Power Plants and Mesothelioma

Power Plants and Mesothelioma (Podcast)

/in , /by

In this podcast, Paul Kelley, a  partner with the Kentucky personal injury law firm Satterley & Kelley, talks about asbestos-exposure in power plants. He explains what people should do if they believe that they have developed mesothelioma due to working in a power plant.

John Maher: Hi. I’m John Maher. I’m here today with Paul Kelley. Paul is a partner with the Kentucky personal injury law firm Satterley & Kelley, which has over 30 years of collective experience in handling cases involving mesothelioma and asbestos exposure. Today, we’re talking about power plants and mesothelioma. Welcome, Paul.

Paul Kelley: Hi, John. How are you doing this morning?

Where Was Asbestos Used in Power Plants?

John: Good. Thanks. Paul, where has asbestos historically been used in power plants?

Paul: Well, the main areas where power plants had asbestos, and I’m predominantly talking before 1990, mid-’80s, is going to be in three ways. One is going to be the boilers that were located at these steam generation power plants, the turbine generators and also all the hot steam lines that were located throughout the plant. Typically, these things were covered with thermal insulation. Thermal insulation contained asbestos certainly before 1972, but they contain asbestos all the way into the ’80s. In fact, you could go to a lot of these power plants that still exist today and still find it at least wrapping the steam lines.

Just a little bit of information on power plants, so the old coal fired power plants, they had a boiler that was fueled by coal. The boiler reached 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It heated water into steam, and then the steam was used to power the turbine, and then the turbine spun and it generated electricity, and that’s how we got electricity. The boilers were typically stories tall, I mean seven, eight, 10 stories, so imagine a 10-story apartment building. That’s how big these boilers were. The boilers generated extreme amounts of heat, a couple thousand degrees up to.

For safety purposes as well as for purposes to retain the heat, they had to be covered with thermal insulation. They had to be covered with other types of asbestos-containing products, sometimes of liquid, powdery material that, when applied with water, it would go around and encase the boiler, and then the same thing with the turbine. The turbine also needed to retain heat and, also for safety purposes, so that people didn’t touch it and burn themselves, the turbines were covered with asbestos, usually an asbestos blanket, except a lot of blankets because these turbines are huge.

If you imagine the boiler being 10, 12 stories tall, the turbine is probably, I don’t know, maybe a hundred feet long, not stories tall, but probably a hundred feet long or so, and so they’re covered with asbestos insulation and asbestos blankets, and then all the steam lines that connected in the building. I mean, first of all, they would heat the building, and then also the steam lines were connected to the turbines and the generator. All those steam lines were, again, extremely hot, and so they were all covered in asbestos.

People who installed the thermal insulation on these products, they were exposed. People that were around when that product was installed, they were exposed. People who were there when things were taken off, replaced, they were all exposed. You had asbestos containing gaskets all throughout the facility. All these pipes had to be connected and, again, because of the high heat that was generated, two pipes connected would have a gasket sealed in between the two pipes and, for many years, those things contain asbestos.

You probably have driven by a powerhouse before and see something called a precipitator or a smokestack and you see basically smoke coming out of it. Those things contain asbestos. They had lots of firebrick and refractory. Sometimes, the actual piece of equipment itself was made of an asbestos type concrete or cement, so unfortunately power plants were loaded with asbestos for decades, probably from the 1930s all the way to present day, unlikely the new asbestos is being installed anywhere, but certainly old asbestos.

Do Power Plants Still Have Asbestos?

John: Right. You mentioned that there still might be some steam lines and things like that that are aligned with asbestos even today. Do some power plants still use equipment in parts with asbestos in them?

Paul: Absolutely. Again, I think that, probably, the boilers and turbines, they are using other type of things, but the steam lines, if there hasn’t been a reason to remove that steam line, it still contains asbestos today. Lots of times, they just cover it with some sort of encapsulating material and hope that nobody ever really needs to work with it, but it’s still there. Gaskets are probably still around. Some of the old piping that contains asbestos is probably still around.

The good news is I wouldn’t expect anybody to be installing anything brand new that contains asbestos anymore, but, certainly, anybody that works in a powerhouse built before 1980 needs to be very cognizant of their surroundings and what materials they’re working with and around and at least be inquisitive as to whether or not that contains asbestos, because I get calls like that all the time.

I’m just amazed in 2022 that I’ll get a call from someone that says they worked in a powerhouse or some other type of place and say, “They made me remove this insulation around these pipes and then, three weeks later, OSHA came in and said, ‘Oh, that’s asbestos.’ Well, I’ve just spent two days tearing it all out.”

People need to be cognizant of their surroundings and not be afraid to ask their employer or any contractors around what’s actually here, what is this that I’m doing because there’s still a pretty good chance that they can encounter asbestos and, unfortunately, the consequences are deadly and they won’t be fully reached for another 20 or 30 years.

How People Were Exposed to Asbestos in Power Plants

John: Right, so what are some of the ways that workers at power plants could be exposed to asbestos?

Paul: Yeah. The main ways were when they installed all the equipment, and, again, this could be in the 1950s or ’60s, it could have been certainly in the 1970s, but because of the massive size of these boilers and turbines, I mean, it wasn’t a weekend job to come in and insulate these machines. I forgot to mention that lots of times inside the boilers had asbestos in them. They had firebrick and refractory. All that stuff contained asbestos.

There was always a schedule of events, and there’s the metal erection of the boiler and then, when the boiler is finally erected and put together, really the last thing that happens is the insulation comes on, and so all the people, whether they were the actual insulators themselves or whether they were people that were operating other units within the power plant that had already been put together, electricians, millwrights, plumbers, pipe fitters, I mean all those crafts are all exposed when they’re putting those materials on.

In the 1950s and ’60s, companies were not terribly safety conscious in how they applied those materials. They would just put them on and wrap them and cut all the insulation. I mean, it didn’t just come in nice, convenient sections. They would’ve to saw, cut, drill, tear. There was, quite frankly, just a massive exposure.

Did Power Plant Workers Wear Masks When Working With Asbestos?

John: They wouldn’t have been wearing masks at the time or anything either probably, right?

Paul: Most wouldn’t. I mean, we’ve represented more than 20, 25 people over the years that have worked in a powerhouse. If they were given a mask, it was a paper mask. It was not a filtered or air purifying respirator that would really protect somebody from exposure, and they rarely were told why they were given this mask. They were rarely made to wear the mask. Sometimes, they just got the mask and said, “Oh, you can wear this if you want.”

Don’t forget that, again, the temperatures in these powerhouses are extreme and wearing anything more than what you needed to was hot. We would get a lot of complaints from folks that, “Gosh, wearing a mask, or even if they had given me a respirator, I mean, it was difficult to do because it was so hot and it was so uncomfortable, and then a full respirator is a pretty bulky piece of equipment, and so it’s hard to get in small spaces in those sort of things,” but, universally, what I have been told by numerous people is, “Gosh, had they told me that this was to protect me from something that was going to cause me to get sick 20 or 30 years down the road and told me how devastating that illness could be, I most certainly would’ve worn this mask or respirator.”

Unfortunately, everybody in the chain failed. The employer failed. The manufacturer of the equipment and specified the asbestos, they failed. The companies that made the asbestos blankets and all the refractory and fire brick, they failed. The outside contractors that installed it failed. You’ve got numerous entities in the chain that all had knowledge and all had opportunities to notify the workers of the risks associated and either at least give them some knowledge on how to protect themselves or, even better, protect them as part of what they were doing, and they didn’t do it.

We get calls from people, if you can believe it, even in 2022. I get calls from people that were exposed in the 1950s that developed mesothelioma in their 80s and 90s. Even more devastating than that though is we get calls from their kids that say, “I was born in 1954. My dad worked on the construction of a powerhouse,” which by the way takes eight, nine, 10 years to fully build a powerhouse. We have some good examples here in Kentucky, but usually, given the size of the area that they’re supposed to produce electricity, there’s five or six units. What that means is there’s five or six boilers. There’s five or six turbines. There’s all that piping that’s associated with those turbines. There’s five or six precipitators.

You’ve got all this equipment, and so usually what happens is they build a unit, it takes a couple years to build that unit, and they start operating that unit, and so you’ve got a whole group of people that’s operating the power plant and then you’ve got another group of people that’s building the next unit. They usually just build one at a time. They’ll build one, work on another, finish that one and then start on the next unit. If you’ve got a powerhouse that has five units, it probably took upwards of seven or eight years to build that powerhouse and, sometimes, some of those people were there during the construction of all five of them in some capacity, so we’ll get calls from their kids that say, “I was born in 1955 and, from 1958 to 1966, my dad was involved in the construction of this particular powerhouse, and he had lots of asbestos exposures in my understanding.”

I say, “Well, of course, he did because I know that powerhouse, and I know that powerhouse had, unfortunately, a lot of asbestos in it, and then someone in their 40s or 50s is diagnosed with this devastating disease and they didn’t do anything other than be born and have the misfortune of living in a house with a family member that went to work every day to do an honest day’s work unknowingly exposed to asbestos themselves and unknowingly bringing it home to their family members, and then they develop cancer and have to deal with it.”

Sometimes, it’s hard to prove the exposure because the family member, the father or mother may be deceased, but that’s what we’re good at and that’s what we’ve been able to figure out for most of the powerhouses in Kentucky, where the exposure was, how people would’ve been exposed and, certainly, how to find people that can demonstrate that particular person’s exposure.

Family Members of Power Plant Workers Were Exposed to Asbestos

John: Right, and those family members would get that secondary exposure to asbestos because the workers, like you said, would be going to work every day at the power plant and working on this material, and then it would get on their clothes and things like that, and then they’d come home and do the laundry or shake off the dust off their clothes, and then that would get into the air inside the house, and that’s how the family members could be exposed.

Paul: Yeah, that’s absolutely right. Lots of times, the powerhouses did not give or require changing of clothes or give uniforms or anything like that, so people were just wearing their own clothes to work, and then they come home and either they wash them themselves or sometimes they would give them to their spouse or even their kids. All that dust, I mean, I hear it all the time, “We have to shake the dust out.” Back in those days, it would get into the carpet of your home. It would get into the furniture and those sorts of things.

