Lake Charles Personal Injury Law Blog

As we have stressed several times on this blog, Lakes Charles residents may be at risk for benzene exposure because the dangerous chemicals is used in many industrial capacities, such as those performed in factories and production facilities in our region.

But Louisiana is not the only state where benzene exposure is a very real risk. New Jersey, for example, is dealing with own benzene scare right now.

If there is a silver lining to the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster, it may be that insurance companies will demand tighter regulations for the industry. If this happens and it is successful, it may lead to fewer maritime accidents and disasters.

As Lake Charles residents will recall, the Costa Concordia is a cruise ship owned by the Carnival Cruise line that capsized off the coast of Tuscany on Jan. 13. Seventeen people were killed and 15 more remain missing.

Many drivers fear getting into an accident with an 18-wheeler because they know small vehicles stand little chance against such large trucks. However, it is not just people in passenger vehicles who are hurt or killed in semi-truck accidents. Sometimes, it is other truck drivers who are the ones harmed in such accidents.

That's the case with a truck accident that took place in Louisiana late last month. Around 4:10 a.m. on January 31, two truck drivers were going through Vernon Parish when their rigs struck each other. The driver of one of the rigs, a 29-year-old man from Ridder, Louisiana, died instantly. The other driver, a 54-year-old man from Durand, Louisiana, died in a hospital after the accident.

We have been writing a few posts lately about benzene exposure and how dangerous and harmful it can be, but Lake Charles readers might not actually know much about the chemical itself. If benzene is so bad, why do we even use it?

Unfortunately for people who are exposed to it, benzene is actually quite useful in many industrial applications. It is used in the manufacture of pesticides, rubbers, lubricants, plastics and synthetic fibers like nylon. In fact, it's so useful that it ranks among the top 20 chemicals in volume of production. That's why many of the plants and facilities around Lake Charles involved benzene in their production activities.

As we mentioned in a recent post, exposure to benzene can cause a great many health problems, so anyone in Lake Charles would do well to avoid exposure to this toxic chemical.

Of course, that is easier said than done. People who are exposed to benzene are rarely exposed through their own fault. Usually, the exposure is the result of a company not being careful with this poisonous substance.

Lake Charles residents have probably been following the news about the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that crashed on a reef off the coast of Italy two weeks ago.

Coverage of this maritime accident has been quite enthralling; the captain has been accused of misconduct that arguably contributed to the crash and at least 17 people are known to have died. Frankly, many people have been wondering how a disaster of this magnitude could happen in this age of GPS equipment and other sophisticated navigational devices.

Companies are very good about making sure dangerous chemicals stay where they are supposed to and do not leak out into the environment, so Americans do not really have to worry about chemical exposure. Or do they?

Lake Charles residents might be surprised to learn just how real a concern chemical exposure still is. Yes, we have rules and laws in place that are meant to keep the public safe from toxic substances, but it is just a fact that accidents happen (and, sadly, that companies that use dangerous chemicals are not always as responsible and as careful as they should be.)

Lake Charles readers who check up on this blog regularly are probably familiar with dangerous drugs like Avandia that were once thought to be safe but were later discovered to have very serious negative health consequences. They might ask, then, how a dangerous drug like this ever gets into the market in the first place.

The good news is that U.S. consumers do have a watchdog in place. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration is often criticized for being too strict in the way it reviews new medicines. Recently, the FDA refused to allow Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca to sell a new type of experimental diabetes drugs, in part because it learned its lesson with Avandia, which was once thought to be safe but was later revealed to contribute to heart attacks in certain patients.