Marystown, Maryland to Hold Asbestos Information Presentation

The shipping port of Marystown, Newfoundland is home to the Marystown Shipyard Families Alliance, an organization dedicated to providing support to shipyard workers and their families. It is well known that shipyard workers face an elevated risk of coming into contact with various toxic substances, including deadly asbestos dust and fibers.

Lung cancer, asbestosis and mesothelioma are not uncommon in shipbuilders and shipyard workers who were exposed to asbestos while on the job as many as forty years before their initial diagnosis. Bernadine Bennett of the Marystown Shipyard Families Alliance hopes that this evening’s meeting will raise awareness of asbestos-related diseases, and bring together many families who are suffering and in need of support.

The informational session will be held tonight at 7 p.m., and will be followed Friday with an intake clinic. Said Bennett: “We’ve invited a lot of people outside – politicians and different advocate groups – but we really want to get to the families and to the workers to make them realize there is a reason to be concerned, and there’s a reason for some fast action on the part of the compensation board and our government.”

Mrs. Bennett organized the Marystown Shipyard Families Alliance in 2006. Mrs. Bennett formed the group after becoming frustrated with the government’s ability to protect and support shipyard workers who had been exposed to toxins like asbestos. Mrs. Bennett is convinced that asbestos exposure is to blame for the high cancer rate in shipyard employees, and that people who live near the shipyard might also be at risk for developing asbestos-related diseases.