Once asbestos is in your home, I mean, you can’t get it out. You especially can’t get it out if you don’t really know it’s there. I mean, a regular Hoover vacuum in the 1950s wasn’t going to remove asbestos from the house. All it was going to do was swirl it up and do something that we call re-entrainment, which means that dust that’s on the floor, when it’s disturbed, gets re-entrained back into the breathing zone, and so people are exposed that way and they didn’t know it.

The only way that you can really completely clean asbestos from anywhere, whether it’s your home, a power plant, industrial center, any place is to have specially made equipment that is designed to remove asbestos. No families had that kind of equipment for their house at any point in time nor should they be expected to have it because they didn’t know that that’s what they were having to deal with. The stark reality is, once it got into your home, it was there and you could continue to be exposed for years, even years after the family member that worked in the power plant no longer worked there anymore. I mean, it’s there. You’re stuck with it. You just don’t know it is the problem.

Power Plants With Documented Asbestos Exposure

John: Right. Are there specific power plants where asbestos exposure has been documented in particular?

Paul: Absolutely. As I mentioned before, we’ve represented probably 25, at least 25 people that were exposed in power plants throughout Kentucky. For the most part here in Louisville, which is where I’m at, you’ve got the Louisville Gas and Electric. It was and still is the electric company here, and there were several powerhouses. One of the biggest ones was the Cane Run plant and then also the Mill Creek plant. Cane Run construction was started in the 1950s. Mill Creek was started construction in the late 1960s, but both of those plants had all the same type of equipment that we’re talking about here. Kentucky Utilities, which is another power-generating company that operated outside of the Louisville area, it had the Ghent powerhouse, and the Ghent powerhouse, again, was being constructed in the early to late 1960s.

I can tell you stories about some of the things that we’ve uncovered about these power plants. Perhaps, that’s for another day, but what I will tell you is that, at least with respect to some of these places that they were supposed to be non-asbestos and, when it became critical from a timing standpoint that we needed to get this powerhouse built, decisions were made, “We’re going to use asbestos because it’s convenient and it’s available right now,” rather than the non-asbestos as the spec. That’s not just the power plant problem. That’s the engineer’s problem. That’s the supplier-of-the-materials’ problem. It’s not just the particular power plant at issue that creates that.

In addition to the ones I’ve talked about, I mean, the D.B. Wilson Station in Ohio County, Kentucky, which is towards western Kentucky, the E.W. Brown power plant in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, the Kenneth C. Coleman plant in Hancock County, the Paradise Steam plant in Paradise, Kentucky, you’ve probably heard of the John Prine song, Paradise, and it’s about this coal mining town in Paradise, Kentucky, the Robert Reid Power Plant, Trumbull County Generating Center, and then the Shawnee Fossil Plant in Paducah, Kentucky, so we’ve worked on cases involving these and many others and, quite frankly, none of them are unique or different. They all have the same types of asbestos materials. They all were designed in a similar way. They all were designed by companies for the most part that should have known better. They were insulated by companies that should have known better. They lack safety controls. They lack education and, as a result, many workers and several of those workers’ family members have been diagnosed and suffered from mesothelioma.

What Should You Do If You Believe You Got Mesothelioma From a Power Plant?

John: What should someone do if they believe that they got mesothelioma from working in a power plant?

Paul: Sure. Again, I think that we’ve had a lot of experience working on these kinds of cases. I would certainly welcome the opportunity to talk to you or your loved one who is diagnosed with this disease. I think we can help. I think that we know a lot of information concerning where asbestos was, when it was put in, who put it in. Certainly, from a standpoint of whether you want to pursue litigation or not, you should talk to a lawyer immediately, and you should talk to a lawyer that has experience with these places.

Certainly, what I tell everybody, and I think this is always important, when this diagnosis comes in, people are going to be confused. They’re going to be devastated. They’re probably going to get a lot of bad news about what the prognosis is in the future, and so it’s important, A, to develop your treatment plan and to figure out what doctors you’re going to go, figure out where you’re going to go to out of state for treatment, any surgeries. That’s critical, and that’s certainly what people ought to do is make sure that they have their medical situation absolutely locked in so they can do everything they can do to get better, but they need to contact a lawyer and they need to get going.

Unfortunately, time is always of the essence. There’s a statute of limitations applicable that requires people to file cases within a certain period of time. In Kentucky, it’s pretty much a year from the date of diagnosis. There are some caveats to that, but I tell everybody you can’t go wrong if you get your case filed within a year of your diagnosis. The stark reality is you don’t want to wait a year. You want to get that case filed as soon as possible both because your health may deteriorate to the point that you can’t provide information concerning your exposure. If we’re talking about people who had exposures in the ’50s or ’60s, any witnesses that are available who are probably in their 60s, 70s, 80s in age. Finding people that can provide information or corroborate your experience is important. It’s just that it’s unfortunate, and I wish that there was something that I could tell folks to say, hey, you got time and you can take your time to figure it all out, but, unfortunately, the reality is that you can’t.

When you hire us, and I tell this to every client, and it’s something that I feel very strongly about, you hire us, and you can worry about what you need to worry about. You need to worry about your health. You need to worry about getting better. You need to worry about the things that you need to do for your family and that your family needs to do for you. You let us worry about your case. There will be a time and a place where, yes, you have to worry about it yourself, and there are certain things that we need help from our clients so that we can help them, but we live with the case every day. You live with your medical treatment. You live with doing the things that you can do to get better, and let us work on your case. Let us worry about your case. I take every one of them seriously. I treat everybody like it was my own family. Because we’ve done this so many times, we just know how devastating the impact is, and one less thing to worry about is one less thing to worry about.

Contact the Law Firm of Satterley & Kelley for Help

John: All right. Well, that’s really great information, Paul. Thanks again for speaking with me today.

Paul: Thanks, John. Have a great day.

John: For more information about mesothelioma and asbestos exposure, visit the law firm of Satterley & Kelley at satterleylaw.com or call 855-385-9532.

Explore More Podcasts
Legal Process and Lawsuits:
Corporate Responsibility and Bankruptcy:
Specific Companies and Industries:
Health and Treatment:
Industry and Product Exposures:
Accidents and Injuries:
Mesothelioma Lawsuit

Louisville Gas & Electric Mesothelioma (Podcast)

/in , , /by

In this podcast, Paul Kelley from Satterley and Kelley talks about asbestos exposure at Louisville Gas & Electric. He explains how employees and their family members may have been exposed. Then, he outlines what to do if you have been affected.

John Maher: Hi, I am John Maher. I’m here today with Paul Kelley. Paul is a partner with the Kentucky personal injury law firm, Satterley & Kelley, which has over 30 years of collective experience in handling cases involving mesothelioma and asbestos exposure. Today we’re talking about Louisville Gas & Electric, and mesothelioma. Welcome, Paul.

Paul Kelley: Morning, John. How are you doing?

What Is Louisville Gas & Electric?

John: Good, thanks. Paul, what is Louisville Gas & Electric?

Paul: Well, broadly, Louisville Gas & Electric is a power company. And it pretty much covers power in the Louisville, Jefferson County area and surrounding counties, and has for quite some time. It’s owned by a bigger company now, but everybody in this area of the state recognizes Louisville Gas & Electric, or LG&E, as the company that provides us with power.

Asbestos Exposure at LG&E

John: Okay. And how is Louisville Gas & Electric related to asbestos and mesothelioma cancer cases?

Paul: Well, predominantly Louisville Gas & Electric operated power plants starting many, many years ago, close to 100 years ago. But there are two particular power plants that have been well-known sources of asbestos exposure. One is the Cane Run power plant, the other is the Mill Creek power plant. And those power plants were loaded with a variety of asbestos containing products, insulation, boilers, and turbines that were heavily insulated, and they had asbestos-containing fire brick, refractory material, and gaskets.

Asbestos gaskets were loaded all throughout the plant to connect pipes and on various pieces of equipment. Asbestos packing was stuffed into valves that were used to control the flow of steam through the facility. There was wiring cable connected to the panel boxes, various pieces of electrical equipment, the turbines, all of that wiring cable for a pretty significant period of time contained in asbestos insulation.

There were panel boxes and control boxes that were made from asbestos containing phenolic material called a bake light material that contained asbestos. And then all sorts of tanks and vessels that carried chemical processes, steam processes that were all insulated with asbestos. There was a variety of products, probably from the 40s all throughout the 1980s, and perhaps even into the 1990s that contain asbestos of those power plants.

LG&E Employee Exposure to Asbestos

John: So asbestos was used pretty extensively throughout the power plants, but how were employees at LG&E exposed to that asbestos?

Paul: Quite different ways. The Cane Run plant, for example, that consists of, I believe, six units… Now, when I say six units, that means there are six different sections of the plant that have a boiler and a turbine. The boiler essentially creates the steam, and the steam goes to the turbine, and the turbine is what essentially creates the electricity.

So there were six of those units at Cane Run. It took 15 to 20 years to build all of those various units. The boilers themselves are six, eight, maybe 10 stories tall. And then take a pretty substantial period of time to build. One way that Louisville Gas & Electric employees were exposed is during the construction of the various units. They had outside contractors that certainly constructed the facility. They had outside engineers and architects that designed the facility, but there were certainly LG&E personnel that were present during the initial construction of each unit at the power plants.

Well, once a unit became active and operated, then there were Louisville Gas & Electric employees there that were during the operation of a particular unit. Well, then the next five at Cane Run, and I believe at Mill Creek, there were four units. Those other units are being constructed, and so people in there operating the plant are exposed during the construction phase. And so what’s being installed during the construction phase? All of the things that I mentioned.

These power plants have miles of pipes that contain steam lines, and those steam lines are insulated with asbestos. So employees that are in the area are exposed to the cutting, the sawing, the application of the insulation to the steam lines. They are exposed to the application of the fire brick, which contains asbestos, into these giant furnaces or boilers. They are exposed to the insulation that is installed onto the turbines.

They have to cut and saw all those kinds of materials, and it created a substantial amount of dust. One way people were exposed was during the construction phase. Well then once the building’s in operation, as you can imagine, there’s a significant amount of maintenance that has to occur. And so a steam line goes out, somebody has to go in and remove the insulation and then fix the steam line.

Well, they had insulators there that did that. They had pipefitters that did that work. So the people that helped maintain the facility. They had electricians that worked on the turbines. A turbine’s a very sophisticated piece of equipment. It had to be in operation, they couldn’t have downtime, certainly of all six units. And so electricians would work on these turbines and they would be exposed to the insulation that was on the turbines.

