there's questions in your mind about asbestos. Well one question you may have is which products
have asbestos in them? Hi. I'm Joe Williams. I'm a mesothelioma trial attorney in New York
City and I can answer this question for you.
Over the past century, there have been about
3,000 products -- 3,000, a lot of products -- used in America that contained asbestos
and exposed workers to this industrial toxin, this poison, this carcinogen, known as asbestos.
And of those 3,000 or so products, we know that they were primarily used as insulators
and also for their durability -- their strength, their tensile strength. And we can talk about
the insulation properties of asbestos cement and refactoring and firebrick and pipe covering,
and those things are products that workers often use and were exposed to asbestos from.
There's also the strength and durability properties that were used in products such as floor tile
and roofing products. Let's talk about some of those products here today. The first I
want to talk to you about is joint compound.
And joint compound I think many of know what
that is, even today, is currently used the same way it was used back in the 60s and 70s
and that is still seal the joints between boards of sheetrock. Now today it doesn't
have asbestos in it because it was banned in 1977 by the Consumer Products Safety Commission.
But prior to that time, joint compound from many manufacturers contained asbestos. And
when this product was put on the walls in between these seams of sheetrock (or on the
nail or screw heads where the sheetrock was attached to the wall) the workers would sand
down that sheetrock, creating lots of asbestos dust in their work zone. In addition, prior
to that, building material (you know, sheetrock that we know of today) walls used to be constructed
of plaster.
Metal lathe put up, plaster mixed with water to create a slurry of plaster which
was then attached and then applied to the metal lathe. And then that plaster, in many
circumstances, contained asbestos. So when the worker -- and perhaps the worker is you
-- but when the worker sanded down that plaster that created asbestos dust which the worker
breathed which can cause mesothelioma. We know that asbestos was in floor tiles up until
the mid to late 80s, even as late as 1986.
And these floor tiles were used in banks and
buildings and factories and schools throughout the United States for many decades and they
came in 9 X 9 or 12 X 12 sizes and contained asbestos (as well as other sizes). But workers
would cut these floor tiles, snap them, creating dust and that was a well known, documented
exposure to asbestos. Other things contained asbestos as well, such as ceiling tiles in
a drop ceiling and they were cut to fit causing exposure to workers. Roofing materials on
pitched roofs, in residential settings some of the shingles on pitched roofs contained
asbestos.
And on flat roofs, in more of a commercial building, some of the rolled roofing
(the base sheet and the rolled roofing felt, as well as the mastic that was used to seal
various joints and the flashing material that was used by professional roofers), many of
these products contained asbestos throughout the course of the last century. And one more
thing is something that we know of as "bakelite" which electricians primarily dealt with when
dealing with electrical panel boxes. And we all have one of these panel boxes in the basement
of our house. And if you can imagine a large factory or a large industrial setting the
box is even bigger and this bakelite was the material behind the various switches, which
was an insulating fireproof material but it was made with asbestos.
And when that product
was altered it created a dust which electricians and others can breathe. And these are just
some of the many, many types of products which we know contained asbestos throughout the
course of the last century and exposed many workers to asbestos dust causing them to get
mesothelioma. And there are many more products than this brief list which I'm giving you
here today and I'm sure you have many questions about asbestos and the various products that
asbestos was used in. I'm Joe Williams and every day we deal with these cases for mesothelioma
victims and we can answer your questions.
So you should pick up the phone at the number
listed below (that's my office number) and give us a call. I hope you found this video
informative and thank you very much for listening..
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