Lawyer Says Asbestos Victims Getting Younger

February 28, 2007 - One of the UK’s most prominent lawyers representing victims of asbestos-related diseases claims that more and more young people and women are contracting mesothelioma.

In an article in the Manchester Evening News, lawyer Geraldine Coombs says she is representing a 26-year-old woman from Failsworth, England, who is thought to be the youngest-ever victim of mesothelioma, an incurable cancer of the lining of the lung.

While men who worked in the construction and shipyard industries, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, are still the highest risk group, Coombs says she’s seeing more and more cases of secondary exposure among young people. 

“For example,” Coombs indicated, “we are investigating the case of a lady of 26 who has mesothelioma which she believes traces back to the days when she took a short cut to school through a factory yard where asbestos sheets were being cut.”

“We are also representing a nurse in her 40s who worked in a Tameside hospital where there was an asbestos removal program,” she added.

“Historically, mesothelioma affected people in their 60s and 70s, but recently we have seen younger victims diagnosed, who were exposed to asbestos in unconventional ways.”

Coombs has been involved in a number of landmark legal cases involving asbestos litigation.