The Asbestos Story: The Asbestos Story - Asbestos Industry, Insurers Face Financial Pressure

Part 12: Asbestos Industry, Insurers Face Financial Pressure

The Asbestos Story: America's Greatest Industrial Tragedy
A Tale of Deceit, Design & Temerity
By Christopher M. Placitella
Cohen, Placitella & Roth, P.C.

The financial pressure on profits caused by the projected number of cases is clearly being felt by the Asbestos industry and its insurers. In an effort to avoid paying certain Asbestos claims, some insurers disclaim coverage and litigation ensues between Asbestos industry members and its insurance carriers.

While industry members and the insurance carriers fight the claims of workers arguing many workers are not injured and not worthy of compensation, the companies take an entirely different position when suing each other.51 Many of the industry admissions are filed under seal so that members of the general public and the workers will not learn what is happening.

The companies consider the insurance coverage case extremely important:

This case and the issues it presents are of wide ranging import because of the thousand of cases involving Asbestos diseases, which have been filed in recent years throughout the United States, and the many cases that can be expected in the future.

Internally, the companies secretly admit that the Asbestos disease process begins as soon as it is inhaled, it is progressive and irreversible. Asbestos disease is advanced by the time it is diagnosable by conventional means.

The undisputed medical facts are that . actual bodily injuries, in the form of tissue or cellular damage caused by lodged Asbestos fibers, begins shortly after such fibers are first inhaled.

That injury and the onset of fibrosis occurs soon after the initial deposition of Asbestos fibers in the lung . is supported by the overwhelming weight of the medical evidence.

* * *

Macrophages summoned to the site of deposit fiber also produce and release upon their arrival toxic substances which eat away surrounding tissue.

* * *

The only conclusion that could be drawn from the medical evidence, is the conclusion that is virtually uniform in the medical literature - Asbestos related injuries are the result of continuous injurious process, beginning with the first exposure and continuing through clinical manifestation.

• The Asbestos Story - Introduction
• The Asbestos Story - The Beginning of the Asbestos Story
• The Asbestos Story - New Jersey Asbestos Lawsuit Filed
• The Asbestos Story - Asbestos Industry Concerns Increase
• The Asbestos Story - Asbestos Companies' Lobbying Efforts Pay Off
• The Asbestos Story - First Modern Asbestos Suit Filed in New Jersey
• The Asbestos Story - New Jersey Physician Dedicates Life to Asbestos Diseases
• The Asbestos Story - Most Important Product Liability Case in American History
• The Asbestos Story - Bad News for Asbestos Industry
• The Asbestos Story - Industry Pleads Ignorance
• The Asbestos Story - Insurance Industry Predicts 410,000 Deaths
• The Asbestos Story - Asbestos Industry, Insurers Face Financial Pressure
• The Asbestos Story - Asbestos Industry Continues Fight Against Workers
• The Asbestos Story - Asbestos Companies Use Bankruptcy Strategy
• The Asbestos Story - Asbestos Victims, Lawyers Blamed for Bankruptcies
• The Asbestos Story - Asbestos Battle Continues

Asbestos Topics

• Asbestos Containing Products
• Asbestos Exposure
• Asbestos Facts
• Asbestos Verdicts
• The Asbestos Story

Asbestos Videos

• Asbestos
• History of Asbestos

Asbestos Links

• Asbestos - Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Provides information about asbestos from the Department of Health and Human Services.