Major Health Study Pulled from Upcoming Manganese Trial
Last week, plaintiff lawyers in the national manganese class action lawsuit filed by thousands of neurologically impaired former welders, announced that welding industry defendants in the case have withdrawn a major health study from evidence that would be presented in a June trial.
Defendants General Electric, Lincoln Electric Company, Hobart Brothers Company, and other welding industry defendants pulled the study after plaintiff’s lawyers found the study’s conclusions were inconsistent with the underlying data.
Plaintiff’s lawyers believe the evidence in the study supports the injury claims made by almost 10,000 welders in the U.S.
The industry-funded study evaluated 12,595 medical insurance claims filed by former Caterpillar Inc. welding plant employees over a period of about 30 years.
The welding defendants have always claimed the study has no significant statistical link between manganese exposure and neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s disease. Manganese is a toxic chemical found in welding fumes.
However, after a preliminary assessment of the actual insurance claims, plaintiff’s attorneys found that the study authors mixed the data gathered from Caterpillar Welder complaints with date from Caterpillar fabricators, another group of welding industry workers.
Plaintiff’s lawyers also discovered that the welders in the study were about five to 10 times more likely to file insurance claims after developing symptoms of neurological injuries than fabricators. These important conclusions were not shown in the study’s final results and the blending of the data reduced the occurrence of neurological conditions in a large number of Caterpillar welding employees.
“The Caterpillar study is junk science at its absolute worst, and it shows how low these corporations will stoop to protect the bottom line,” said Don Barrett, co-lead plaintiff attorney.
“At the end of the day, the welding industry defendants really had no choice but to pull this study, because it goes a long way toward proving the claims made by thousands of sick American welders,” he said. “Each and every time we’ve been allowed to examine the data underlying a health study sponsored by the defendants, we discover that the data actually support our claims.”
To learn more about manganese exposure from drinking water in children, and other various side effects of manganese,please contact an attorney.
