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Thread: I Pit the Asbestos Lawsuit Industry

  1. #1
    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Default I Pit the Asbestos Lawsuit Industry

    Look you fuck nuggets, not only have you relegated one of the most useful minerals to a liability, you can't do simple science.

    To be fair, airborne fibrous asbestos is a health hazard. Basically it is shaped so that it's impossible for the body to expel once it gets into the lungs, and because the fibers are sharp they keep puncturing the alveolar wall. This constant strain of repairing the cells there, time and time again, is what some papers suggest causes the mesotheliomas that are associated with asbestos.

    The problem is that the asbestos litigation industry has created the perception in the public, and especially in juries, that any asbestos exposure, no matter how trivial, becomes automatically the sole cause of any lung disease that anyone might contract latter in life. Time and time again the various corporations that have been the targets of these lawsuits have tried to settle a final class of litigants, only to have the lawsuits begin again over the Navy Yard workers who never worked on the ships, but walked past the launching slips twice a year for the semi-annual reviews.

    Whatever the need may have been originally, or the justice, these days it's simply a money machine that benefits almost no one. And is doing a public disservice.

    Especially since over the past ten to twenty years the medical studies have started to show that fiberglass insulation shares more than just the properties of insulation and fire immunity that asbestos is known for: Because the fibers of glass are insoluble, they stay in the aveoli just as long as those of asbestos. They're also just as sharp.

    And they're starting to cause just about the same cancer rates, too.

    While Dow-Corning is shitting bricks about this, they can't stop making fiberglass insulation, thought they're trying to shift to more contained versions, it's a core to their business. Realistically, while there are some pressed post-user paper product insulative products being developed, they're still pretty expensive, and a hard sell for the public. Fiberglass works, and no one has to be educated that, in the absence of ready oxygen this insulation will not contribute to a conflagration.

    But if the cancer rates keep tracking with asbestos exposure, it's going to be hard, I think, to justify not going after fiberglass manufacturers.

    I've got a radical idea for all you people sweating about asbestos: Why don't we simply allow it to be used, again, but in some of the packaged methods that are already being used on fiberglass to address the same health concerns? Asbestos remains cheap, effective and totally inflammable.

    Of course, the treated post-consumer paper insulation can be sold as a carbon sequestering method, while at the same time allowing the legal sharks a whole new series of classes to use to sue Dow-Corning into bankruptcy.

    I know what I expect to see happen. I hope all you home owners enjoy finding out what it's like to try to sell a house with hazmat in the walls.

    Asbestos isn't that bad, it's a hazard like most any other and it can be dealt with it. Let's stop demonizing it, and just use the fucking stuff again.

  2. #2
    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
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    I am very very cynical about tort law in general. Huge judgments in the favor of a few people can and do permanently harm companies that give many, many other people their livelihoods. If a company has truly and knowingly done harm to people by not letting them know about potential dangers, that's one thing...I'm fine with punishing the decision-makers. But bankrupting companies to hand down huge punitive damages doesn't just punish the decision-makers. In fact, those are the folks who tend to bounce back. It also hurts everyone who worked for that company...people who worked in factories, and entire communities who depend on the jobs such factories provide. I don't see it being a proper or moral solution to these problems.
    Last edited by Sarahfeena; 03 Jan 2010 at 03:27 PM.

  3. #3
    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    What counts as an asbestos exposure that could be harmful? Living in a house that has asbestos insulation? Doing construction on said house? Burning said house down? Rubbing up against the walls?

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    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
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    I think it's usually only a problem if you disturb it. If you do remodeling, for instance that will involve taking out the insulation or otherwise shaking it up, you need to have someone do it who has the right equipment so that the fibers don't get into the air. If it's just sitting there in the walls, you should be pretty safe.

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    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Zuul, I've seen ads in veteran's magazines looking, specifically, for anyone who served in the Navy. At all. The theory being that since asbestos was used for insulating the piping in steam plants, and the insulation had to be removed to do some of the maintenance, everyone on the ship, from the cooks to the yeomen, was exposed to the asbestos. I can't promise that these people received awards - but they were solicited to be parts of defined and injured classes.

    The understanding I have from the people hanging out at the VA is that in general as long as you have some lung disease, you're good for an award - if you qualify as a member of the class. Medical history, smoking especially, doesn't matter.


    ETA, for what could be harmful, it's going to be a lot like radiation exposure - some people may get cancer from relatively low doses - esp if that exposure is while you're young. Other people won't notice it at all.
    Last edited by OtakuLoki; 03 Jan 2010 at 03:37 PM.

  6. #6
    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
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    hahahaha. Like no one in the armed forces ever got lung cancer from smoking, right, Loki?

    Here's the thing that bothers me. I actually know a case (a guy my boss knows) who got mesothelioma and died, like, 6 weeks after he was diagnosed. He was a relatively young guy, and it was an awful, tragic situation that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

    But does it make that guy's death any less painful to hand down a huge judgment that potentially ruins a lot of other peoples' lives? People who had nothing to do with his death other than the bad luck to work for the company that manufactured the insulation he apparently was exposed to?

    And let's face it, the lawyers Loki is talking about are fishing...they really don't give a shit what these sailors die of, they'll get them added into the lawsuit if they can possibly find a way to do it. God, it pisses me off.

  7. #7
    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    But to be honest, the lawyers are only a symptom.

    The real problem, I think, is the idea that there can be perfect safety. Which is a huge lie. It's a lie when we're talking about the TSA and it's a lie when we talk about home construction.

    You're always going to have trade-offs. There are stories of people in the early part of the 20th century who stuck with gas lights because they were afraid that the new electricity was going to burn down their house!* People don't often consider relative risks on a rational basis. They hear that so-and-so is dangerous and then focus on it to the extent that they ignore all other data. There's a reason I deliberately made mention of radiation risks in the OP. People who don't understand the risks and methods of risk for things don't make rational decisions for balancing risks. And that's common with asbestos and radiation. And chemical exposure, too.




    *You do realize that the modern horror of gas lighting is just as knee-jerk as the thinking I reported there: You can't compare 1900 gas lights to 2010 electricity - that's not what was offered. It may well have been a rational risk assessment for early electricity. But it's still shocking for modern readers.

  8. #8
    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
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    Oh, I totally agree that risk assessment is totally bizarre...look at the vaccine paranoia that exists, with virtually no evidence that the risks are anywhere near the benefits.

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