Asbestos Products

Asbestos Lap

Asbestos lap is a construction product made from felted asbestos, and typically contains at least 10% and up to 75% asbestos. Asbestos lap has a variety of uses. It may be further manufactured into asbestos yarn and cloth for use in protective clothing, ropes and cords, as well as a wide variety of other asbestos-containing products such as adhesives and fillers, or modified for use in construction as roofing textiles or acoustic barriers.

Because asbestos lap is a manufactured product that is used primarily in manufacturing other asbestos-containing materials, most people will not come into contact specifically with asbestos lap. Exposure to this form of asbestos is typically limited to workers in textile factories that use asbestos and asbestos lap in manufacturing.

In 1977, the Consumer Product Safety Commission banned the use of asbestos in most commercial building materials; however asbestos lap may still be used in the manufacture of a limited range of products, including roofing materials and protective clothing.

The Potential Dangers of Asbestos

The dangers of asbestos have been known for several decades - in fact, much earlier than the 1977 restrictions on its use were put into place. Asbestos is dangerous because it is made up of fibers that can become airborne, and inhaled into the lungs. Once the fibers become embedded in the lungs the body cannot remove them, and they remain there and over a period of several decades may eventually cause the development of an asbestos-related disease such as asbestosis or mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma is a very rare but deadly form of cancer that is diagnosed in approximately two thousand Americans each year, most of whom were exposed to asbestos at work. The greatest tragedy of asbestos-related diseases is that many cases of mesothelioma were avoidable - the dangers of the substance have been known for several decades, but the ban on its use came too late to save many thousands of people. Mesothelioma has a very long latency period of two decades or more, and people who develop this cancer in the twenty-first century may have been exposed to asbestos twenty or more years ago.

The families of workers exposed to asbestos may be at risk, too. Historically any women whose husbands worked with asbestos were themselves exposed because the clothes of their spouses were laden with the deadly fibers. Even the children of these workers may have been exposed, and there have been rare cases where children of men who worked with asbestos have developed mesothelioma.

Asbestos and your Rights

Because mesothelioma is only caused by asbestos exposure, people who develop this disease have the right to claim compensation from the company who was responsible for their exposure. In the case of asbestos lap, for example, people who have developed mesothelioma as a consequence of working in a manufacturing plant that produces or works with this substance can claim financial compensation from the company they worked for.

Anyone who has been diagnosed with mesothelioma should know that a statute of limitations applies for people who wish to take legal action. Because of the long latency period of mesothelioma, this statute applies to the date of diagnosis of the disease rather than the date of asbestos exposure. In America, the statute of limitations is two or three years, depending on the state in which you live.

To obtain legal advice, don't hesitate to contact an experienced mesothelioma lawyer who can not only help you understand your legal rights, but can also help you determine when asbestos exposure occurred, who was responsible for the exposure, and help you obtain justice and compensation.

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