General Electric Company employees exposed to asbestos
During the last century, General Electric Company made use of asbestos in large amounts, as the mineral has numerous convenient properties, such as excellent resistance to fire, electricity and a wide range of chemicals. Furthermore, it was also very cheap at the time. It is worthy of note that veterans may also have been exposed to asbestos by using the products of this company while they were serving in the military. Manufacturing a wide range of products, General Electric Company became one of the largest businesses in the world by 1980. The products it made would include nuclear reactors, consumer electronics, jet engines, plastic, furnaces, and turbines. Because such equipment required solid insulation, being prone to overheat, asbestos proved to be the ideal material once again, as it was very accessible and inexpensive. The occupations at the highest risk of developing a serious disease as a result of exposure to the asbestos products of this company are:
The majority of people who were employed at General Electric Company were exposed to asbestos between 1966 and 1986. So far, over 400,000 claims have been filed against the company by people whose health was severely and often irreversibly affected by occupational asbestos exposure. Some of the groups of workers who underwent asbestos exposure on the job are steelworkers, shipyard workers, government employees, and power plant workers. The asbestos turbines manufactured by General Electric Company were installed in approximately 22,000 sites across the U.S.