Product Description

According to publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation records, Fisher Scientific Company allegedly distributed and sold — under its own catalog and through its national laboratory-supply distribution network — pre-1980s laboratory and clinical steam autoclaves, dry-heat sterilizers, and jacketed pressure sterilizers fitted with woven chrysotile asbestos-fabric door gaskets and asbestos-braided valve-stem packing. Plaintiffs alleged that the asbestos gasket sat in a channel around the perimeter of the pressure-vessel door and formed the primary steam seal each time the vessel was closed and pressurized to 121 degrees Celsius at 15 psi.

Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed litigation that laboratory autoclave gaskets were consumable service items — degraded by every heat and pressure cycle, hardened and cracked by weekly or daily use across teaching labs, hospital central-supply rooms, research labs, and pharmaceutical development benches. When leakage began, the standard maintenance action was to scrape the old gasket out of the channel with a putty knife or screwdriver, wire-brush the seat clean, and install a fresh length of asbestos rope or ribbon. Plaintiffs alleged each of those steps — scrape, brush, unwrap fresh gasket stock, cut to length, seat, and trim — released chrysotile fibers into the breathing zone of the lab technician, autoclave operator, or biomedical repair technician performing the work.

Workers Exposed

Plaintiffs alleged occupational asbestos exposure from Fisher Scientific autoclave and sterilizer asbestos gaskets among the following populations:

  • Hospital and clinical lab technicians operating central-supply and lab autoclaves
  • University and college laboratory technicians in microbiology, biology, and biochemistry teaching labs
  • Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers preparing sterile media and glassware
  • Pharmaceutical development lab chemists and formulation technicians
  • Industrial R&D lab chemists running sterile bench work
  • Biomedical equipment repair technicians who serviced hospital and lab sterilizers
  • Lab-equipment maintenance technicians who scraped and re-packed autoclave door channels
  • Central-supply and sterile-processing staff at teaching hospitals and clinical research centers