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You've been diagnosed with mesothelioma and 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.