Articles Posted in Toxic Torts

Lead paint has been recognized as a dangerous substance that can cause serious injury by the public for some time now. While many modern day lead paint stories come from events like dangerous toy recalls, ten California public agencies, including the city of San Francisco, are making headlines this week in their ongoing battle against major lead paint manufacturers. While lead paint suits may have at one time thought to have been the wave in toxic tort litigation, the recent suits seems to suggest otherwise.

Legalnewsline.com reports that the suit, The People of California v. Atlantic Richfield Company, et. al., is making headlines this week as expert witness testimony is being heard in Santa Clara County Superior Court. Though the suit was filed 13 years ago, the battle is fresh, and, despite urgings from the judge, no settlement appears to be on the horizon. So far, Dr. Gerald Markowitz, an expert historian and professor from the City University of New York, has testified that deregulation in laws permitted paint companies such as Atlantic Richfield Company (also known as “ARCO”) to mix lead paint for tens of years, even though they were aware that there were health hazards associated with it.

Despite this testimony, and other equally as strong evidence, success against the major lead manufacturers is far from a slam dunk. According to Publicintergrity.org, the lead paint industry has successfully defended against approximately 50 suits by various plaintiffs, including states, counties, school districts and states over the last two-and-a-half decades.

It has been a week filled with difficult news. Our hearts go out to those injured in the Boston Marathon bombing and to the families of those killed in the attack. A day later, on Tuesday, a frightening story of envelopes potentially containing a dangerous poison followed. The week was already bad enough when, on Wednesday evening, an explosion rocked a Texas town. Our San Francisco industrial accident law firm is closely following this developing story, a case involving a workplace explosion and the added risk of toxic exposure.

Explosion Levels Town, Claims Lives, and Raises Concerns of Toxic Exposure

At the time of this writing, the story was still unfolding and The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas had claimed between five and fifteen lives. The incident occurred in the town of West, a community of 2,800 about twenty miles north of Waco. Reports indicate that an initial fire at the West Fertilizer Company broke out around 7:30 P.M. and was followed about 50 minutes later by a large explosion registering a 2.5 on the Richter scale. The blast leveled a five-block area and left a scene that Sergeant William Patrick Swanton of the Waco police department called “almost tornadic” in appearance. Other witnesses say it looked like a war zone. More than 150 people were taken to hospitals in the area, including at least 24 in critical condition and 38 more in serious condition at the time of the article. Injuries included broken bones, major lacerations, and burns. Emergency personnel who responded to the initial fire are believed to be among the victims and three to five firefighters were unaccounted for as of a briefing on Thursday morning.

Our San Francisco toxic tort law firm represents people who suffer serious illness as a result of exposure to chemicals or other toxins. Toxic tort cases are often complicated by the fact that many illnesses do not develop until several years after exposure. We follow exposure-related sicknesses from across the country, and even across the globe, so that we can help our California clients develop evidence to support their legal claims in our state and federal courts.

Researchers Find Increased Rate of Certain Cancers in World Trade Center Firefighters

A newly released study, discussed in an article in U.S. News & World Report, suggests an increased rate of several cancers among the first responder to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Researchers at the New York City Department of Health found a forty percent increase in the rate of prostate cancer among the 9,853 firefighters working for the New York Fire Department. The group also suffered from thyroid cancers twice as frequently as occurred in the general population. Additionally, seven of the firefighters developed multiple myeloma, as opposed to the two cases that would be expected in a group of that size.

Sometimes health threats seem so widely known that we assume they should no longer be an on-going problem. According to the Center for Disease Control (the “CDC”), children in at least four million households worldwide continue to be exposed to lead, despite the fact that the dangers of exposure have long been known. In just the U.S. alone, approximately half a million children under age five have dangerous levels of lead in their blood (above five micrograms per deciliter). Our San Francisco lead poisoning lawyer remains committed to helping individuals and families whose health has suffered as a result of exposure to lead and other dangerous toxins.

While lead poisoning can impact nearly every system in the human body, it often has few or no obvious early symptoms. High levels of lead can damage kidneys, cause high blood pressure and other forms of heart disease, cause gastrointestinal and neuromuscular problems, and impact both male and female reproductive systems. Lead can pass from a mother to a baby while in utero, leading to a risk of miscarriage, premature birth, and developmental problems in childhood. Lead is particularly dangerous to the nervous system and while damage to some systems may be reversible if treated, damage to the central nervous system cannot be reversed. Children’s nervous systems are especially at risk with lead exposure causing decreased brain volume and other neural damage that may lead to learning and developmental disabilities. Memory, reasoning skills, reading ability, attention span, and social skills can be harmed at very low blood levels, particularly in the fast-developing brains of younger children. Lead exposure can also shorten life span and lead to increased death rates from a number of related causes.

The CDC has created a Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program aimed at eliminating blood levels in excess of 10 micrograms per deciliter by 2020. Program officials note that lead is often a bigger threat to people in poorer areas, although it has been reported in a range of social classes. While the U.S. banned the use of lead-based paint for housing purposes in 1978, it remains present in many older homes. Certain workplaces can contain high-levels of lead, such as place that manufacture radiation shields and ammunition as well as some industrial plants. Parents may be exposed to lead at work and carry dust home leading to their children being exposed to the toxin. Lead has also been found in toys, particularly those imported from nations with less regulation.