They might have to remove a piece or somebody would have to remove it for them, and they would be exposed in that way. The wire and cable I mentioned earlier, a lot of those turbines had panel boxes and control equipment that contained asbestos containing wire and insulation. And so electricians would be exposed, pipe fitters would be exposed, the maintenance people would be exposed. There were a wide variety of people that it takes to operate a powerhouse.

You’ve got the control operators and all of the boilermakers, and the boiler operators, and people that operate the turbines. And cleaning crew, commonly called laborers. You had engineers that came into the plant. And so all of these people are exposed one way or the other during the construction phase, during maintenance activities, also during what we call overhauls. They were frequently, usually on a yearly or maybe every two year basis, they had to completely refurbished the inside of the boiler. So all that refractory and fire brick that contained asbestos had to come out, and then it had to go back in.

And at least until the mid 1970s, early 1980s, they just used new asbestos to replace the old asbestos. And so anybody that worked in those power plants, say from the 1950s to the 1980s, I think it’s practically impossible for them to avoid exposure in some meaningful, substantial way to asbestos at either of those two facilities.

Asbestos Exposure During LG&E Construction

John: Right. And you said that during the construction phase, they would build one of the boilers and bring that online, and then they would be building the next one and then the next one, and then the next one. So there’d be for a period of years perhaps where they’d be construction of some one of the boilers going on.

And then after they’re all online, then they’re doing maintenance on one or the other of these boilers. It just seems like constantly there’d be either something under construction or something being maintained, or something being overhauled, and there’d just be almost no escaping it.

Paul: That is a very accurate description. It took 15 years to build Cane Run, maybe 10 years to build Mill Creek. So absolutely, they tried to keep the construction separate from the operation, but quite frankly, it was impossible. Based on descriptions that I’ve received from our clients and their coworkers, the powerhouse is a very dusty, dirty place. And they’re constantly working on all of these various pieces of equipment, including the piping.

And I would say that on any given day somebody was disturbing asbestos containing materials at those facilities for a very long period of time, and most of the people that worked at these plants worked there for a very long period of time. Twenty-five, 30 years is the norm for the LG&E employees that I’ve represented over the years, and I think that was a pretty common experience for most folks. It’s virtually impossible that if you worked at one of those powerhouses, either during the construction or during the overhaul with any of the pieces of equipment, it’s virtually impossible that you weren’t exposed to asbestos.

What Should You Do If You Have Lung Cancer, Asbestosis, or Mesothelioma?

John: We know that asbestos exposure can lead to diseases like mesothelioma. If you were an employee at LG&E and you have lung cancer or asbestosis or mesothelioma, what should you do?

Paul: Well, certainly the most important thing for anyone to do who’s been diagnosed with one of these diseases, is to get their medical situation under control, make sure that their doctors understand the environment in which they worked. It’s not necessarily critical to the treatment of mesothelioma that the physicians know the precise details of exposure, but it can’t hurt, and it’s important to be able to provide the doctors with accurate information.

But certainly, I think it’s important to understand your legal rights. We’ve represented a number of people, and sadly, probably more than 10 or 15 people that have worked at these facilities who have been diagnosed with some form of asbestos disease, many of them with mesothelioma, many with lung cancer, quite a few with asbestosis. And then there are companies, manufacturers of products, and contractors that are still out there that can be held responsible for causing the disease.

We’ve sued manufacturers of products. We’ve sued the engineer architect who designed the powerhouse, and the construction companies that assisted. And so it’s critical to talk to a lawyer, talk to someone that has experience with these particular locations to get a better understanding. Because I think there’s a lawsuit there, and I think there are definitely companies that can be held responsible for causing this terrible cancer, or some of these other diseases.

The big problem, John, with mesothelioma in particular, is it’s very aggressive. It will require a substantial amount of treatment, there is no known cure for this cancer. And so the average life expectancy, unfortunately, is only six months to 18 months from the time of diagnosis. So if you are interested in pursuing a claim and understanding your legal rights, I know you have a lot of important things to worry about with respect to your health, but it’s important to hit the ground running and to talk to a lawyer so that we can make a decision together as to what’s the best plan of action for you under this unfortunately terrible circumstance you’ve been presented with.

Choose a Lawyer Who Has Experience With LG&E Cases

John: Given that you have to move so quickly on this, is it important to have a lawyer like yourself who really knows LG&E? And like you said, you know exactly who those subcontractors are that designed or installed these boilers, and the pipes and things like that. As opposed to working with somebody who would have to maybe start from scratch and try to figure out all of that information.

Paul: Absolutely. If somebody came to me today and said that they were exposed to any of the kinds of things that I’ve mentioned today, I could probably have a lawsuit drafted and filed within the next two or three days. We’ve litigated out of these plants more than a dozen times. We really don’t have to do a lot of what’s called discovery to get information concerning the types of products that were there, the manufacturers that were there.

We’ve conducted all of that already, and we would really be in a great position to be able to hit the ground running and to expedite the process. Unfortunately, John, our legal system is fantastic, and we have terrific judges, and I can’t say enough about our judicial system. The only drawback is that things take time.

And right now if I have a case and it’s already filed, and then I have the plaintiff’s deposition and the plaintiff being my client, and I go to court and I ask for a trial date, even the most sympathetic judges are going to say, “Mr. Kelley, I can’t get you a trial date for a year.” And then the defendants, there might be 10 defendants, which means there are 10 other lawyers’ schedules to deal with. And inevitably, some of those lawyers are going to say, “Well, I can’t try the case in February of 2024.”

And then before you know it, it’s May, June, July. And that’s tough. But the reason why I bring that up, the sooner we get started, the sooner we can get to that part, because we understand what the time limitations are with respect to the court. And it takes somebody three, four months to investigate and figure out who to sue, that’s three or four months later than what your trial is going to be.

And that’s three or four months later than a resolution of the case. Because most defendants will not settle, even consider settlement of a case, unless there’s a trial date staring them down and they know that they’re going to have to either settle the case or try it. And sometimes they don’t settle. And if they don’t settle, that means we get a trial date. But time is always of the essence, and whenever I get any type of mesothelioma case, whether it’s Louisville Gas & Electric or some other place, the ultimate goal for us is to get that case filed as quickly as possible so that we have a chance to get that case to trial while our client is alive, still generally healthy and able to participate. And at least can have that peace of mind that resolution has been had during their lifetime, and that they’ve been able to take care of their family.

Statute of Limitations on Asbestos Exposure Cases

John: Right. Another time constraint that you’re under is the statute of limitations. Can you talk a little bit about the statute of limitations on filing a case relating to asbestos exposure at Louisville Gas & Electric?

Paul: Absolutely. It’s generally one year from the date that you know or should know you have an injury, and also know or should know the cause of that injury. Typically speaking, my best advice to anyone is go a year from the diagnosis date. If you’ve been diagnosed with asbestosis or mesothelioma, it was caused by asbestos exposure, so you know what caused your injury.

Lung cancer has some other causes, but if you were exposed to asbestos and you know it, go by that date. There are some exceptions to the rule, but you can’t go wrong. As I mentioned before though, John, a year is the deadline, and you got to get it in within that year. But if you come to us, we’re getting that case filed as quickly as possible, perhaps even within a matter of days because of all the issues that I’ve identified about the difficulty of getting the case to trial and the dire situation that most of our clients are in, and trying to expedite a resolution for them.

But sometimes they don’t come to us until 10 months after their diagnosis and we’ve got to hustle to make sure that we get the case filed. And it’s just important. A lot of people don’t realize that they don’t have that much time to file a case. Some states have a longer statute of limitations, Kentucky does not. Very important to talk to a lawyer immediately upon diagnosis so that you make sure that you can get your case filed on time.

Contact Satterley & Kelley to Learn More

John: All right. Well, that’s really great information, Paul. Thanks again for speaking with me today.

Paul: Thanks, John.

John: And for more information about mesothelioma and asbestos exposure, visit the law firm of Satterley & Kelley at satterleylaw.com. Or call (855)-385-9532.

Explore More Podcasts
Legal Process and Lawsuits:
Corporate Responsibility and Bankruptcy:
Specific Companies and Industries:
Health and Treatment:
Industry and Product Exposures:
Accidents and Injuries:
Tiger Brands Faces Talc Asbestos Litigation

BREAKING: Tiger Brands Faces Mounting Talc Asbestos Litigation  

/in /by

Those who follow mesothelioma and asbestos-related news will already be familiar with the lawsuits faced by American pharmaceutical giant J&J regarding their baby powder and potential asbestos contamination.

For the uninitiated, J&J’s talc-based baby powder has been the company’s signature product since its inception in the 19th century and has helped create and promote J&J’s safe, family-friendly reputation.

In recent years, however, J&J’s baby powder has been the subject of over 38,000 consumer safety and class action lawsuits, largely alleging that the talc-based baby powder caused serious health problems in consumers. Some of these claims allege that J&J baby powder tainted with asbestos has caused cancer in plaintiffs and their loved ones, including ovarian cancer and mesothelioma.  

J&J has continuously maintained that these lawsuits are based on “misinformation”, and that their product has been falsely portrayed as dangerous, further claiming that their baby powder and other talc products have never been carcinogenic or dangerously contaminated with asbestos.

However, consumer rights advocates, plaintiffs, and juries seem to disagree. So far, lawsuits over J&J baby powder contamination have resulted in $3.5 billion in verdicts and settlements. Over $2 billion of those settlements was awarded in a single class action suit brought by 22 women, who claimed that they or their loved ones were exposed to carcinogens via J&J baby powder that had been contaminated with asbestos.

In 2020, J&J stopped selling talc-based baby powders in the U.S., and in August of this year, they announced that they would stop selling talc-based baby powders internationally in 2023. While J&J will not be discontinuing their baby powder, they will be changing the main ingredient from talc to corn starch. They maintain that this decision is sales-based rather than safety-based.

However, recent news indicates that other baby powder companies are taking note of J&J’s legal troubles—and at the very least, that there is an increased awareness of the need to prevent talc-based asbestos-contamination in baby powder.

Less than a month after J&J announced its international recall of talc-based baby powder, Tiger Brands, one of the biggest packaged goods producers in Africa, announced a recall of their Purity Essentials Baby Powder due to trace amounts of asbestos found in their talc test samples.

Tiger Brands, which is South Africa’s largest food producer, is also a major food and packaged goods producer in Cameroon, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Mozambique. Tiger Brand products can also be found in South America, primarily in Chile.

