Asbestos is the only known cause of mesothelioma in the United States.
In the United States, asbestos was one of the first hazardous air pollutants regulated under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act of 1970.
Today, lawsuits claiming that asbestos caused plaintiffs' diseases form a gigantic part of the total amount of lawsuits pending in American courts. Since the late 1970s, approximately 6% of all filings in American courts each year were related to asbestos, leading to its perception as a sort of poster child of tort reform and the rampant lawsuit excesses of the United States. As of 2004, asbestos cases result in about 600 to 700 appellate opinions per year (that is, including both federal and state courts); this number obviously does not include countless more cases that were not appealed, or were settled or otherwise abandoned before trial. Estimates of total American deaths attributable to asbestos range from 200,000 to 265,000 (according to the March 1991 Report of the Judicial Conference Ad Hoc Committee on Asbestos Litigation).
Asbestos-related cases were a rare sight on the U.S. Supreme Court docket prior to 1980, but since then, the Court has dealt with asbestos-injury cases in 2002, 1999, 1997, 1995, 1993, and 1986. The 1999 and 1997 cases both involved giant settlement class actions that were designed to stabilize the liability of the largest defendants. Both settlements were ultimately overturned by the Court.
In the U.S. Congress, legislation has been introduced each session for many years, proposing to ban civil lawsuits against asbestos manufacturers and instead establish a settlement fund for victims.
Asbestos liability is by far the largest issue facing the global insurance industry today, with the industry protesting because many are suing because they have been exposed but have not as yet contracted asbestos-related lung diseases, which have latency periods of 10-40 years, and because lawyers spend millions each year advertising to promote just that kind of frivolous lawsuit.
-Courtesy of wikipedia
A rare form of lung cancer, Malignant mesothelioma is a disease in which cancer cells are found in the sac lining the chest or abdomen. Most people diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma have worked on jobs where they breathed asbestos (fibers).
Specifically, it which affects the pleura, a sac which surrounds the lungs, the peritoneum, the lining of the abdominal cavity, or the pericardium, a sac that surrounds the heart.