brought the asbestos fibers home on his clothes and was exposed on the job, watched helplessly as his precious partner took sick, and died.



Debbie Brewer is another example. This woman, from Plymouth in the UK, would habitually give her father a hug after he returned home from his job as a lagger at the Davenport Dockyard in the 1960's. One of his jobs was to scrape the asbestos from pipes, and he never changed out of his work clothes before heading home. Few, if any did back then. No one realized it was a problem—or at the very least those who did weren't telling.



A few months after her father died from an asbestos-related lung cancer, Debbie was diagnosed with mesothelioma. The latter has a causal relation with asbestos exposure, and the only way in which Debbie was exposed to the deadly fibers were those hugs she gave to her father when he returned home in dusty coveralls.



Mesothelioma took 40 years to emerge in both Debbie and her father, but it's a telling example of how asbestos exposure can affect entire families, rather than just one individual.



A delayed demise…



Thus, asbestos mesothelioma cancer could become an ongoing presence in the courts for decades to come. That's because the dangers of asbestos have been known for nearly a century—however the industrialized world was slow to take heed. Business and industry, unaware of the time-release emergence of mesothelioma, didn't see their workers becoming sick or incapacitated immediately, and thus failed to take precautions.



Only now, decades later are workers who toiled in the trenches so long ago becoming sick and dying. Sadly, their family members are, too.



As a footnote, Debbie Brewer is still alive nearly three years after her diagnosis in 2006. She was given a year to live at the time—a typical prognosis with mesothelioma. However, in Debbie's case she was available to try an experimental treatment under the auspices of the University of Frankfurt and Professor Thomas Vogl. Brewer has since undergone six rounds of transpulmonary chemoembolisation, starting in May of this year and ending earlier this month. Her mesothelioma tumor has been reduced in size by 53 percent, and she is described as being in partial remission.



An optimistic prognosis indeed, although not assured. And Brewer was awarded a six-figure compensation package from the Ministry of Defense in her native UK.



It should be noted that many countries have banned outright, the use of asbestos. The US is not one of them. While its use is restricted, and asbestos abatement is now a careful and exact science, asbestos is still used in many industrial settings. Thus as long as there is asbestos in the pipeline; there will be cases of asbestos mesothelioma for decades to come. In fact, a recent study has shown that death rates involving mesothelioma and cancer directly correlate amongst countries that have banned asbestos outright vs. those, which have not.



In the interim it can be expected that the occurrence of mesothelioma cancer will remain a constant evil that affects not only afflicted workers, but also their families. And as unfortunate as the incidence of putting workers in harm's way is, the thought of innocent partners, children and grandchildren dying an early, and horrific death through asbestos exposure is unforgiveable.



Compensation, therefore, is a given—for the medical bills, and just for the injustice of it all. If you, or your family has been affected by mesothelioma and cancer, please contact an asbestos mesothelioma lawyer for an evaluation. You already have so much to lose, through no fault of your own. And the parties responsible should be made to pay.