Despite the proximity to the J&J announcement, Tiger Foods Chief Operating Officer Noel Doyle stated that the asbestos testing and subsequent September 8th recall “was unrelated to anything linked to J&J issues.” He emphasized that once the current recall is completed, Tiger Brands will continue selling their talc-based baby powder.

“While we found trace levels of asbestos in the raw material”, said Noel, “we’ve acted to recall everything that’s on the market, despite the fact that previous testing did not show any trace levels.”

Baby Powder, Talc, and Asbestos: What You Need to Know

Baby powder, so-named because of its use to prevent diaper rash, is a moisture-absorbing astringent powder that is also commonly used by adults to prevent chafing and for cosmetic purposes. Its traditional primary ingredient is talc, a common mineral made up of silicon, oxygen, hydrogen, and magnesium.

There are several general causes for concern about talc that have been raised by these lawsuits and investigated by medical authorities, scientists, consumer advocates, journalists, and litigators.

One major concern raised by talc-based baby powder (and other talc products) has to do with ovarian cancer, and whether women who regularly apply these products to their genital region are at increased risk. Studies regarding talc and ovarian cancer are still ongoing: some lab studies on rodents showed tumor formation from talc, and while some human studies seemed to indicate a slightly increased risk, the results are still largely inconclusive. Still, the potential link between ovarian cancer risk and genital application of talc-based baby powder has been recognized. In fact, the WHO has classified the use of baby powder and talc powder generally around the genital area as “possibly carcinogenic” to humans.

Another major concern has to do with asbestos contamination. Asbestos is a mineral that was once widely used in manufacturing and construction but has since been found to be carcinogenic—most frequently causing a cancer known as mesothelioma.

Talc and asbestos deposits are often found in similar or adjacent areas and are often mined in similar ways. As a result, when talc is mined and processed, it can sometimes get mixed with asbestos—and talc that is contaminated with any detectable amount of asbestos has been classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be carcinogenic.

This means that it is essential for all companies utilizing talc in their products to carefully monitor and test for asbestos contamination, and to immediately act and issue recalls when contamination is found.

Investigations into J&J’s practices suggested that they may not have been doing their due diligence when it comes to asbestos monitoring in their talc supply. In fact, one such investigation, published by Reuters in 2018, found that asbestos had been found in J&J talc products since 1971 at the earliest, continuing throughout the 2000s—and that J&J had been aware of this fact. This investigation—among others—contributed significantly to the strength of the lawsuits against J&J.

Advocates are hopeful that the recent news from Tiger Brands is indicative a shift in corporate thinking, in which companies utilizing talc are beginning to take heed of their responsibility to consumers—as well as the potential repercussions of not upholding that responsibility.

Check out a similar story about Johnson and Johnson here or call us at 855-385-9532 if you or a loved one has Mesothelioma.

What to Do After a Mesothelioma Diagnosis

5 Things to Do After a Mesothelioma Diagnosis

/in /by

If you have just received your mesothelioma diagnosis, you are probably overwhelmed—by thoughts, by feelings, and by treading suddenly into unfamiliar territory. It can be difficult to make sense of what’s happening, let alone knowing what to do next.

However, there are people who have been where you are now, and you are not alone. There are a few steps that people with recent mesothelioma diagnoses can take to make sense of what’s next in order to start their treatment journey.

1. Learn More About Mesothelioma

This may or may not be your first time hearing about mesothelioma, but most people don’t know much about it.

When it comes to something like cancer, knowledge is power. It’s important to know everything you can about what mesothelioma is, and what your mesothelioma diagnosis will mean in your life. The more you know how mesothelioma works and how it affects patients, the better you can prepare for the journey ahead.

Make sure you get a description of what type of mesothelioma you have. There are three types of mesothelioma that may be diagnosed in patients:

  • Pleural Mesothelioma: Cancer that develops in the pleura, the thin membrane lining the lungs and chest cavity. This is the most common type of mesothelioma, accounting for around 70-80% of cases.
  • Peritoneal Mesothelioma: Cancer that develops in the peritoneum, the thin layer of tissue lining the abdomen. This is the second most common type of mesothelioma, accounting for around 20% of cases.
  • Pericardial Mesothelioma: A much rarer cancer that develops in the thin layer of tissue surrounding the heart. This only accounts to around 1% of mesothelioma cases.

From there, you can get the information you need from your doctor and healthcare team, as well as from healthcare specialists, communities and advocates who support mesothelioma patients.

2. Be Curious and Ask Questions

Another essential part of finding out everything you can about mesothelioma is not being afraid to ask questions. You will have a lot of information presented to you at once and will have many important decisions to make in the coming weeks and months. It is entirely reasonable for you to have questions and for you to ask those questions to members of your care team.

Never be afraid to ask about any part of your diagnosis or treatment process. This includes asking to see a mesothelioma specialist—or a second mesothelioma specialist— for a second opinion. No reputable doctor will be offended if you ask for a second opinion. It is your right as a patient, and ultimately helps your mesothelioma doctor to treat you in the best way possible.

You will likely have to choose between several different treatment methods, including chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. Asking questions to help inform your decision is an expected and important part of the process.

If you are having trouble remembering your questions, write them down before appointments. Alternatively, your care team or doctor may have an online portal through which you can also ask questions.

3. Find a Support Network

Since mesothelioma is a relatively rare cancer, it might feel like there isn’t anyone who understands exactly what you’re going through. However, there are many other people who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, and many other families and loved ones of those diagnosed with mesothelioma.

Both patients and their loved ones can find support groups (largely online, though some meet in person) through which you can form meaningful relationships with other people and families battling mesothelioma, and with whom you can exchange information and advice.

For those who need help finding resources to reach out to, an oncology or hospital social worker can help you find programs and groups on both local and national levels.

4. Get Yourself Ready for Treatment

There are many things you can do proactively to give yourself the biggest possible leg up when it comes to your mesothelioma treatment.

  • Have a comfortable, accessible place to recover.  Make sure that you have a quiet, clean, and comfortable atmosphere to come home to during your treatments.
  • Maintain nutrition. Now more than ever, diet is key. Make sure to get plenty of protein and eat lots of fruits and vegetables.
  • Prioritize good sleep. The body needs sleep to heal and to endure treatment. Make sure to get as much sleep as possible both before and during treatment.
  • Exercise as much as possible. While you may be limited in your ability to exercise by your condition and the effects of treatment, try to get as much activity as you can.
  • Use knowledge of common treatment side effects to plan ahead. Some of the treatments for mesothelioma have common side effects. For example, chemotherapy often causes nausea and food aversion, so a source of calories that’s easier for someone in that state to consume (such as Ensure or other meal replacement drinks) should be kept on-hand in advance.

5. Learn About Your Financial and Legal Options

If you have mesothelioma, there’s a very high chance that it was caused by exposure to asbestos of some kind. Mesothelioma forms when inhaled asbestos fibers lodge in the lining of the lungs, abdomen, or (much more rarely) heart, and cancer.

Treatment for mesothelioma, like most cancers, can be costly. It’s essential to contact your health insurance company to see what your individual health insurance plan covers and what it may not cover (and will therefore be up to you and your family to pay out-of-pocket).

However, additional financial aid may be found through the pursuit of legal avenues. An experienced, knowledgeable mesothelioma attorney may be able to get you compensation for your asbestos exposure that may cover the cost of your medical care (and other expenses related to your mesothelioma). Make sure to choose a reputable mesothelioma lawyer or law firm with relevant experience and to read up on similar mesothelioma cases to get a good sense of what others in your position have been able to sue for.  

Call us toll-free at 855-385-9532 or complete our contact form to arrange a free consultation.

Mesothelioma: Clinical Trial Finds Impressive Results

Clinical Trial Finds Impressive Results in New Second-Line Pleural Mesothelioma Treatment

/in /by

If you are a mesothelioma patient or a loved one of a mesothelioma patient, you know how essential clinical trials can be. Clinical trials offer an opportunity for potentially more effective treatment for the individual mesothelioma patient, as well as the opportunity to contribute to the larger effort to beat mesothelioma once and for all.

Clinical trials are especially appealing to mesothelioma patients, as many are diagnosed in the later stages of the disease, significantly narrowing their treatment options. Clinical trials give patients and their loved ones the chance to expand their arsenal in the fight against mesothelioma, an opportunity which many going through mesothelioma treatment enthusiastically embrace. Trials already in progress offer new information and hope for mesothelioma patients and their families about potential treatments and improved prognoses on the horizon.

One such clinical trial conducted recently on a new mesothelioma treatment has been very promising. The study, conducted by the Netherland Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, tested the combination of Keytruda (pembrolizumab) and Lenvatinib (sometimes known as Lenvima) as a second-line treatment (a treatment to use when the first recommended treatment isn’t working) for pleural mesothelioma.

Keytruda is a humanized antibody and immunotherapy treatment used to combat a wide range of cancers, and Lenvatinib is a multiple kinase inhibitor, which blocks cancer proteins. The study examined the use of both medications, and the ways that their combined effects may be helpful for mesothelioma patients.

The findings were presented at the IASCL 2022 World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria earlier this summer. One of the lead investigators of the study, Li-Anne Douma, represented the research team in presenting the results to the Conference, and called the findings “better than expected.”

For those new to the subject, clinical studies have four phases. Phase I, which was already completed for this treatment, tested for basic safety of the treatment in humans, ensuring that it is not widely lethal and there are relatively limited serious adverse health effects.

Phase II focuses on the effectiveness of the treatment and the best dosage and delivery method, as well as any potential side effects. That is the phase of treatment that was just completed by the researchers at the Netherlands Cancer Center.

If approved, Phase III of the study will be much larger, and will likely involve volunteers from diverse population sets. It will examine whether the treatment would be both safe and effective for a wide variety of people, gathering more information about potential combinations of treatments, different dosages, and other different treatment components.

If results are promising enough, the treatment may then be approved for a New Drug Application (NDA), which contains the research, data, and findings from all phases. If the FDA (or a similar European regulatory body) signs off on the NDA, the treatment combination will become available on the market.

Phase IV will then occur after the introduction of the treatment to the market, during which researchers will continue to gather data and monitor the treatment as it is applied in much larger and more diverse populations, looking out for any potentially serious health complications that may only arise when larger populations are involved.

