Video of Ben DuBose discussing Asbestos exposure in Dallas. Transcript below.
Asbestos exposure in Dallas. You know, Dallas is not the first place in the country most people would think of with respect to asbestos exposure you probably think of steel mills shipyards industry on the coastlines and those were very heavy areas of heavy asbestos use but asbestos was used so extensively in so many kinds of products in the United States that really every town, state and city in the US as a place where asbestos exposure occurred including Dallas. Our practice, our office is here in Dallas. I live in Dallas and I actually grew up in Dallas and was born and raised here and there were many different opportunities for asbestos exposure in Dallas in the 20th century mainly construction construction of buildings offices homes asbestos was used in drywall joint compound material, texture material, floor tile many different aspects of commercial and residential construction so people that worked in construction trades in Dallas in the 1960s 70s and we’re building, buildings very likely had asbestos exposure, there’s also industrial use here in Dallas that would have resulted in specialist exposures there’s the old Katy railroad yard that was by the kind of by he cooler sign by Green Arena that used a reunion tower that used to be the MKT or Katy railroad yard railroads were very heavy users of asbestos in the Roundhouse the back house the, locomotives the brake systems on the trains, so railroad workers would have definitely had exposure to asbestos here in Dallas hospitals hospitals are big users of asbestos at least back the 50s through the 70s hospitals typically have their own power systems, steam systems, boilers that would have been insulated so it’s common for there to be exposure at hospitals there’s also light manufacturing in the Dallas area different manufacturers of different products often using asbestos or using steam systems at their facilities there’s also a expansion vermiculite expansion plant in West Dallas that operated for many many years vermiculite is a mineral that often is contaminated with asbestos because the asbestos veins may run through the vermiculite mine and vermiculite has a very good thermal insulation properties so it would be mined in other parts of the country and shipped down here to Texas as well as other locations in the US where they would heat it up and expand it kind of like popping popcorn and then it creates a lot of air cells inside of the vermiculite it makes it a good insulation for addicts and other purposes sadly though because of the asbestos contaminant in the vermiculite. People that worked at the Dallas vermiculite expansion plant had exposure to asbestos and in later years studies show that the neighborhoods surrounding that West Dallas expansion plant had a very high incidence rate of asbestos disease because they just lived in the shadow a plant so there’s a number of ways that people that lived and worked in Dallas in the 20th century were exposed to asbestos.