Asbestos Information
Asbestos is the common name given to a group of similar minerals that have been mined and used in some type of production setting since the Roman empire. In recent years, the minerals have been used in a variety of construction and building products.
There are six types of asbestos, but three were the primary commercial types:
- chrysotile, known as white asbestos;
- crocidolite , known as blue asbestos; and
- amosite, known as brown asbestos.
Over 90% of all asbestos used in the U.S. was chrysotile, the white asbestos.
The primary reason that asbestos was used in building products was as a binder or filler material. It was cheap and easily available. It is stringy and resilient, and thus made a good binder. Its resilience also reduced the breakage of the products between the factory and the worksite. In pipe covering and other materials, asbestos created air pockets which provided heat resistance.
Asbestos was initially marketed for its fire-resistant qualities. In reality, at approximately 1200 degrees, asbestos transforms into an inert mineral. Other materials were available that could have been used (and, in fact, were used) as substitutes for asbestos without any sacrifice in product integrity or heat resistance. The asbestos industry peddled asbestos as a “magic mineral,” creating a demand for the material, without advising of the dangers of exposure. As a result, thousands of Navy veterans, as well as other Americans, were injured and killed. It was unnecessary and could have been avoided.
Asbestos was also a common element in many of the products used to build, power and repair Navy vessels. Navy veterans and other shipyard workers were only a part of the wide array of workers who were exposed to asbestos. One cloud of dust from asbestos products can contain millions or billions of fibers, and even a small amount of asbestos can cause lung damage. There is no actual safe level of asbestos exposure. In fact, asbestos is so toxic that mesothelioma has been diagnosed in family members whose only exposure came from contact with the fibers that adhered to the clothes of the veteran who actually worked with asbestos products.
The great tragedy of mesothelioma, as well as other asbestos-related diseases, is that it was preventable. Many of the corporations that manufactured and profited from the sale of asbestos-containing products were aware of the hazards of asbestos. These companies did not warn of the risks or protect workers. It was their legal duty to know about about their products and to test them for any potential hazards. If a potential hazard does exist, the company has a responsibility to warn workers of the hazards. In many cases, they hid the knowledge they had in order to protect themselves from liability or from having to find a new business model. The result is that many Navy veterans have unnecessarily developed mesothelioma.