As aforementioned, the Netherland Cancer Institute study on Keytruda/Levatinib treatment for pleural mesothelioma is still in Phase II of clinical testing. This round of testing was conducted on 38 patients whose mesothelioma had continued to progress even after receiving standard-of-care treatment (chemotherapy). The study examined the use of Keytruda, which has been well-received in the treatment of several different cancers since it was approved for use in 2020 but has only shown limited success as a sole treatment method (or, as a “monotherapy”) for mesothelioma. Only around 20% of mesothelioma patients were responsive to monotheraputic treatment with Keytruda.

It was hypothesized that what Keytruda needed was an “effective drug partner”, for a combined, interactive effect, or “synergy.” That’s what Lenvatinib was brought in to do. Lenvatinib, which was originally developed to treat thyroid cancer, has been shown to be effective in blocking tumor growth. It is usually prescribed as a monotreatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (a type of liver cancer), and in conjunction with other drugs to treat renal cell carcinoma (a type of kidney cancer).

Lenvatinib is known as “precision medicine”, because it excels at doing something specific (i.e., blocking the growth of tumors) in a limited set of contexts. This study used Lenvatinib’s precision abilities as a partner to Keytruda, treating mesothelioma by targeting certain types of proteins that Keytruda is normally unable to control on its own.

The Keytruda/Lenvatinib combo has already been shown to be effective and has been approved for use in the treatment of endometrial cancer. The hope of the clinical trial was that it could be similarly helpful for the treatment of pleural mesothelioma.

The results were objectively impressive: combined Lenvatinib/Keytruda treatment had a response rate of 58%, which is significantly higher than Keytruda’s monotherapy response rate of around 20%.

Douma stated that she and her team would “like to avoid conclusions being drawn too early”, which is prudent for any study. It should be noted that there is still no effective long-term treatment for most mesothelioma patients. However, the possibility of another helpful second-line treatment for pleural mesothelioma is a source of hope for patients and their families.

If approved for widespread use, the Levatinib/Keytruda treatment would join the quickly increasing roster of potential mesothelioma treatments: in 2020, another immunotherapy combination treatment—Opdivo and Yervoy—was approved for use as a first-line treatment, adding to former standard of care (which until that time, for most mesothelioma patients, included only chemotherapy).  

While larger trials and further research is still needed, this development is widely considered to be good news for the mesothelioma community.

Call us toll-free at 855-385-9532 or fill out our contact form to schedule a free consultation.

Mesothelioma Treatment Center

Choosing a Mesothelioma Treatment Center

/in /by

If you’ve just been diagnosed with mesothelioma, you’re probably overwhelmed with all of the new information coming your way. However, with mesothelioma, time is often of the essence, and it’s crucial to get a treatment plan in order as soon as you can.

What does mesothelioma treatment look like?

Different mesothelioma diagnoses have different paths to treatment. However, in most cases, mesothelioma cancer treatment may combine chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, and/or experimental therapies. It may also involve palliative care or supportive care, which focuses on providing relief from symptoms, improving quality of life, and extending life expectancy for patients.

Your exact treatment will depend on your type of mesothelioma, what stage it is and your overall health and medical history.

Most importantly, treatment choices depend on your needs and preferences. Your medical team will provide you with options and information about your choices, but the final choices when it comes to your treatment depend on what you would like to prioritize.

Some patients want aggressive treatment that will give them the best chance at living longer, no matter what. Some people want to improve their quality of life and are much more interested in focusing on that element of care.

It is essential to always get a second opinion when dealing with a diagnosis like mesothelioma so that you can arrive at the best possible treatment plan.

The common treatment methods for mesothelioma include:

  • Chemotherapy: Chemotherapy involves using powerful cytotoxic drugs to target, damage, and hopefully eliminate cancer cells. It can be helpful in reducing the size of tumors, which helps fight cancer by reducing the spread and making surgeries more successful, while also alleviating symptoms caused by larger tumors.
  • Surgery: Mesothelioma surgery usually attempts to remove as much of the cancerous tissue as possible, often in combination with other treatments. Mesothelioma, patients with more advanced stage cancer and those with distant spread tumors may not benefit from this sort of surgery.
  • Radiation: Radiation therapy involves using a beam of energized particles to kill cancer cells. It is often used before surgery to shrink tumors and/or after surgery to target any remaining cancer cells. While it has traditionally been administered from outside of the body, new forms of radiation can be administered internally.
  • Experimental Therapies: There are many types of new experimental treatments being developed to treat mesothelioma. Many of these treatments are only available in certain facilities and under certain conditions (i.e., they may require signing up for a clinical trial).

What are the Best Mesothelioma Treatment Centers?

Once you have your diagnosis and a sense of what sort of treatment you would like to pursue, it’s time to think about where you want to be treated. While there are many cancer treatment facilities throughout the country, there are several centers and experts that focus specifically on rare cancers like mesothelioma.

If you are considering treatment at a cancer center, it’s essential to know which centers will give you the best chance of a good outcome. When evaluating whether a mesothelioma treatment center is offering the best possible care, you should look for the following:

  • Noted experts among staff, and physicians actively involved in research (as they are most likely to be up to date on the latest mesothelioma knowledge)
  • Offering a full range of standard treatments (surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation), and ideally additional, more experimental treatments, such as targeted therapy, immunotherapy, photodynamic therapy, gene therapy, HIPEC for peritoneal mesothelioma, and/or cryotherapy).
  • Offering clinical trials and enrollment in ongoing research
  • Providing a diverse range of doctors and other professionals to make up your treatment team, including nutritionists, physical therapists, and psychologists/social workers.

If you’re looking for a mesothelioma-specific cancer center, you might want to start your search with one of the nine centers below, which are all known to offer excellent mesothelioma treatment and care:

  1. Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA: Through its own award-winning cancer treatment program and in consortium with other highly rated cancer specialist hospitals in the area (such as the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute), Brigham and Women’s offers a wide range of resources and treatments to mesothelioma patients. It is also the location of the International Mesothelioma Program, where around 200 patients each year are admitted for some of the most cutting-edge mesothelioma treatment available.
  2. University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX: One of the country’s highest rated cancer centers, the MD Anderson Cancer Center has a specific focus on lung and chest cancers (including pleural and pericardial mesothelioma). As a research hospital, they offer experimental treatments and many opportunities for participation in clinical trials.
  3. Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City, NY: This well-established name in the medical world has two of the world’s top experts of mesothelioma: Dr. Raja Flores and Dr. Daniel Labow. Dr. Flores is a top expert in pleural mesothelioma, while Dr. Labow is a top expert in peritoneal mesothelioma. In addition to offering access to two of the top minds in the field, Mt. Sinai also offers multi-modal treatments for mesothelioma that have been proven most effective for many patients.
  4. The Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Clinic’s Cancer Institute focuses specifically on lung-related cancers, including mesothelioma. As a result, the Cancer Institute can offer a wide range of impressively credentialed specialists, who can contribute their skills and strategy to your cancer treatment. This is a particularly good choice for those with rarer types of pleural mesothelioma, as there are specialists on-staff in every possible sub-type of lung-related cancer.
  5. Pacific Mesothelioma Center (PMC) at the Pacific Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Los Angeles, CA: The PMC is a specialized unit of the well-regarded Pacific Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, which partners frequently with UCLA and the West Los Angeles, VA Medical Center. Focused on pleural mesothelioma, the PMC is currently in the process of developing many treatments and therapies aimed at improving prognosis and extending the life of pleural mesothelioma patients. Rather than viewing mesothelioma as a terminal diagnosis, they approach it as a chronic, albeit serious health condition to be managed.
  6. H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, FL: In addition to being a highly rated cancer center in all regards, the H. Lee Moffit Center is particularly well-known in the southwest for its Department of Thoracic Oncology and Mesothelioma Research and Treatment Center, which provides award-winning care to mesothelioma patients.
  7. University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago is a research dynamo, producing some of the best medical innovations throughout the past century. Their Mesothelioma Program is no exception and is known as a world leader for both innovative treatment and complex cancer research. Patients are offered individualized, empathetic care with ample access to clinical studies.
  8. Mesothelioma Treatment Center, Baylor College of Medicine Lung Institute, Houston, TX:  Like Boston, Houston is a city known for its excellent hospitals and medical centers, and the MTC at Baylor is one of the best for mesothelioma patients. Teams of highly qualified, highly knowledgeable experts offer top of the line, individualized treatment, and the ongoing research at the hospital provides ample opportunity for inclusion in clinical trials. The MTC also emphasizes psychological and spiritual care for both mesothelioma patients and their loved ones.
  9. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Hillman Cancer Center, Pittsburgh, PA: The UPMC Hillman Cancer Center has a reputation for being one of the most established cancer treatment centers specializing in rare and complex cancers in the country. Their Mesothelioma Specialty Care Program offers experts in the field (such as Dr. David Bartlett, a world leader in peritoneal mesothelioma), as well as caring, thoughtful, and innovative care and access to clinical studies.

Why You Should Hire Satterley & Kelley, PLLC for Your Cancer Case

Mesothelioma is caused by asbestos fibers in the body. If you’re diagnosed with it or another asbestos-related cancer, you may be entitled to compensation for what you’ve endured. This includes physical and mental pain and suffering, financial costs, medical bills, and how the disease impacts your relationships. It can be due to asbestos released during accidental fires or any other source.

You need a law firm with experience representing victims taking legal action against the asbestos industry. Satterley & Kelley, PLLC attorneys have helped asbestos victims for more than 25 years.

We have relationships with the best experts in the world to help us prove that asbestos caused your injury and the physical, emotional, psychological, and financial harm you suffer.

Call Us Today For A Free Consultation

Satterley & Kelley, PLLC, attorneys are your boots on the ground if you or a family member in Kentucky suffers from mesothelioma or another asbestos-related condition. Call us at 855-385-9532, locally 502-589-5600, or contact us online to arrange a free initial consultation with a Satterley & Kelley PLLC lawyer.

Blood Serum Testing

BREAKING: New Blood Serum Testing Study Looks Promising for Earlier Diagnosis and Improved Prognosis in Mesothelioma Patients

/in /by

Mesothelioma patients are frequently introduced to new concepts and technologies that may seem complex or difficult to understand. Most people—and therefore, most mesothelioma patients—do not have a background in clinical oncology, which means that it can be difficult to make heads or tails of all of this new, often highly technical information.

