Product Description
Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that General Electric Company manufactured and sold consumer hair dryers — both handheld and bonnet-style — whose internal construction allegedly incorporated asbestos-fabric lining inside the blower housing and an asbestos-fabric mounting pad securing the resistance-wire heater element inside the airflow path. The alleged exposure pathway is direct and severe: air pulled through the heater element flowed directly across the asbestos-fabric components and then blew that airstream — carrying entrained asbestos fibers — into the user’s face and scalp with every use.
In April 1979, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a voluntary recall program covering asbestos-containing consumer hair dryers after CPSC testing confirmed fiber release. GE was among the manufacturers whose consumer hair-dryer product lines were implicated in the recall program.
Workers Exposed and Household Consumers
- Daily home consumers — women drying their hair every morning for years or decades before the 1979 recall
- Salon workers and cosmetologists using GE-brand professional and consumer hair dryers on client after client
- Bonnet-dryer salon patrons sitting for extended sessions under GE bonnet dryers
- Household family members in the same room during hair-drying sessions
- GE consumer-appliance factory workers assembling the dryers
- Appliance-repair technicians opening dryer housings to service motors and heating elements
If You Used a GE Consumer Hair Dryer
If you or a family member used a GE-brand consumer or salon hair dryer (handheld or bonnet-style) at any point from the 1950s through the 1979 recall, and were later diagnosed with mesothelioma or another asbestos-related disease, publicly filed litigation has recognized this consumer-inhalation vector.
Free, confidential case evaluation: Speak with O’Brien Law Firm — (314) 936-2956