Can an Asbestos Ban Eliminate Mesothelioma?

While asbestos has been heavily regulated since the 1970s, the fact remains that some industries still heavily rely on asbestos to make products. However, asbestos has also been shown to cause mesothelioma, which is why some health experts advocate for a complete and total ban of asbestos in the United States.

Even so, there is no indication that an asbestos ban could wipe out mesothelioma entirely. In fact, the evidence seems to point to the contrary based on research conducted by Italian researchers.

Nearly Three Decades After Italy’s Asbestos Ban, Mesothelioma Deaths Are Rising

Italy instituted a nationwide ban on asbestos twenty-six years ago, with the hope naturally being that mesothelioma diagnoses and deaths would be reduced. However, based on findings from researchers in Rome’s Istituto Superiore di Sanita, this may not be the case.

The researchers decided to take a closer look at mesothelioma mortality rates between 2003 and 2014. What they discovered was, in some respects, a surprise. Over that nearly decade-long period, more than 16,000 people died from malignant mesothelioma.

In some ways, this is not necessarily surprising since it can take decades for asbestos exposure to turn into mesothelioma. Effectively, this is a stark reminder that the disease’s long latency period means a ban today in no way means that the harms of mesothelioma will not continue for many more decades.

As such, while 55 countries have now banned asbestos — with the United States as a known exception — those countries continue to suffer from the harms of mesothelioma. This could be, in part, attributable to the fact that Iceland was the first nation that banned asbestos in the early 1980s. Mesothelioma’s latency period can be as long as 50 years, meaning no asbestos ban has yet to exceed the duration of the disease’s half-century latency timeline.

Mesothelioma Will Continue to Be a Health Risk for the Foreseeable Future

The takeaway of these findings is that mesothelioma will continue to pose a health risk in the United States for years to come. Even if asbestos is banned tomorrow, that still means it could take at least 50 years of additional mesothelioma victims before the harms of asbestos are eliminated. Even then, we do not yet know whether asbestos bans will eventually prove capable of eliminating mesothelioma.

If you are a loved one has been diagnosed with a deadly form of mesothelioma cancer, you do not have to go through it alone. Our legal team at The Ledger Law Firm is nationally recognized for helping victims recover millions in compensation when mesothelioma is caused by a wrongful exposure to asbestos fibers.

We use our national resources for your claim in an effort to determine when your exposure occurred, where it happened, and who is legally responsible. Once we prove your disease was caused by another party’s negligence, we will help you recover the compensation that is owed. Contact us online today to speak with a Ledger Law mesothelioma lawyer about your claim today.