However, it’s essential to stay as up to date as possible. New discoveries and applications for those discoveries are being made all the time.  This means that, for example, a testing method that may have been less important or may not have even been around a few years ago could be an essential diagnostic tool for mesothelioma patients today, or in the very near future.

One of the most recent examples of this type of evolving technology is a new blood-based testing method to diagnose mesothelioma—often far earlier than mesothelioma has traditionally been diagnosed.

The Problem

A recent study on blood serum testing for mesothelioma was conducted by a Turkish research team. The team examined the use of blood serum testing in tackling one of the biggest issues with mesothelioma diagnosis and prognosis: timing.

As those familiar with mesothelioma may already know, one of the biggest barriers to effective treatment and positive prognosis for mesothelioma patients is mesothelioma’s very long latency period.

Specifically, mesothelioma is usually only diagnosed once symptoms start to appear, which is often at least 20 years and sometimes 30 years—or more—after exposure to inhaled asbestos. This is why mesothelioma is usually diagnosed later in life, with an average diagnosis age of 74.

In patients with asbestos exposure history, presenting with symptoms like shortness of breath, difficulty swallowing, dry cough, muscle soreness/weakness, unexplained weight loss, and fatigue will usually signal a doctor to start the testing process for a variety of conditions including mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma testing usually involves an array of imaging of the chest/abdomen and lungs (from basic chest x-rays to CT scans, PET scans, and MRIs) after which clinicians usually move on to more invasive tissue/fluid procurement and imaging procedures.

These include thoracentesis (removing and examining fluid from the pleural space around the lungs by puncturing the chest wall with a needle) and thoracoscopy (inserting a thorascope, a thin tube with a camera on the end, into the chest cavity via a small incision near the lower part of the shoulder blade). Once a sufficient sample of tissue or fluid is obtained, it is examined under a microscope; if the abnormal cells present indicate mesothelioma, diagnosis is usually confirmed.

However, by this point, the patient’s mesothelioma is usually quite advanced, and often has already metastasized and spread to the lymph nodes and other parts of the body. This makes it much more difficult to treat mesothelioma effectively: by the time they are diagnosed, decades after their asbestos exposure, most pleural mesothelioma patients cannot pursue multimodal treatment (i.e., surgery in addition to chemo and potentially also radiation), since their cancer has already advanced to a stage where aggressive treatment is no longer effective or even possible.

This leaves the vast majority of pleural mesothelioma patients with very limited treatment options—usually just standard chemotherapy—and a rather narrow prognosis window. This is one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, why the median survival rate of mesothelioma is only around 12 months. The issue of diagnostic timing poses a serious challenge to those who are working to improve the prognosis of mesothelioma patients.

The Solution

That’s where blood serum testing comes into play. The new study, which was conducted using a large sample group of patients in standard hospitals, medical centers, and university-affiliated research and teaching hospitals in Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey, revealed exciting findings about the promise of blood serum testing in providing earlier diagnosis of mesothelioma in patients, thereby broadening their treatment options and improving their prognoses.

Dr. Feride Severcan of Altinbas University, one of the co-authors of the study, noted that “timing is the worst aspect” of mesothelioma, and that “an early diagnosis from easily collected blood serum is a very valuable approach”, which may “increase the chance of successful treatment and survival”. Dr. Severcan further explained that blood serum testing has other benefits, including being more accurate, quicker, less expensive, and less invasive than standard mesothelioma testing. He believes that blood serum testing will help facilitate “early and accurate” mesothelioma diagnoses, an essential piece of the puzzle when it comes to “decreasing the morbidity rate” and improving the odds for mesothelioma patients.

How does it work?

The newly developed blood serum testing method involves the use of a hyper-specialized tool called ATR-FTIR (short for “attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy”). While this sounds like quite a mouthful, the tool essentially enables clinicians and scientists to analyze small amounts of blood serum for specific biomarkers—“molecular fingerprints” in the form of “structural and compositional changes” in the components of the blood serum that serve as “early signs” of mesothelioma— far earlier than any other diagnostic tool commonly utilized to identify mesothelioma.

“Based on FTIR measurements, the molecular fingerprints of serum samples can be obtained and the structural and compositional changes in the components of that fluid can serve as biomarkers for early signs of the disease,” Severcan said.

The study utilized samples from patients with three different lung diseases—malignant mesothelioma, lung cancer, and non-malignant pleural effusions—as well as a control group of samples from healthy people. Researchers sought to differentiate between the samples and identify which is which using only the blood serum biomarkers as viewed through ATR-FTIR.

The results were very promising, both for the study’s authors and for mesothelioma patients worldwide: Dr. Severcan and his colleagues were able to reliably identify malignant mesothelioma from blood serum alone with an accuracy rate of 87.5%.

The process of ATR-FTIR-assisted blood serum testing for mesothelioma is still being fine-tuned by the research team behind this study, as well as by others around the world. The ultimate goal, which is excitingly close to becoming realized, is to identify earlier-stage mesothelioma quicker and more accurately, improving prognoses for mesothelioma patients and enabling them to access a broader range of more aggressive and effective treatments.

The study, titled “Rapid diagnosis of malignant pleural mesothelioma and its discrimination from lung cancer and benign exudative effusions using blood serum”, will be published in October 2022 in the journal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta—Molecular Basis of Disease. It is currently available online via Science Direct.

Rising Mesothelioma Deaths Among Women

New Study Sheds Light on Rising Mesothelioma Deaths Among Women

/in /by

When most people think of a mesothelioma patient, they usually picture an older man. This appears to be supported by the statistics: around 2/3 of mesothelioma patients are 65 or older, and over 75% of mesothelioma patients are male.

A recent study, however, revealed an alarming trend: an increasing number of women are dying from mesothelioma every year.

In the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published on May 13th, 2022, the CDC reported that the number of women dying annually from mesothelioma has risen steadily by over the past 20 years, increasing by over 25% from 1999 to 2020. During that time, 12,227 women died from mesothelioma.

The rate of mesothelioma deaths has continued to rise among women between 1999 and 2020, despite increased regulations limiting unsafe exposure to asbestos and a worldwide drop in asbestos use during those 21 years, as well as increased quality of care and improved medical technology.

The trend seems especially concerning when compared with the rates of mesothelioma deaths among men during the same 21-year period, which appear to have stayed roughly the same, or even dropped slightly. In general, more men than women are diagnosed with mesothelioma (for reasons we will explore below), and there have therefore been more mesothelioma deaths among men than among women from 1999-2020. However, the CDC study reported that 489 women died from mesothelioma in 1999, and 614 women died from mesothelioma in 2020. The number of male mesothelioma deaths, meanwhile, has gone from 1,990 deaths in 1999 to 1,981 deaths in 2020.

So, why are more women dying of mesothelioma over time?

The answer, as explained in part the CDC study, can be found by breaking down a few key facts about mesothelioma, and about why mesothelioma primarily effects men over 65 to begin with.

Firstly, it’s important to understand that the primary risk factor for mesothelioma is prolonged exposure to disturbed asbestos fibers.

Asbestos is a type of mineral found in soil and rocks in many parts of the world, that was used for many years in shipyard, construction, industrial, and military fields, among others, due to its heat-resistance and fire suppressant qualities. Asbestos naturally forms in small bundles of tiny, microscopic fibers. When asbestos is disturbed, it shakes those fibers loose into the air.

We now know that exposure to the disturbed asbestos fibers can lead to cancer and other conditions in several parts of the body. If inhaled, the asbestos fibers can get into the lungs, and may travel through the lungs to the pleura, a thin membrane covering the lungs. Asbestos fibers are harmful to pleural cells, and pleural injury caused by asbestos can lead to pleural mesothelioma over time. Asbestos can also cause other forms of lung cancer, as well as lung scarring (asbestosis).

While many people are exposed to small amounts of naturally occurring asbestos, there are far fewer people who have been exposed to asbestos in a high enough concentration for a long enough time for mesothelioma to form. The mean source of asbestos exposure for people with mesothelioma generally is the workplace, usually workplaces in the fields mentioned above (i.e., shipyards construction, industrial, manufacturing, or military) that widely utilized asbestos before restrictions were put in place in the late 1970s. At the time, workers in those fields were almost exclusively men, which explains the much higher instance of mesothelioma among men.

Long Latency Period: Another thing to consider is mesothelioma’s very long latency period, or the period of time between asbestos exposure and the presentation of symptoms or malignancy. The CDC report estimated that there’s a median latency period of approximately 32 years between occupational exposure to asbestos and death from ensuing mesothelioma.

This is why the vast majority of all mesothelioma patients, both male and female, tend to be older: of the total women who died from mesothelioma in the studied period, over 90% were age 55 or older. Unfortunately, symptoms of mesothelioma often do not present until the cancer is fairly far advanced. By the time most people with mesothelioma get diagnosed, it is too late for the most effective treatments, and prognosis/rate of survival is lower accordingly. This is another reason why mesothelioma deaths among women continue to rise, despite exposure to asbestos being greatly

Unconventional Forms of Exposure: This leads to the next question: how did women get mesothelioma if they didn’t work in the fields mentioned above?

As shown in the CDC study, women who developed mesothelioma were also exposed to asbestos, but usually not by working directly in the fields commonly associated with asbestos exposure. Instead, the women in the study were exposed to asbestos in three major ways:

  • Secondary Exposure from Male Household Members: The study found that one of the most common occupations among women who died from mesothelioma was “housewife.” In 2020, the last year researched by the study, 22.8% of mesothelioma deaths occurred among women who listed housewife as their occupation.

Upwards of 60 percent of the women who died from mesothelioma between 1999 and 2020, including most housewives who died from mesothelioma, were likely the victims of secondary exposure to asbestos, making it the most common means of asbestos exposure among female mesothelioma patients.

Secondary exposure occurs when workers who were directly exposed to asbestos unintentionally and unknowingly bring asbestos fibers back home with them, in large enough quantities and over a long enough time that other people in their households eventually develop mesothelioma. Usually, these women were their mothers, their wives, and sometimes their children, especially if they were responsible for cleaning and maintaining work clothes.

Since asbestos fibers are jagged, they easily attach to clothing and shoes, as well as skin and hair. Dusting off or shaking out garments with asbestos on them (or brushing off asbestos-adhered hair or skin) only disperses the fibers into the air, which makes them more likely to be inhaled or swallowed. Women may also be exposed to mesothelioma during repairs or renovations to their homes if those homes were built—as many were—with asbestos insulation.

