Teacher Blames Philadelphia School District for Asbestos Cancer

A teacher from the Philadelphia School District claims his cancer was caused by asbestos in schools, and he feels the school district is to blame.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the story of Juan Namnun, an “award-winning” health and physical education teacher and baseball coach at Frankford High School in Philadelphia. He was diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer in 2022 and has elected to sue the Philadelphia School District. Namnun and his lawyers believe his breast cancer was caused by exposure to asbestos.

 

How Does Asbestos Exposure Happen?

Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral found in the earth’s soil. It was widely used during the 20th century to construct and insulate buildings, including school buildings, due to asbestos’ ability to protect floor tiles, roof shingles, drywall, electrical wires and more from fire and heat damage.

Asbestos can also cause cancer, most notably the rare cancer called mesothelioma. Asbestos is the only known cause of mesothelioma, which primarily forms in the thin linings of the lungs and abdominal cavity. Asbestos can also cause lung cancer, ovarian cancer, testicular cancer, some abdominal cancers and even breast cancer.

Asbestos becomes dangerous when disturbed. This means outside forces, such as everyday wear-and-tear, maintenance, renovation or demolition, cause it to break apart and release sharp fibers into the air. Asbestos fibers are weightless and microscopic, leading to air contamination.

Anyone near the asbestos-contaminated air can unknowingly swallow or inhale the invisible fibers, allowing toxic asbestos to enter the body. The fibers often get stuck in tissue linings or organs, causing cells to mutate into cancer.

 

About the Teacher’s Asbestos Lawsuit

Namnun, who has taught at Frankford High School for more than 20 years (starting in 2001 after being a student there), believes repeated and ongoing asbestos exposure in the school led to his male breast cancer diagnosis in 2022. He had to undergo a double mastectomy to remove the tumor, plus chemotherapy, reconstructive surgery and scar tissue surgery.

According to the lawsuit filing, Namnun’s cancer was “a direct and proximate result” of the Philadelphia School District’s “negligent, wrongful, extensive, and unreasonable conduct related to the severe asbestos contamination of Frankford High School,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The lawsuit also names several asbestos manufacturing companies and contractors that performed environmental work and testing at the school.

Namnun alleges that the district and the named companies “failed to implement adequate testing and to adequately respond to asbestos hazards, which resulted in remarkably dangerous amounts of asbestos fiber inhalation in schools throughout the School District of Philadelphia for nearly a century.” Frankford High School was constructed in 1914.

The lawsuit states that damaged plaster throughout the school was incorrectly labeled as “non-asbestos-containing”. Most of the Frankford High School building remains closed for asbestos remediation – the removal or repair of damaged asbestos in a building. Most students are limited to the school’s annex area, which is allegedly unaffected by asbestos-containing plaster. The 9th-graders are attending Roberto Clemente Middle School.

 

Ongoing Issues of Asbestos Exposure in Philadelphia Schools

There is a severe asbestos crisis in schools. The use of asbestos to construct school buildings during the 20th century planted the seeds for students, teachers and other staff to become victims of consistent asbestos exposure while spending up to 8 hours a day inside the contaminated buildings.

While school buildings today are not made with asbestos – the public now knows how dangerous asbestos and companies stopped manufacturing asbestos for construction projects in the 1990s – the mineral still exists in old schools. Many school districts struggle to renovate old buildings and remove persisting asbestos hiding in walls, ceilings and floor tiles.

The presence of old asbestos in the 21st century, despite the conscious effort not to use the mineral anymore, is known as legacy asbestos, which is the type Namnun was likely exposed to in Frankford High School.

The Philadelphia School District has been especially scrutinized for asbestos in Philadelphia schools. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the average age of a school building in the district is 74 years, and the majority of the district’s 216 school buildings were constructed before the public and school officials learned that exposure to asbestos could cause cancer.

Since 2019, more than a dozen schools in the district (including Frankford High School in 2023) have closed due to sightings of unsafe asbestos and the need to remove or repair visible asbestos to protect students, teachers and other staff. Frankford High is one of seven school buildings to close sometime between March and October of 2023.

Critics say the school district has been too slow in taking action and underplays the severity of the situation. In May 2023, teachers and other staff at Frankford High School held a protest outside of the building to criticize the district’s slow response to the issue.

Several years ago, a long-time school teacher for the district was diagnosed with mesothelioma. She sued the Philadelphia School District, and, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, in 2020 she settled the case with the district for nearly $900,000.

Namnun is next up to sue the district. It is upsetting that the School District of Philadelphia has allowed students, teachers, administrators and others to become victims of available asbestos exposure. Now, two long-time teachers who have dedicated most of their lives to teaching in Philadelphia have been diagnosed with asbestos cancer. Hopefully, this is a wake-up call for Philadelphia and the dire need to properly preserve schools containing cancer-causing substances.