If you're one of the millions of welders and mesothelioma has impacted your life, you may be eligible for compensation. To learn if you are and to get started right away, contact our office today. You can also learn more about the mesothelioma claims process here.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that approximately 400,000 people work as welders. Before them came a long parade of people who had used fire or electric arcs to join pieces of metal. Welders, then as now, created those joins with the aid of flux-coated metal rods. Up until the 1970s, those rods were manufactured with asbestos added to them.
However, the companies who manifested the rods knew that asbestos was a massive health risk and could cause cancer and other diseases for unprotected workers. They said nothing, or worse, they gave inadequate warnings to the welders without making sure it was understood. Because the less sign they gave, the more people bought their rods and the more profit the manufacturer made.
For many who worked as welders between the 1940s and 1980s—and perhaps even as recently as the 2000s and 2010s—this failure to adequately warn resulted in asbestos exposure. Asbestos exposure occurred whenever the asbestos-containing rod was hit by the flame or current of an acetylene torch or an electric welding system. This reaction caused quite a lot of smoke, and the smoke was tainted with asbestos particles. The smoke would float around a welder's head, and since they had no protection to keep air out, they would be breathing in and swallowing asbestos!
Then the asbestos would get into their lungs and stomachs and stay there, where after a decade, they would start to cause harm. Asbestos exposure would show up, and welders who were affected could develop mesothelioma, asbestos lung cancer, and asbestosis, which is painful scarring of the lungs.
Most welders of the past got away without suffering an illness caused by asbestos. However, a small number did end up suffering from asbestos-related diseases. The welders today are adequately trained, protected, and informed about asbestos and the dangers it causes, but they can still encounter asbestos. They aren't using coated rods, but they can find asbestos-coated materials in old structures where renovations and demolitions occur.
Other trades also experienced asbestos exposure that developed into mesothelioma. These trades include:
If you're one of the millions of welders and mesothelioma has impacted your life, you may be eligible for compensation. To learn if you are and to get started right away, contact our office today. You can also learn more about the mesothelioma claims process here.
A welder fuses or cuts metal with hand-held or remotely controlled equipment that produces extreme heat.
Welders work in construction but also in any industry that utilizes metal. Some of those non-construction industries include:
A welding specialty field is cutting. Cutters use torches, plasma, or arcs to slice metal to size. Cutters are in the most significant demand for demolition work, such as the dismantling of ships but also the teardown of buildings.
Like most construction fields, welders have specializations they can explore. One of those specializations is cutting. Cutters use torches, heated plasma, or electric welding arcs to slice larger sheets and chunks of metal into smaller, perfectly sized pieces for jobs. Blades typically work on metal demolition projects, including tearing apart old ships and buildings.
In construction, welders help build, refurbish, retrofit, and demolish low-, mid-, and high-rise offices as well as factories, institutions, refineries, powerplants, pipelines, and bridges. The most widely used method of creating metal joins arc welding. This entails applying electric current to the join. The current flow between closely positioned electrodes causes an arc of intense light and heat (with temperatures reaching approximately 6,500 degrees Fahrenheit). The tip of a flux-coated rod adjacent to the arc supplies molten metal to fill the joint and cause the pieces on each side to bond. The flux limits the chemical interaction of air and molten metal to prevent damage to the parts and the join.
If you're one of the millions of welders and mesothelioma has impacted your life, you may be eligible for compensation. To learn if you are and to get started right away, contact our office today. You can also learn more about the mesothelioma claims process here.
There are different types of arc welding, each requiring its type of welding rods. The arc welding types are:
One of the most likely ways a welder could become exposed to asbestos was by using welding rods.
The welding rods in the 20th century were laced with asbestos, up to having about a quarter of the material of the rod as asbestos. Although this did change due to what the rod was to be used for. For example, stainless steel rods might have 5 percent asbestos content, while general-purpose rods might have 30 percent asbestos content.
Some of the asbestos that makers added was incorporated into the metal core of the rod. The remainder was added to the flux coating. In both cases, the mineral was added to yield a cleaner, more robust, more easily achieved bond between the welded metal pieces.
However, despite the increased weld bond, it came with a cost. The asbestos connected to the weld did not stay on, and the particles would float off and into the air. Welders would use several rods during a typical workday, all with asbestos that wouldn't stay on the weld. The more rods, the higher the count of asbestos in the air!
Asbestos can be broken away and sent into the air through it being disturbed, and nothing was more disturbing than the grinder. Cooled welds were subjected to an abrasive grinder that worked on speed, and the high RPM wheel would smooth out all the rough edges on the weld. The smoothing process would cause all sorts of sparks and smoke to rise from the point of contact, and most of that was asbestos, and it would have moved around the Welder's head, ready to be ingested or swallowed.
It was not until the 1980s that manufacturers stopped adding asbestos to their welding rods. However, the risk to welders continued long afterward because asbestos-laced rods made before that time was still available for sale—and continued to be until supplies were exhausted decades later..