  • Exposure in a Workplace Not Conventionally Associated with Asbestos: Some of the women who died of mesothelioma were exposed to asbestos in their workplaces, which were not traditionally associated with asbestos exposure and resultant mesothelioma risk. Dr. Jaceck M. Mazurek, one of the lead authors of the CDC study, explained that in addition to secondary exposure among homemakers, “a large proportion [of mesothelioma in women] was reported among women whose occupations were not historically and traditionally associated with asbestos exposure. Women in some of these fields, such as healthcare, social work, and education, were often exposed to asbestos during renovations on older buildings where their jobs were located, or via the resuspension of settled asbestos into the air via dusting, sweeping, or cleaning in those buildings. Other women were exposed by working in factories where asbestos was used in the production or manufacturing of the product being made.
  • Environmental Exposure: A smaller but still significant portion of women who died from mesothelioma were exposed to high concentrations of asbestos in their environments, usually because they lived close to an asbestos mine or an industrial facility where asbestos was being processed or manufactured. This sort of exposure to asbestos often occurs from childhood onward and can lead to mesothelioma as well as other cancers (especially endometrial cancer).

Because the means by which women were exposed to asbestos were not understood until relatively recently, many women with mesothelioma have been misdiagnosed or have not been treated in a timely fashion. This likely contributed to the rising rates of death among women with mesothelioma, despite the fact that if mesothelioma is caught earlier in women, they tend to have a higher rate of survival than men.

As Dr. Mazurek explained, “the increasing number of malignant mesothelioma deaths among women most likely represent [asbestos] exposure many years ago”, in combination with a lack of understanding about mesothelioma risk in women.

As Dr. Mazurek and his co-authors point out in the study, there are several things we can learn from this data. In particular:

  • The importance of continued regulations preventing asbestos exposure
  • The need for increased awareness about mesothelioma diagnoses in women
  • The need for proactive mesothelioma screening for women who may be at risk

Call Us Today For A Free Consultation

Satterley & Kelley mesothelioma attorneys can answer your questions, advise you of your rights. Call our Louisville office at 502-589-5600 or toll-free at 855-385-9532. You can also fill out our contact form to schedule a free initial consultation.

Workplaces Causing Cancer

Does Your Workplace Cause Cancer? Asbestos Exposure in Kentucky Is Still Causing Mesothelioma

/in /by

No one should have to work in a hazardous environment just to get a paycheck. Unfortunately, hard-working Kentuckians continue to be exposed to asbestos in workplaces across the state.

You may think that it’s only power plant employees or people in similarly high-risk environments who are at risk — but that’s simply not true. In reality, you can be exposed to asbestos that causes mesothelioma in almost any industry when employers engage in negligent practices.

In a recent case, a Kentucky man and his wife sued brake remanufacturer, Brake Supply Company, Inc., and three other brake lining manufacturers after developing mesothelioma caused by asbestos-containing brakes they manufactured and sold. The exposure occurred more than 30 years prior to the Plaintiff’s diagnosis.

This case illustrates why asbestos exposure continues to be such a pervasive problem in Kentucky, and throughout the United States — particularly, how multiple parties may be involved in negligent practices that lead to workers being exposed to asbestos. This both increases the risk of asbestos exposure for workers and complicates the process of holding the answerable parties accountable.

However, that doesn’t mean workers who develop mesothelioma have no recourse. With a top Kentucky mesothelioma lawyer on your side, it’s possible to identify the responsible party and hold them accountable.

What Is Asbestos?

Asbestos is a group of naturally occurring minerals that form in bundles of very thin, microscopic fibers. Asbestos is heat and fire resistant, and it was used in many manufactured products, most notably the following:

  • Building insulation
  • Roofing shingles
  • Ceiling and floor tiles
  • Plastic products
  • Cement products such as wallboards
  • Automotive parts, including brake linings, pads and clutches
  • Heat-resistant fabrics
  • Packing and gaskets
  • Cigarette filters

Unfortunately, after widespread use over many decades, it was discovered that asbestos is highly carcinogenic—specifically when asbestos fibers are inhaled or swallowed.

When an asbestos-containing product is disturbed—which can happen during the mining and processing of the asbestos itself, as well as any manufacturing that employs asbestos, and construction, renovation, or cleaning of asbestos-containing structures—asbestos fibers are released into the air.

Exposure to disturbed, airborne asbestos fibers can lead to cancer and other conditions in several parts of the body.

If inhaled, the asbestos fibers enter the lungs, and often travel through the lungs and the airway passages to the pleura, a thin membrane covering the lungs. Asbestos fibers are harmful to pleural cells, and pleural injury caused by asbestos can lead to pleural mesothelioma over time. Asbestos can also cause other forms of lung cancer, as well as lung scarring (asbestosis). Asbestos that is swallowed, meanwhile—whether outright, or because it is initially inhaled and then coughed up and swallowed—can lodge in the peritoneum, the layer of tissue lining the abdomen. Asbestos is similarly harmful to peritoneal cells as it is to pleural cells, and exposure over time can lead to peritoneal mesothelioma. A third, less common type of mesothelioma that is sometimes caused by asbestos exposure (among other potential causes) is pericardial mesothelioma, which begins in the membranes surrounding the heart (the pericardium).

Mesothelioma tends to have a very long latency period, or the time that it takes between exposure to carcinogen (in this case, asbestos) and the development of symptoms. Because of this, by the time mesothelioma is diagnosed, it is often fairly advanced. This contributes to the prognosis most mesothelioma patients face: the five-year survival rate is just 10 percent, and life expectancy is typically between four and 18 months after diagnosis.

Asbestos in Kentucky

From 1999 to 2017, there were more than 3,100 asbestos-related deaths in Kentucky, despite the fact that there are no known naturally occurring asbestos deposits in the state. That means if you were exposed to asbestos in Kentucky, it likely came from exposure to asbestos—whether in the workplace, in a product, or second-hand (i.e., exposure to asbestos through fibers brought into the home on the clothes, hair, and skin of exposed workers).  

Most older homes contain asbestos somewhere. Whereas prospective homebuyers can commission asbestos inspection and owners can hire abatement professionals, workers and students aren’t so lucky. In addition to homes, asbestos is a common presence in a vast array of workplaces, schools, and other public buildings. When construction occurs on these buildings, asbestos fibers are often disturbed and sent into the air, where those working in the buildings and seeking services in the buildings (including students) are sometimes exposed to asbestos.

Who Develops Mesothelioma?

Everyone is exposed to asbestos at some point in their life in small amounts, as it is present in the air, water, and soil. However, some people are more likely to encounter asbestos than others, meaning their risk of developing mesothelioma is higher.

Many factors affect whether asbestos exposure leads to mesothelioma, including dose, duration, type of asbestos, and source of exposure. People who are exposed to asbestos for a prolonged period of time while they are young, as is the case in many workplaces where asbestos exposure occurs, are more likely to develop mesothelioma.

In addition, the lifestyle and genetic makeup of each individual contributes to risk of mesothelioma. Scientists are still researching the exact individual risk factors for mesothelioma beyond exposure, but they appear to include exposure to other carcinogens (including zeolites, radiation), exposure to other diseases (such as Simian Virus 40, or SV40), individual behaviors (such as smoking), and in rare cases, gene mutations (i.e., a mutation in the BAP1 gene).

High-Risk Occupations

The most significant risk factor for mesothelioma is prolonged exposure to asbestos, which most often occurs in the workplace. Although people in many occupations may encounter asbestos, the following workers are at an especially increased risk for developing mesothelioma:

  • Demolition workers
  • Construction workers
  • Lathers (construction specialists who make frameworks)
  • Miners
  • Steel mill workers
  • Paper mill workers
  • Bricklayers and brick kiln workers
  • Boilermakers or boiler engineers/repairmen
  • Firefighters
  • Automotive workers and mechanics
  • Aircraft mechanics
  • Manufacturers of asbestos products
  • Drywall removers
  • Power plant workers
  • Electricians
  • Plumbers and pipe fitters
  • Plasterers
  • Foundry workers
  • Merchant marines
  • Navy Yard workers
  • Millwrights (repairmen for industrial machinery)

Women and Mesothelioma

Since mesothelioma exposure primarily occurs as an occupational hazard in industries that have traditionally been male-dominated, most mesothelioma patients are men.

However, women can also get mesothelioma, and a recent study by the CDC actually found that rates of mesothelioma deaths among women are actually rising at a faster rate than mesothelioma deaths among men.

Only a very small number of women with mesothelioma are exposed to asbestos “traditionally” (i.e., while working in one of several mostly male industries). Instead, asbestos exposure in women tends to come from three main sources:

  • Exposure in the Home: Sometimes, workers who were directly exposed to asbestos unknowingly bring asbestos fibers back home with them, putting other people in their households at risk of developing mesothelioma—especially if they handle or are responsible for cleaning the asbestos carrier’s work clothes. This is referred to as secondary exposure to asbestos, which is carcinogenic in the same way that secondhand smoking is carcinogenic.

In addition, women are sometimes exposed to asbestos through home renovations. Up until asbestos use in home construction was largely banned in the late 70’s, many homes were built using asbestos, largely employed as insulation and on tiling and siding. Repairs or renovations to homes can disturb the asbestos fibers that were formerly contained within the house and sent them into the air to be inhaled or ingested over time.

  • Exposure at Work: Beyond the conventional industrial, construction, shipping, and military jobs that work more directly with asbestos, there are many other fields where a person may be exposed to asbestos at work.

Some women develop mesothelioma from exposure in these workplaces, often while performing their jobs in fields such as healthcare, social work, and education. Asbestos exposure is often caused by renovations on the older buildings where those jobs are located. Women may also be exposed to asbestos while working in factories where asbestos is used in production or manufacturing.

  • Environmental Exposure: A smaller number of women may be exposed to asbestos to high concentrations in their environments, usually because they live close to an industrial facility where asbestos is processed or manufactured or used in processing or manufacturing. This type of exposure to asbestos can lead to mesothelioma as well as other cancers (especially endometrial cancer).

High-Risk Areas

Mesothelioma is more prevalent in certain counties in Kentucky than others. The populations of Anderson, Boyd, Campbell, Fayette, Henderson, Jefferson, Kenton, McCracken, Marshall, and Warren counties are at significantly higher risk.

