Asbestos Exposure Threshold
No scientist has been able to find an asbestos threshold level that does not pose a risk for developing asbestos cancers, including mesothelioma. Thus, according to scientists -and in contrast to corporate findings -there is no safe asbestos threshold level, meaning that a person could be at risk for mesothelioma at any exposure level.
Historically, industrial hygienists established threshold limit values (TLVs) to limit the amount of asbestos to which workers were exposed, initially believing that exposure was safe under a certain level. Thus, establishing TLVs would limit the risk of developing asbestosis. However, other asbestos-related diseases, including asbestos lung cancer and mesothelioma, were not considered in these values.
We now know that the TLVs were not even sufficient to fully prevent asbestosis. Experience has shown that even people who did not work with or around asbestos have developed asbestosis because they lived near a mine, or were exposed second-hand their a family member’s clothing, for example. A recent study showed elevated incidence of asbestosis among people living within 10 miles of the Belvidere Mountain asbestos mine in northern Vermont. And hundreds of residents of Libby, Montana have developed the disease, whether or not they worked in W.R. Grace’s nearby asbestos-contaminated vermiculite mine.
In any event, the evidence from asbestos lawsuits has repeatedly shown that workers were regularly exposed to asbestos at levels well above the TLV. Asbestos fibers are so small that an individual could be exposed to a significant level of asbestos without even knowing it. If dust levels in the work environment were high enough that dust from asbestos products was visible, then, according to asbestos experts, the exposure was very high, and most likely over the TLV.
Interestingly enough, most people are unaware that these asbestos threshold levels were ever established, or were told that their workplace conformed to these safety standards. Unfortunately, over the years many asbestos attorneys have uncovered corporate documents that prove the asbestos companies knew about the cancer risks their products posed, but chose to hide the truth. According to these “dirty docs,”the companies knew that the TLVs were a sham, or they simply chose to ignore the safety guidelines altogether because conforming would hurt profits too much.
The asbestos attorneys at Baron and Budd have uncovered several of these shocking documents throughout the firm’s 35-year history of protecting mesothelioma patients, and has even developed a massive database of asbestos companies, products, work sites and other pieces of evidence.
Find out more about what the asbestos companies knew:
