Personal Injury Law

Asbestos still killing families, decades later

By asbestoshub

Quoted from http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/21/97843/asbestos-still-killing-families.html

Asbestos still killing families, decades later

Julie Gundlach plays with her daughter, Madeline Young, 7, at their home in St. Louis. Gundlach has mesothelioma. | Derik Holtmann/Belleville News-Democrat/MCT

 

By Brian Brueggemann | Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat

EDWARDSVILLE ? Growing up, the laundry room in Julie Gundlach’s home doubled as a playroom.

And that’s where the 39-year-old figures she got the disease that will almost surely kill her.

Gundlach has mesothelioma, a fast-acting cancer that is always fatal, generally taking a life within six to 18 months of diagnosis.

The disease is caused by exposure to asbestos. Gundlach, though, never worked with asbestos, like many mesothelioma patients, who typically were auto mechanics, welders, electricians, plumbers, pipefitters, plasterers, refinery workers, shipbuilders and other industrial employees.

Gundlach worked at restaurants and as an employee recruiter. But her dad was an electrician who worked at job sites across the region.

“He’d come home and put his dirty clothes in the laundry room, which was our playroom,” Gundlach said.

Her case represents what local lawyers and judges say is becoming a common accusation in asbestos lawsuits: take-home exposure.

They’re cases where, say, someone often shook the dust off a spouse’s dirty work clothes before laundering them. Or where a child often hugged dad and spent time sitting on his lap after he returned home from work.

It’s sometimes called secondary, second-hand or off-site exposure.

[Article continues at original source]

Full post as published by Asbestos HUB on July 21, 2010 (boomark / email).