Your Legal Rights After a Mesothelioma Diagnosis

As mentioned above, one of the greatest tragedies of mesothelioma is that symptoms take a long time, sometimes decades, to appear. That means that by the time mesothelioma patients are diagnosed with mesothelioma, holding the responsible party accountable and getting the compensation they deserve may be difficult. However, it’s much more doable with the right legal representation.

In partnership with an experienced, knowledgeable mesothelioma attorney, the first move will be finding the responsible party — typically the company — that exposed the mesothelioma patient to asbestos. After a thorough investigation, your lawyer will identify the source of your exposure and name the defendant. They will try to gather and present evidence that shows that the defendant was aware of the asbestos and failed to warn the mesothelioma patient about the dangers.

If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, starting a lawsuit is probably the last thing you want to deal with. However, there are many good and necessary reasons to do so, including the following:

  • You need to pay for medical care. Cancer treatment can be wildly expensive and could leave you and your financially devastated. This is especially true if you are uninsured, but is also true if you have insurance coverage, as there are often significant gaps in coverage that can leave mesothelioma patients with unmanageable bills.
  • You don’t want the company to hurt anyone else. Too often, companies will continue on with negligent practices if it saves them money, even after becoming aware that they are exposing their employees and others to a highly carcinogenic substance. By filing a lawsuit, you could be preventing the company from endangering future employees.
  • You’ve lost or will lose wages. If you have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, there’s a good chance that you won’t be able to work as the cancer progresses. The same is true for your family members, who may have to leave their jobs temporarily or even permanently in order to help care for you. The responsible party should compensate you accordingly.
  • You’ve experienced tremendous pain and suffering. Whether you’ve lost a family member to mesothelioma, or you are the one personally suffering, mesothelioma causes a great deal of pain. Your lawyer should take this into account when calculating your settlement.

Although perhaps the most common, these are far from the only reasons to pursue a mesothelioma lawsuit. The fact of the matter is that if a company caused your cancer, it should be held liable for all of your losses, tangible and intangible.

Satterley & Kelley: Top Kentucky Mesothelioma Lawyers

If you’re like most Kentuckians, when you go to work, you work hard; you give your all to your employer every single day. So when you company’s knowingly expose you to asbestos that results in you developing cancer, it’s a slap in the face.

As long as companies continue to expose workers to asbestos, the experienced mesothelioma lawyers at Satterley & Kelley will be there to fight for them. We’ll use all of our resources to investigate your situation, compile evidence, and present a compelling case for your compensation.

Call Us Today

If you’ve been diagnosed with mesothelioma, there is a time limit to file a case. Don’t wait! Contact us today for a free consultation or give us a call at 502-589-5600.

Asbestos

Phenolic Molding Compounds, Asbestos, and Mesothelioma (Podcast)

/in , /by

In this podcast, Paul Kelley from Satterley & Kelley Law Firm talks about the link between phenolic molding compound and asbestos. He explains that phenolic molding compounds were  popular in many products in the past, and they contain asbestos. If you were involved in the production or use of these products, you have a heightened risk of mesothelioma.

John Maher: Hi, I’m John Maher. I’m here today with Paul Kelley. Paul is a partner with the Kentucky personal injury law firm, Satterley & Kelley, which has over 30 years of collective experience in handling cases involving mesothelioma and asbestos exposure. Today, we’re talking about phenolic molding compounds, asbestos and mesothelioma. Welcome ,Paul.

Paul Kelley: Hi John, how are you doing today?

John: Good, thanks. Paul, what are phenolic molding compounds?

What Are Phenolic Molding Compounds?

Paul: Phenolic molding compounds are a substance that historically has been used to make molded plastic products. There’s several products historically that have contained or been made from molding compounds. The things that people probably are most commonly aware of are things like circuit breakers, panel boxes, a variety of electrical products that were used in powerhouses and things of that nature.

Is BakeLite a Phenolic Molding Compound?

John: And I’ve heard of an older, earlier type of plastic called a Bakelite, is that a product that’s made from a phenolic molding compound?

Paul: It is. Bakelite, it’s like the Kleenex. Kleenex is a brand name, but everybody says, for tissue, get me Kleenex. Bakelite is a product that was associated with the company called Union Carbide. It was officially the Bakelite company, but there are other companies that have made similar products, phenolic molding compounds, and then they molded similar plastic products like Bakelite was made from.

John: And that was in all kinds of things like even household appliances and things like that, right?

Paul: Absolutely.

Which Products Have Phenolic Molding Compounds?

John: Why don’t you talk a little bit more about that? What types of products have historically used some phenolic molding compounds?

Paul: Oh, gosh. Anywhere from… cars sometimes had phenolic molding compounds and some of the plastic components. We have seen household appliances, refrigerators and ovens and the insides of ovens, stoves, a lot of products like that. And the military used a lot of phenolics for a lot of military grade equipment from their vehicles to weapons. It’s very high heat resistant. And so asbestos contains phenolic molding compounds, that’s why it was such a desirable product because asbestos has a very high heat resistance. And so anything that utilizes high heat phenolic molding compounds or the asbestos contained in them. Phenolic molding compounds protected things from overheating and protected people from being burnt in a variety of different ways. Unfortunately, it contained asbestos, which was one of the worst substances known in occupational history.

Can You Get Mesothelioma From Phenolic Molding Compounds?

John: Phenolic molding compounds contain asbestos, so can you get mesothelioma from exposure to them?

Paul: Yeah. The good news, John, is I don’t think that phenolic molding compounds contain asbestos in 2022 and they probably haven’t for 25, 30 years, but historically from the 1960s, 70s, and even into the mid 80s, phenolic molding compounds contained asbestos. And there’s really a couple different ways that people could get mesothelioma from those products. One would be the people that use the raw molding compound, and another is the people who worked with the finished products. And we can talk about that a little bit this afternoon.

Who Was Exposed to Phenolic Molding Compounds?

John: Tell me who was typically exposed to phenolic molding compounds.

Paul: Our greatest experience is people that worked in plastic manufacturing plants. There was a plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky called Cutler Hammer, later Eaton, and it was a plant that made electrical products, circuit breakers, panel boxes, switchgear, arc sheets, all kinds of different things, and those products in the 60s through the 80s were made with phenolic molding compounds. These compounds are basically a powder. They’ve been described in numerous different ways by the people that we’ve represented and their coworkers over the years.

Some have described it as like an oats type material. It’s shaped that way. And it’s very easy to create dust from the use of this product. Typically what happened in a plant like Cutler Hammer is they took the material from 55 gallon drums or 50 pound bags, and they poured it into hoppers, big 6, 7, 8, 10 feet hoppers. And they would just pour it in there. The dust would proliferate.

And so all the people who were responsible for making the finished product like the circuit breakers or panel boxes, they’re getting exposed to the raw material. And there are some other plants in Kentucky and nearby Kentucky that have used these materials. General Electric here in Louisville had a molding operation, Square D in Lexington, Kentucky also had a molding operation and used phenolic molding compounds, a company called Plastics Molding Corporation just on the other side of the river in Cincinnati also utilized phenolic molding compounds to make products.

They made products for companies like Cutler Hammer, the things that Cutler Hammer didn’t make at home they made at PMC. Ford Motor Company had the components in a car like transmission components that were made from asbestos containing phenolic materials over a period of time. The people that are exposed to the raw materials and then, to be frank, those people suffered an unbelievable exposure. If they contain asbestos and they’re pouring it day in and day out, they have to clean it up. Most of these places that we’ve seen, they didn’t have one molding machine, they had dozens of them. And so there’s dozens of people that are pouring these materials into the molding machines over the course of a 7, 8, 9 hour shift.

Phenolic Molding Compound Exposure in Factories

John: And even if you’re not the one pouring it, you’re just maybe in the room working the machines or something like that or doing other jobs and you’re just in a big warehouse type of building. And it’s probably just all getting up into the air, right?

Paul: Absolutely. It takes so many different expertises to make these products. You had the people, the setup man, you had the operators, people that were responsible for cleaning and people that were responsible for just bringing the materials into the molding area. And so there were a number of different types of crafts and people that were exposed. And everything that I’ve heard from every person that we’ve ever represented that worked in a plant like that, there was no way to avoid the dust, and the dust proliferated throughout the facilities in which they worked.

Can You Get Asbestos Exposure From a Final Product Made With Phenolic Molding Compound?

John: Could somebody get an asbestos exposure from exposure to a final product that’s created from a phenolic molding compound?

Paul: They can. Absolutely, they can. Lots of times there’s reasons to cut, drill, or saw these types of products. For example, I’ve heard of underground conduit that was made of phenolic molding compounds, and so this conduit would carry wires and cables that ran underground, so wires and cables for your telephone service or for your electricity, or I’ve even heard it sometimes in railroad settings where they needed it to run the signal boxes.

And so they have all this wiring cable that runs through a conduit, and when they have to put a new wiring cable in, they have to dig a trench, get to the conduit, saw the conduit, cut it, open it up, install their new cable, and then either replace the conduit or put it back together. That’s one example. And it might not be the same kind of exposure to what people got in the facilities where they molded the product, but there have been studies that have been shown that sawing, cutting, drilling, grinding that kind of material will produce a significant amount of dust that ultimately could cause someone to develop mesothelioma.

Are There Modern Phenolic Molding Compound Products That Contain Asbestos?

John: And are there any products today that still use phenolic molding compounds that contain asbestos?

Paul: There probably are not. If there is, it would be something that a foreign company imports in. Fortunately we’re not getting reports right now that anyone’s still being exposed to these kinds of products. However, it is important to note that other countries don’t have the same standards the United States does and so to the extent that foreign manufacturers are sending things through the United States it’s very important for people who are electricians, for people who work for railroads, work for telephone companies… In 2022, they have material safety data sheets for all the things that are typically used in the workplace.

And my recommendation to anyone would be to make sure that before you drill into some plastic piece, before you cut into some underground pipe, before you cut into a panel box or something of that nature that it would be worthwhile to take a look at the material safety data sheet to see if that product in fact does contain asbestos, because it’s very possible that it’s out there, but hopefully that’s not the case.

Get Help From the Law Firm of Satterley & Kelley

John: All right. Well, that’s great information, Paul. Thanks again for speaking with me today.

Paul: Thanks, John.

John: And for more information about mesothelioma and asbestos exposure, visit the Law Firm of Satterley & Kelley at satterleylaw.co or call 855-385-9532.