April 14th, 2005

One of the biggest and oldest trusts designed to payout to asbestos exposure victims suffering from illnesses such as asbestosis has shown a decline in the number of small claims being made taking it to its lowest figures in the past decade. The Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust is thought to be a good indicator of all round figures and trends when it comes to asbestos litigation, and the falling number of claims filed against the trust seemed to show an all-around drop in the number of claims being filed for asbestos exposure in general.

However, as well as showing falling claimant figures, the analysis of the trust fund has also raised questions with regards to the past claimants of asbestosis that seem to have received payouts despite lack of medical evidence. The questions have been raised with regards to the practices of doctors that made diagnoses of minor illnesses on patients that were then deemed eligible for compensation from the fund based on the diagnosis made by the doctors.

A number of doctors have since testified, stating that they actually made asbestosis diagnoses without having ever met or even interviewed the patients, and this led to a spate of claims. It was further revealed that some of the doctors involved in the diagnoses had no idea what they were looking for when analysing x-rays, and therefore the diagnosis made was often inaccurate or even guesswork.

One lawyer stated: "People have been assuming for quite some time that there was probably fraud out there in these mass screenings, that is, looking for disease in people that had no symptoms."

The mass screenings in question involved searching for and diagnosing more minor forms of asbestos exposure related illnesses, such as asbestosis. None of these allegedly fraudulent claims involved a diagnosis of mesothelioma, the most sever form of illness associated with asbestos exposure. Mesothelioma is a deadly cancer caused by exposure to asbestos and is only found in a small number of those exposed.