Latest Mesothelioma Lawsuit News Update: Resource4thePeople Encourages ... - DigitalJournal.com (press release)

San Diego, CA (PRWEB) July 30, 2013

http://www.resource4thepeople.com/occupationaldisease/mesothelioma-lawsuit.html

Resource4thePeople announced today that it is encouraging U.S. Navy veterans and other military veterans who may have developed malignant mesothelioma to take advantage of free legal consultations about their rights to seek compensation for medical costs and other expenses.

“Mesothelioma is a deadly cancer that is caused by exposure to asbestos and affects thousands of Americans each year and U.S. Navy veterans are among those most at risk,” said Resource4thePeople.

“Our national team of attorneys is now placing a greater emphasis on providing legal options for these veterans and their loved ones to seek compensation for the effects and costs of this devastating cancer.”

Resource4thePeople notes that asbestos was long a common component in shipbuilding and utilized for insulating, fireproofing and other uses aboard Navy vessels.

“Exposure to asbestos is the overwhelming cause of mesothelioma and because it was so widespread before new environmental laws were put into effect it is impossible to calculate how many thousands of veterans were exposed to this toxic material,” said Resource4thePeople.

The U.S. Veteran’s Administration on its mesothelioma page of the VA website posted this warning* for veterans, which includes a reference to recent service in the Iraq wars:

“Veterans who served in any of the following occupations may have been exposed to asbestos: mining, milling, shipyard work, insulation work, demolition of old buildings, carpentry and construction, manufacturing and installation of products such as flooring and roofing.

“Veterans who served in Iraq and other countries in that region could have been exposed to asbestos when older buildings were damaged and the contaminant released into the air.”

Resource4thePeople also is informing Navy veterans that over the last few years the average amount of compensation awarded by juries or reached in settlements in mesothelioma cases has continued to increase. These figures were recently documented in an investigative report published May, 11, 2012 by Reuters News Service:**

"No central registry keeps track of asbestos lawsuits filed yearly or their outcomes," Reuters said. "A tabulation of jury verdicts and settlements, based on an average of all asbestos-related lawsuits reported in Westlaw Journal Asbestos, a Thomson Reuters publication, found that the average award was $6.3 million in 2009, $17.6 million in 2010 and $10.5 million in 2011 -- amounts much greater than what lawyers say was the norm more than a decade earlier.

"Clearly, mesothelioma and other asbestos-related payouts persist at levels companies and their insurers never expected. Insurers have been adding hundreds of millions of dollars to their asbestos-claim reserves. Travelers Cos, in its annual report for 2011, echoed its peers when it cited a "high degree of uncertainty with respect to future exposure from asbestos claims."

Resource4thePeople also notes that although strict new environmental laws designed to protect Navy veterans and others from mesothelioma have been in place for several decades the number of mesothelioma cases has actually been increasing.

For instance, in its Jan. 7, 2013 Report to the Nation about cancer statistics the National Cancer Institute, which says there are about 2,000 to 3,000 new cases of mesothelioma diagnosed in the country each year, reports encouraging news about decreases in cancer death rates.***

However, while some of the most common cancers such as lung, colon and rectum, female breast and prostate showed declines, mesothelioma was not among the cancers mentioned as showing an improvement in decreasing death rates.

The U.S. government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site shows that federal officials say that the number of cases of asbestos-caused diseases is now peaking in the country.

Here is part of the CDC report**** that documents these figures and the changing asbestos scenario:

“In the past, asbestos exposure was associated mainly with mining and milling of the raw material and with workers engaged in construction and product manufacture or use of end products. In the industrialized west, these heavy asbestos exposures peaked during the 1960s and 1970s and then it declined as worker protection regulations were put in place and later as industrial use of asbestos decreased. Because of long latency periods (10–40 years), workers exposed to asbestos in the 1960s and 1970s are now manifesting asbestos-associated diseases. Indeed, the incidence of asbestos-associated diseases among people occupationally exposed is beginning to peak and will likely begin to decline sometime in the next 2 decades.

“Today in the United States, most occupational exposures occur during repair, renovation, removal, or maintenance of asbestos that was installed years ago. People can also be exposed at home, both to old sources of asbestos as a result of activities such as home renovation or to new sources of asbestos as a result of certain types of recreational activities and hobbies such as auto repairs or gardening, which may disturb natural outcroppings of asbestos in the environment.”

“Unfortunately, because mesothelioma is a rare cancer it has not drawn much public attention,” said Resource4thePeople. “However, the disease has such a long latency period that more and more victims are being diagnosed in their 50s, 60s and 70s."

Resource4thePeople is finding that the government officials have been correct in anticipating growing numbers of asbestos victims.

“There has been a recent surge in requests for complimentary consultations from those who, tragically, have been diagnosed with this deadly, aggressive cancer for which there is no cure," said Resource4thePeople. "A significant proportion are Navy veterans."

Mesothelioma develops after victims unknowingly inhale microscopic particles of asbestos which lodge in the linings of the lungs, heart or abdominal organs and eventually generate cancer cells which form tumors or spread to other parts of the body.

Sources:

**http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/11/us-usa-asbestos-lawsuits-idUSBRE84A0J920120511

***http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/newsfromnci/2013/ReportNation

****http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/asbestos/docs/asbestos.pdf

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/7/prweb10967637.htm