Sources of Asbestos Exposure | Mesothelioma Claims

Asbestos exposure affected an estimated 27.5 million American workers over the course of the 20th century. But workers weren't the only victims. Their families were exposed too, breathing fibers carried home on work clothes. So were consumers who never set foot in a factory but used products made with asbestos in their homes, their cars, and their daily lives. And so were millions of military service members who served on ships, aircraft, and bases built with asbestos materials.

Although the exposure pathways were different, the result was the same: mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, and other diseases that continue to be diagnosed decades after the exposure occurred.

The companies that mined, manufactured, and sold asbestos products knew they were dangerous. Internal documents show they understood the health risks as early as the 1930s. They used the materials anyway, and exposed workers, families, and consumers without warning. They can be held accountable.

This page will help you understand how asbestos exposure happened and identify which pathway applies to you. Each leads to legal options that can provide compensation for what you've been through.

How Were You Exposed?

Asbestos exposure happened through multiple pathways. Understanding which one applies to you is the first step toward identifying the companies responsible and the compensation available.

Your Occupation

If you worked directly with asbestos-containing materials (installing insulation, replacing brakes, cutting pipe, mixing joint compound, wrapping boilers) your occupation determined your exposure level. Some trades involved daily contact with friable asbestos that crumbled in your hands and filled the air with fibers.

Insulation workers faced the highest exposure of any trade. But pipefitters, boilermakers, electricians, steamfitters, shipfitters, brake mechanics, construction workers, and dozens of other occupations encountered asbestos regularly. So did workers whose jobs didn't involve asbestos directly but who worked alongside those who handled it because the fibers drifted.

Learn how specific occupations were affected.

Your Workplace

Even if your job title had nothing to do with asbestos, the facility where you worked may have been saturated with it.

Refineries, power plants, chemical plants, steel mills, paper mills, and shipyards used asbestos throughout their operations in insulation, gaskets, packing, fireproofing, and equipment. The fibers became airborne during maintenance and repairs, contaminating entire facilities. Everyone who worked in these environments breathed the same air: engineers, supervisors, secretaries, security guards, cafeteria workers. Your job didn't have to involve asbestos for your workplace to expose you.

Learn how entire industries were contaminated.

The Products You Used

You didn't have to work in industry to be exposed. Asbestos was woven into the fabric of American consumer life.

Between 3,000 and 5,000 commercial products contained asbestos: floor tiles, ceiling tiles, roofing shingles, insulation, brake pads, clutch facings, hair dryers, toasters, ironing board covers, pot holders, even artificial snow for Christmas decorations. Homeowners who installed their own flooring, hobbyists who rebuilt car engines, and families who lived in homes insulated with asbestos were all exposed through products marketed as safe and modern.

Learn which products contained asbestos.

Someone You Loved

Family members of asbestos workers have developed mesothelioma, and sometimes lung cancer or asbestosis, without ever working in industry themselves.

Asbestos fibers cling to fabric, hair, and skin with a static charge that's hard to shake loose, and workers carried them home every day. The laundry was the heart of it: industrial hygiene testing of someone simply shaking out clothes worn around asbestos pipe and block insulation measured 1.86 fibers per cubic centimeter in the room's air, roughly nineteen times today's federal limit. A wife breathed that with every load, and a child who hugged a parent at the door pressed into the same contaminated fabric. The exposure was invisible, cumulative, and could go on for decades.

Clarence Borel's daughters described shaking the dust from his work clothes "like snow." Four of his six children developed asbestosis. They never worked a day in a refinery. Their only exposure was their father.

How take-home asbestos exposure affects families

Your Military Service

Every branch of the United States military used asbestos extensively for decades.

The Navy wrapped it around pipes and boilers on virtually every ship. The Air Force built it into aircraft. The Army used it in vehicles, barracks, and equipment. Veterans from World War II through the 1980s were exposed during their service—and many are being diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases today.

Veterans have something other asbestos victims don't: a third path to compensation. In addition to trust claims and lawsuits, veterans whose exposure occurred during service may qualify for VA disability benefits.

Learn about exposure during military service.

What They Knew

The asbestos industry knew its products were killing people. They used them anyway.

By the 1930s, medical research had documented asbestosis (the sometimes-fatal scarring lung disease caused by asbestos fibers) in workers across multiple industries. By the 1940s, the connection between asbestos and lung cancer was established. German researchers had proven the link so convincingly that Nazi Germany made asbestos-related lung cancer a compensable occupational disease in 1943. By the 1960s, researchers had connected asbestos exposure to mesothelioma, the aggressive cancer of the lung lining that is almost exclusively caused by asbestos.

The science was clear. The response was suppression.

Internal company documents (exposed through decades of litigation) reveal that asbestos manufacturers actively concealed what they knew. They funded research designed to downplay the risks. They pressured scientists to soften their conclusions. They fought warning labels. They told workers the dust was harmless.

In 1973, a dying insulation worker named Clarence Borel changed everything. His lawsuit against eleven asbestos manufacturers resulted in the first successful asbestos product liability verdict in American history. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that manufacturers had a duty to warn workers about known dangers and that they had breached it. Every asbestos lawsuit filed since traces back to his case.

Read the full story of the case that changed asbestos law.

Legal Options

Regardless of how you were exposed—through your job, your workplace, products in your home, a family member's work clothes, or military service—you have legal options. The companies that manufactured and sold asbestos products can be held accountable for the harm they caused.

Asbestos Trust Claims. Dozens of asbestos manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy and established trusts to compensate victims. These trusts were funded with over $30 billion in assets set aside specifically for people diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases. Claims are resolved without going to court.

Lawsuits. Companies that haven't filed bankruptcy can still be sued for product liability, premises liability, and wrongful death. These cases can result in substantial compensation, including damages for medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, and in some cases, punitive damages.

Social Security Disability. Asbestos-related diseases can qualify for Social Security Disability benefits. Mesothelioma is included in Social Security's Compassionate Allowances program, which expedites approval for conditions so severe that they obviously meet disability standards.

Veterans' Benefits. Military veterans whose exposure occurred during service may also qualify for VA disability compensation (monthly tax-free payments and VA healthcare) in addition to trust claims and lawsuits.

These paths can be pursued simultaneously. Most victims qualify for multiple sources of compensation.

Explore all your legal options.