What is an Occupational Disease?
Saginaw, Flint, Traverse City and Lansing, Michigan

An occupational disease is any work-related illness, often chronic or disabling. According to American Family Physician, a journal of the American Academy of Family Physicians, occupational diseases are responsible for about 860,000 illnesses each year and about 60,300 deaths. They are not always recognized as being work-related, as the patient may not make the connection and the doctor may not suspect it either.

An occupational disease can affect any part of the body and can arise in almost any type of work. Some examples are:

• Carpal tunnel syndrome – from repetitive motions such as typing or letter sorting
• Asthma – from wood dust breathed in during furniture making; from working with animal products in a laboratory, or from chemicals absorbed by the body in plastics manufacture
• Hearing loss – from excess noise in many occupations
• Hepatitis – from infection picked up in prison work or animal care
• Mesothelioma – from working with asbestos decades ago in construction industries
• Dermatitis – from working with organic solvents in many occupations; from latex gloves in healthcare work; or from exposure to nickel in hairdressing work
• Coronary artery disease – from exposure to carbon monoxide in work with combustion products

An Example
Let’s say you go to see your doctor for help with a persistent cough. Would his or her first question be “What do you do for a living?” Probably not. A cough medication will be prescribed and after the coughing persists you might be referred to a specialty clinic. You might even have X-rays or other diagnostic procedures and tests done.

Your doctor does not know that a week ago you ended a year of work on a construction site and now you are between jobs. Would you think to mention that? Unless someone asks for your work history and makes a connection between a construction site and your dry cough, you may never know that you have an occupational disease.

You were breathing inorganic dust for a year that could have contained any number of harmful substances such as silica or asbestos. Asthma, bronchitis, chronic sinusitis and other airway diseases are being increasingly identified as occupational diseases.

Work Injuries vs. Work Diseases
If you had fallen from a defective ladder on the construction site and broken an arm, that would clearly have been a job-related injury and Workers’ Compensation would have been the obvious way to go. But in the case of diseases, the work/health problem connection is not so clear. Also, many occupational diseases do not show up immediately.

A famous example of that is mesothelioma – lung cancer caused by asbestos fibers – which takes several decades to establish itself. The tiny fibers get lodged in the body when you breathe them in as a 25-year-old, but your doctor does not diagnose mesothelioma until you are 55. Your immune system fights the fibers all those years but can never win because asbestos is resistant to chemical change. The white blood cells die in the effort and gradually a tumor forms on the lining of the lungs.

The U.S. has labor laws to protect your health as a worker and to ensure that you receive appropriate compensation for any occupational disease or work-related injury. The compensation process begins with you reporting your health problem to your employer.

Workers’ Comp is replete with paperwork so you would do well to have an experienced attorney to help you with that, getting forms filed within the timeframe allowed, filling them out correctly, getting clear answers to your questions, etc.

If you are in the Michigan areas of Saginaw, Flint, or Lansing, and have been diagnosed with an occupational disease, please contact Jay Trucks & Associates, PC for a free consultation.

Lawyers for the Injured
Jay Trucks & Associates, PC
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