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Someone in your family has been diagnosed with mesothelioma and you're trying to figure
out all the ways that they could have been exposed to asbestos during the course of their
life but how do you figure all that out? Hi. I'm Joe Williams. I'm a mesothelioma trial
attorney in New York City and I can tell you that the primary way of unlocking all this
information is through a very detailed occupational exposure history. And what the basically means
is that the patient -- the victim, the mesothelioma victim -- has in their mind all the ways that
they could have been exposed to asbestos and we just need to talk it out and sit with them
and talk about all the types of exposures they could have had. We review every job they
ever had. And some jobs that a victim of mesothelioma thinks are inconsequential or brief; they
may be the most important. Some jobs that they think are very causative of mesothelioma
they may not be the most important. But we walk through this entire process -- through
their youth as a child up until the present day and every job and every possible exposure
they could have had. So in order to do that what do we do? Well, we talk about the first
job they ever had. Sometimes clients tell me, "Well as a kid I had a paper route. Well
that couldn't have exposed me to asbestos." And I agree. But then we talk about some other
things that they did as a young man or woman that may be relevant to the exposure history
as it relates to asbestos. And we go through what they did at all these jobs and we do
this in a relatively stress free way because it's important to recognize that a person
with mesothelioma is suffering. And the last thing we want to do is stress them with a
legal case; we make this as simple as we possibly can. We talk about those occupational exposures
and we also talk about potential environmental exposures. Did they live near a manufacturing
plant that was manufacturing products using asbestos? Perhaps there was dust from that
manufacturing process that caused them to be exposed to asbestos. That could be another
exposure. We talk about potential household exposures. Well, what did this mesothelioma
victim's parents or family members do for a living? Perhaps there's some sort of asbestos
exposure there. Did the victim's father work in an industry and bring asbestos home on
their clothes? That's another possible asbestos exposure. But what I can tell you about this
part of the process is -- this workup, the investigation -- is that it is very thorough.
And it's important to be extremely thorough while at the same time not causing stress
to the victim and to their families. And I know all this because this is what we do every
day. I'm Joe Williams and at our office we represent mesothelioma victims every day.
And I'm sure you have more questions; we can answer those questions. I encourage you to
call the number below that's our office number and we'll help and answer your questions.
Thank you.