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A Statement from Weitz & Luxenberg, P.C. to Smokers and Former Smokers: Asbestos Exposure Multiplied Your Risk for Lung Cancer 

Sitting before the U.S. Senate two years ago, Dr. Philip Landrigan, the Chair of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, testified, "asbestos workers who also smoke[d] have 55 times the background risk of lung cancer." Further, according to Perry Weitz, the founding member of Weitz & Luxenberg, P.C., a leading asbestos law firm, "if smokers who are exposed to asbestos smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, their risk of getting lung cancer is more than a 100 times that of a person who does not smoke and isn't exposed to asbestos." The courts have found in favor of smokers exposed to asbestos with multimillion dollar damages punctuated by a recent jury verdict won by Weitz & Luxenberg P.C.

"Cigarettes are addictive, asbestos is not. All that was needed to protect people from asbestos-related lung cancer was a warning," says Perry Weitz.

In May, the firm obtained a jury verdict of $37 million for two smokers with lung cancer who had been exposed to asbestos; adding another victory to its long record of success in asbestos litigation (index #s 100016/99 and 113583/05, New York Supreme Court). The defendant was Robert A. Keasbey Company, a former insulation contractor and distributor of asbestos products.

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