But the welders weren't just at risk from the rods and grinders. They were also exposed to the protective equipment they wore, other asbestos-coated materials such as drywall on the job site, and working with other professional construction workers who were disturbing their asbestos items during construction. But what is the most shocking is how the workers' protective gear was putting them in the most danger.
If you're one of the millions of welders and mesothelioma has impacted your life, you may be eligible for compensation. To learn if you are and to get started right away, contact our office today. You can also learn more about the mesothelioma claims process here.
While a welder's welding mask is both easily recognizable and also able to keep the Welder sheltered from the intense light and heat that welding causes, it can't stop airborne particles from getting inside the Welder, which makes it very hard to avoid asbestos-laced smoke and dust whenever welders worked with those asbestos coated rods.
To stop the risk of being burned by welding accidents, the thick gloves and aprons that the welders wore were designed with asbestos to help reduce heat, ensure that the welders remained comfortable, and shield them from being hurt incase of an accident. The asbestos also improved the durability of the gloves and apron.
However, even though the asbestos was packed away inside of the inner lining of the gloves and apron, and they were designed to be durable, rips and tears did happen, and if the inner lining of asbestos were exposed, then the particles would escape into the air and get into the Welder.
Finally, Welders would use thick and heavy welding blankets to lay over or wrap around high heat sources, including motors and steam pipes. These were also made from asbestos in the inner layer, much like the gloves and aprons. However, they could also get ripped and damaged after prolonged usage, and the asbestos would be exposed to the Welder.
If you're one of the millions of welders and mesothelioma has impacted your life, you may be eligible for compensation. To learn if you are and to get started right away, contact our office today. You can also learn more about the mesothelioma claims process here.
It was not unusual for welders in the last century to come into contact with materials containing asbestos while engaged in their work. These non-painter building materials include:
Companies that made these products from the 1930s onward often used asbestos. The molecular properties of asbestos were such that the internal or external addition of the mineral to almost anything would make that material look better, work harder, and last longer.
For example, asbestos coated over steam pipes would prevent the high heat within them from conducting outward to exterior surfaces, making it safe for bare human hands to touch them without sustaining burns. Asbestos added to walls allowed them to block the transmission of noise. Perhaps most importantly, asbestos made things fireproof.
Asbestos on the job site wasn't dangerous if you didn't disturb it. So if the material was made from asbestos near the work site, you didn't want the particles to get off that material and into the air. At a construction site, however, disturbances are pretty frequent. Workers will be drilling into things, cutting, hammering, cracking, and sawing, all of which are disturbances that can set asbestos particles into the air.
During a disturbance, the small pieces of asbestos would break free and float into the air to get into the air shared by the Welder. Working outdoors could help a bit, especially on a breezy day, but with the number of asbestos particles needed to cause some health problems, outdoor welders didn't get that much of an advantage. If the particles were inhaled or ingested, the tiny fiberlike particles of asbestos would go into their lungs, stomach, and intestines. They'd embed next to healthy cells, too tightly for the body to get rid of them on their own, and then start turning them into infected and tumorous cells that can cause cancer and other diseases. The process is long and slow, sometimes taking decades, and most people suffering from asbestos exposure get the illness several years after encountering the particles.
If you're one of the millions of welders and mesothelioma has impacted your life, you may be eligible for compensation. To learn if you are and to get started right away, contact our office today. You can also learn more about the mesothelioma claims process here.
Welders are never alone at a construction site; they often work alongside several other types of construction workers doing their jobs on the shared project.
However, welders working alongside or immediately following on the heels of electricians, plumbers, bricklayers, and insulators (to name but a few) were, during the era of asbestos, vulnerable to exposure to the mineral as a result of the activities of those other trades.
Everything back then was made from asbestos, and whenever the other trades cut drywall, moved to the floor, impacted insulation, and sanded down bricks, they released asbestos particles into the air, which caused problems for them and everyone else at the construction site. Asbestos particles would be in the air or on the ground, just waiting for someone to inhale them, ingest them, or kick them back into the air to be inhaled and ingested!
If you're one of the millions of welders and mesothelioma has impacted your life, you may be eligible for compensation. To learn if you are and to get started right away, contact our office today. You can also learn more about the mesothelioma claims process here.
Mesothelioma, asbestos lung cancer, and asbestosis are consequences of asbestos exposure. These can be painful, detrimental, and costly regarding physical and emotional wellbeing.
Many exposed welders who subsequently suffered an asbestos-related illness discovered that those conditions are expensive to treat. They also found that developing asbestos illness can make working and earning a paycheck difficult or impossible.
Fortunately, asbestos-injured welders can sue to collect compensation for the cost of treatment, to make up for lost wages, and more. Such lawsuits can be aimed at the companies that made and sold the asbestos products welders used or with which they came into contact. There is a record of plaintiff welders winning substantial sums from these lawsuits (which often never get to the trial phase since defendant companies tend to prefer settling out of court).
Also available to asbestos-injured welders is the remedy option from an asbestos bankruptcy trust. This entity is set up by asbestos companies that have sought protections from federal bankruptcy laws. Those laws bar welders and others from suing such companies but also compel the companies to deposit large amounts of funds into trusts so injured parties can apply for compensation.
