Former Flintkote Workers Advised to Report Health Impacts
Although Flintkote has gone bankrupt because of asbestos-related lawsuits, public health officials in Fremont, CA are asking former employees to report about any potential impacts they have had from asbestos exposure.
Between 1967 and 1979, Flintkote workers were exposed to low levels of asbestos, according to the Federal Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry. The workers and their families could be at risk because employees might have carried the potentially toxic asbestos fibers home on their clothing or on their bodies. Cancer records and death records for the neighborhood reviewed by State health officials revealed scattered evidence that the number of deaths from asbestos exposure is higher than expected.
A new study by Japanese researchers suggests that people who have ever lived near an asbestos manufacturing plant are at risk of developing mesothelioma decades later. Risk was especially noted among those who lived roughly 1.5 miles downwind of the Japanese cement pipe plant.
Asbestos is not one mineral but the name given to a group of naturally occurring minerals such as vermiculite, amosite, chrysotile, crocidolite, tremolite, actinolite and anthophylite withlong thin fibers that are tasteless and hardly detectable in the air or on clothing. When inhaled they become lodged in the lungs and over time can cause inflammation, scarring and possibly a deadly form of cancer known as mesothelioma.
Asbestos is resistant to heat and fire, and was used as insulation in building materials for years before it was found to be harmful to the body. U.S. Gypsum now owns the former Flintkote site and uses the site as a reloading and distribution center.
The asbestos attorneys at Clapper, Patti, Schweizer & Mason advise former workers and their families to educate themselves about asbestos exposure by visiting our web site at http://www.mesothelioma-attorney.com/mesothelioma/mesothelioma and http://www.mesothelioma-attorney.com/mesothelioma/asbestos.
