Asbestos Containing Materials

Miami-Dade County Courthouse Secretary Files Asbestos Cancer Lawsuit

June 30, 2018 | Throneberry Law Group

A former secretary at the Miami-Dade courthouse recently filed an asbestos cancer lawsuit against the county claiming the hazards she was subjected to over the course of her employment are responsible for her medical conditions. As a result of her daily exposure to asbestos and mold, the plaintiff’s asbestos cancer lawsuit claims she was forced to undergo lung-extraction surgery and continues to undergo chemotherapy.

According to her asbestos exposure lawsuit, the plaintiff alleges that she started working at the now 90-year-old courthouse in 1994 before moving to another county building in Doral in 2005, where she also faced unsafe working conditions. The plaintiff contends that despite never being a smoker or in poor health, she developed her stage-two lung cancer as a result of exposure to asbestos and mold.

In 2016, the Miami-Dade County commissioner conducted a study on the courthouse and found that the building had not been inspected since 1988 and that recent tests detected the presence of asbestos in the structure. As a result of the report, the county undertook efforts to abate the courthouse of asbestos, but it remains unclear whether the project has been completed.

What if asbestos is inside my home?

April 12, 2018 | Throneberry Law Group

You have an old house that was built in the early 1900s, and your family is investing thousands of dollars in a remodeling project. The contractors have signed on for the work and are about to begin. But you may have overlooked something.

Asbestos? Couldn’t be, you think. Your inspector made no mention of it when you bought the house four years earlier. But upon your research, you learn that many older homes – including some built through the 1980s – contain asbestos.

What you discover soon startles you. Asbestos – a fire-retardant material used in home construction – can be found in a number of places within a home. When asbestos becomes damaged, its fibers become airborne and easily inhaled, potentially leading to severe illnesses such as lung cancer and mesothelioma.

Group finds asbestos in more Claire’s make-up products

March 28, 2018 | Throneberry Law Group

Asbestos-containing make-up continues to be a subject that won’t go away, and it shouldn’t until no traces of this cancer-causing mineral are found in consumer products, especially those geared toward children.

The latest development on this topic once again shined a spotlight on Illinois-based Claire’s Stores – a fashion accessories chain with stores throughout U.S. shopping malls. In February, the watchdog group U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) conducted tests on 15 cosmetic products that contained talc, and were made by four different companies.

Three Claire’s products contained asbestos

Congresswoman Introduces Legislation to Protect Children from Asbestos in Makeup

February 13, 2018 | Throneberry Law Group

Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell recently introduced legislation to protect children from the hidden dangers in makeup products recently pulled from store shelves after news investigations revealed the contaminated merchandise was circulating in popular stores. The legislation, dubbed the Children’s Product Warning Label Act of 2018, would impose new labeling requirements on all cosmetic products marketing to children and inform consumers whether or not the items have been properly vetted.

If passed, the Children’s Product Warning Label Act of 2018 would require cosmetics companies to include a warning label that the product has not been evaluated for asbestos contamination unless certain testing is performed. This includes the manufacturer attesting in writing to the Secretary of the FDA that the source of the cosmetic products comes from an asbestos free-mine, and that they demonstrated to FDA that the product is asbestos-free using the transmission electron microscopy method.

“Parents across the country should have the peace of mind in knowing that the cosmetics they buy for their children are safe. Yet we were all stunned when the retailer Claire’s pulled 17 products from their shelves after asbestos was found in cosmetics marketed to children, including glitter and eye shadow,” said Dingell. “No child should be exposed to asbestos through the use of common, everyday products.”