Best Mesothelioma Info – Asbestosis Personal Injury Lawyers
Asbestos is a flexible, strong mineral with excellent fire-resistance properties. Due to its unique characteristics, asbestos was used widely throughout the 20th century for a variety of industrial and commercial purposes. It was a popular insulation material used to protect piping, boilers and other construction elements exposed to high temperatures. Asbestos was also commonly used in car brake linings and several other auto parts. In addition, many homes and apartment buildings were constructed using materials containing asbestos in order to improve fire safety.
As a result, millions of construction and assembly line workers were exposed to tremendous amounts of asbestos fibers on a daily basis. This is why even today, many industry workers, such as Orange County concrete contractors demand that their workers utilize extreme safety cautions when working with old patio pavers, driveway pavers, and while installing stamped concrete in Los Angeles. In addition, owners of certain types of motor vehicles and families living in residential units containing asbestos materials were also unknowingly exposed to this dangerous substance. They inhaled millions of asbestos fibers that entered their lungs and became embedded in the lung tissue, eventually causing the dangerous lung disease, asbestosis. The connection between asbestos exposure and asbestosis is fairly well documented with many asbestosis cases clustered around major urban centers with a history of heavy asbestos use. For example, numerous asbestos exposure Los Angeles and Detroit cases have been discovered in recent years involving construction and automaker industries based in these locations.
Asbestosis develops as a result of lung failure to filter out asbestos fibers. While normally the lungs remove all foreign particles from the inhaled air, they are unable to isolate asbestos fibers due to their minuscule size. Once the asbestos particles invade the lung tissue, the body's immune system recognizes these particles as foreign objects and attempts to destroy them. However, because of the sturdiness of asbestos fibers, the immune system fails at removing them. Unfortunately, one of the consequences of the body' attempt to destroy asbestos particles is the creation of scar tissue around these fibers. Over time, the body creates more and more scar tissue, hardening the lungs and making breathing difficult. Currently, there is no cure for this condition, which means that most asbestosis patients eventually die due to lung and/or heart failure.
Asbestos exposure has been linked to several other dangerous diseases, including mesothelioma. This condition is a rare type of cancer affecting the mesothelial tissue lining the lungs, the abdomen and the heart sac. Most mesothelioma patients suffer from pleural mesothelioma – malignant cancer affecting the lining of the lungs. Exposure to asbestos is the only known cause of this condition, which produces symptoms similar to those of asbestosis – shortness of breath, persistent cough and chest pain. Patients typically notice these mesothelioma symptoms only when the cancer is at an advanced stage. With no curative treatment available, most mesothelioma patients have a post-diagnosis survival rate of one to two years.
With increasing knowledge about the link between asbestos exposure and the onset of asbestosis and mesothelioma, many patients and their families are seeking to hold the responsible parties financially liable. In many cases, it can be proved that the owners of constructions companies, shipyards, auto assembly plants and asbestos mines acted negligently by exposing their workers to this highly dangerous substance. Therefore, they can be held liable for asbestos injury sustained by their workers and compelled to provide just compensation.