Representative Sues Over Asbestos Exposure

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) —

A New York congresswoman being treated for lung cancer has filed a lawsuit claiming that exposure to asbestos when she was a young woman may have contributed to her disease.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy filed the lawsuit last month in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, naming 70 companies that may have made products that contained asbestos.

McCarthy, 69, admits being a smoker for most of her life, but her attorney, Daniel Blouin, said tobacco companies are not named in the lawsuit because cigarettes have carried health warning labels for several decades.

“Nobody ever warned her about the dangers of asbestos,” Blouin said. “The tobacco industry had the decency to put warnings on their products.”

McCarthy claims she was exposed to asbestos when she did laundry for her brothers and father. Blouin said the men worked as boilermakers in navy yards and powerhouses, where asbestos stuck to their clothing.

McCarthy, a Democrat, was first elected to Congress in 1996 on a gun-control platform after her husband was killed and her son wounded in a mass shooting on the Long Island Rail Road.

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