Jordan Cade is an attorney at the Environmental Litigation Group, a law firm based in Birmingham, Alabama. For over 30 years, it has offered transparent legal assistance to victims affected by toxic exposure.
Practically, time can change how people understand professions. For many in Delaware and beyond, careers fulfilled decades ago may seem like relics of the past. Yet the truth is, they can transcend beyond resignation, as their health consequences can remain hidden for years before finally coming into view. That reality is, in fact, evident in today’s asbestos crisis, which stems from the heavy mineral’s use across a range of industries and even the military since its introduction in the late 1800s. In most instances, the harm associated with that exposure does not manifest within the span of employment itself; instead, it surfaces only years afterward — when workers and veterans have long since left the jobsites where the contact occurred and moved on to entirely different stages of life. As such, what once seemed like routine tasks in shipyards, construction sites, factories, military facilities or transportation systems in Delaware can reemerge as serious diagnoses — most disconcertingly, lung cancer. Worse, this prolonged latency period exposes a gap that time itself widens. By the time asbestos-related lung cancer is discovered, the workplace records that could detail exposure history are often incomplete, fragmented or no longer available.
Workers, veterans and the long trail of asbestos risk in Delaware
Similar to other states nationwide, the history of asbestos exposure in Delaware is closely tied to its industrial and service-oriented workforces. That’s because, for much of the 20th century, this natural mineral had already been heavily employed in the country — including in the First State — for its versatility, as well as its resistance to heat, fire and corrosion. With this, countless workers routinely handling or working alongside cement pipes, boilers, heating vessels, vehicle parts, corrosive vehicle containers, heat-protective pads, roofing components, textiles, insulation systems and numerous other commercial products have had contact with asbestos. Roughly 60,000 Delawarean veterans also represent another significant part of this history, as several military installations in the state — including the Dover Air Force Base — have notoriously relied on the mineral to build and maintain their barracks, tanks, trucks, vessels and more equipment. Unfortunately, experts and authorities were not aware at the time that, once disturbed during constructions, demolitions, renovations or repairs, asbestos-containing materials can release tiny fibers that can become airborne and lodge deep in the lungs when inhaled.
In these critical instances, exposed individuals become alarmingly vulnerable to developing devastating diseases — most notably, lung cancer. Compounding this issue is the fact that healthcare providers often struggle to detect these diseases in their early stages due to their lengthy latency periods, which can last up to 40 years. And such a situation is alarming, taking into account that around 27 million industrial workers across the country have accordingly had contact with asbestos from 1940-79. More concerning still, veterans face a much higher risk, as their exposure often extends from military service into civilian life, especially when they enter industries with similar hazards. Consequently, this crisis has reflected a hefty burden that is now difficult to ignore: Between 1999 and 2017, Delaware alone recorded more than 1,200 asbestos-associated fatalities, of which 844 were attributed to lung cancer. Nationally, authorities also saw how related deaths climbed by 20.2% from 1990 to 2019 — underscoring the undeniable gravity of the issue.
Urgent call to preserve asbestos exposure history for Delaware veterans and workers
The greatest weakness in today’s response to asbestos-related lung cancer is not a lack of scientific understanding but a recordkeeping system that was never intended to keep pace with the disease itself. Though employers, government agencies and the military have long maintained occupational records, those systems were established to support workplace administration and regulatory compliance during active employment — not to maintain and monitor continuous exposure histories for illnesses that may not appear until many years later. Consequently, when asbestos-related lung cancer is finally diagnosed, workers and their families are often forced to reconstruct decades-old exposure histories from fragmented employment files, closed businesses, military records and fading recollections, rather than a reliable, lifelong record. For veterans, this challenge is even more pronounced, particularly since their exposure spans various careers.
While the Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act has significantly expanded recognition of toxic exposures sustained during military service, it does not resolve the broader problem of documenting cumulative asbestos exposure across an individual’s entire working life. Delaware has an opportunity to help close this longstanding gap by recognizing occupational exposure histories as long-term public health records rather than temporary employment documents. Strengthening record retention requirements and developing a coordinated system capable of connecting verified military and civilian exposure histories would improve clinical evaluation, as well as support more accurate occupational health research and provide policymakers a clearer understanding of where asbestos risks continue to surface. More importantly, it would ensure that workers and veterans are not left searching for evidence that should have been preserved all along.
Asbestos-related lung cancer does not conform to the timeline of employment, and the records documenting exposure should not either. If the disease can take half a lifetime to emerge, preserving the history of exposure for just as long is not simply better recordkeeping; it is a public health responsibility that Delaware can no longer afford to overlook.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
