| |
|
|
|
| You Are Here:
Mesothelioma.net Blog |
|
March 1st, 2010
Two separate lawsuits have been filed in West Virginia’s Kanawha Circuit court by two married couples. The lawsuits were filed against a number of different companies for allegedly employing less than sufficient safety practices when handling asbestos products. Robert L. Wood of Wheeling, West Virginia, and John D. Kontra Sr. of Glendale, Arizona, the two husbands represented in each respective case, are both facing forms of cancer which they believe their former employers to be responsible for. Both men also have a history of using smoking tobacco products which is known not only to cause various types of cancer, but also to aggravate and expedite the development of cancers specifically associated with asbestos exposure.
Asbestos was used as both a fire retardant, general construction material, insulator, and strengthening and bonding additive for other raw materials throughout much of the twentieth century. The mineral’s availability and ease of fabrication into a variety of different forms made it ideal for an array of applications in several different industries. Although asbestos’s dangerous effects on the human body were discovered and documented as early as the 1930’s, it was nearly fifty years after that before regulations defining its safe use and handling began to become commonplace. Today, asbestos is either completely banned from being mined, imported and exported, or heavily restricted in almost all developed nations.
Asbestos fibers have been shown to cause a variety of health complications, including mesothelioma, a rare, aggressive and fatal cancer that develops most commonly in the chest or abdominal cavity of its victims. When asbestos fibers are either inhaled or ingested, the human body’s regular defenses are unable to contain and remove the microscopic, needle like particles. The fibers pass through the walls of the lungs, stomach or intestines, and become lodged in the mesothelium, a soft tissue that lines our body’s vital organs. The accumulation of these fibers in the mesothelium causes internal scarring which can develop into malignant tumors over time. The process of developing malignant tumors can take several decades from the time of initial asbestos exposure, making the disease difficult to diagnose and lending to its dismal prognosis. Most patients diagnosed with mesothelioma can expect to live no more than eighteen months.
The lawsuits filed by Mr. Wood, Mr. Kontra and their wives jointly implicate more than 150 different companies. Among the more well known of these are General Electric Company, Ford Motor Company, 3M Company, and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. News sources in the area report that the lawsuits accuse the companies of “negligence, contaminated buildings, breach of expressed/implied warranty, strict liability, intentional tort, conspiracy, misrepresentations and post-sale duty to warn”.
Posted in General, News | No Comments »
February 28th, 2010
Italian researchers have recently completed a report that was published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, a scientific journal. The report discusses the influence of asbestos exposure in the workplace on the likelihood of developing asbestos related cancers later in life. The research, conducted by four separate medical institutions, documented the health of miners who had worked in the Balangero mine, formerly the largest open pit asbestos mine in all of Europe.
Many asbestos related diseases are known for their remarkably long latency period, or the time it takes from exposure to asbestos until malignant tumors form and are detectable. This latency period, which can be several years and often even decades, normally obscures efforts to effectively understand asbestos’s role in acquiring diseases like mesothelioma, an aggressive and fatal cancer caused by asbestos fibers. Documenting the health of former mine employees for more than thirty years allowed the researchers to capture useful information concerning the direct link between asbestos exposure and the development of rare cancers.
The study concluded that former employees of the Balangero mine were far more likely to contract mesothelioma of both the chest and abdominal cavity, and that their deaths were likely to occur at a far younger age than average. Each case of mesothelioma which occurred in the former miners was diagnosed more than thirty years after their first exposure to the substance.
Studies like these are helping to tighten restrictions regarding the use of asbestos products. While many developed nations have already either banned or heavily regulated the mineral, developing nations such as India, China, Mexico, Bangladesh and more still import asbestos heavily.
Posted in News | No Comments »
February 12th, 2010
The American Journal of Industrial Medicine recently performed a study which claims that the diagnoses of mesothelioma, a cancer caused by asbestos that is both highly aggressive and incurable, are rising dramatically in Mexico. While most further developed nations throughout the European Union and North America have either banned or heavily regulated the use of the dangerous substance, many nations like India, China and Mexico continue to use asbestos products in a variety of industries.
In fact, with the sudden disappearance of demand for asbestos from developed nations over the past two decades, the remaining developed nations that continue to manufacture the substance have increased their exports to countries like Mexico in order to retain profits. The researchers who conducted the study suggest that the manufacture, distribution, and importation of asbestos should be completely outlawed in Mexico to curb the rising trend of obtaining the fatal cancer through workplace and inner city exposure. Asbestos products, however, are an incredibly cheap and effective solution for many aspects of the construction and other industries, which is likely to be a huge obstacle in passing laws that outlaw its use.
The researchers involved in the study were seeking to discover just how many cases of mesothelioma in Mexico were due to exposure originating in the workplace. In a manner very much like that of the United States’ throughout the end of the 20th century, the general awareness of asbestos related health risks and the efforts to reduce workplace exposure are virtually nil. As a result, a vast amount of laborers in Mexico that work in industrial manufacturing, construction, metallurgy and other industries are exposed to the dangerous asbestos fibers almost daily.
In order to more clearly understand the rising mesothelioma problem in Mexico, the researchers spoke with nearly 500 workers who lived in Mexico city or in the surrounding metropolitan area. They discussed the workplace conditions with the interviewees in an effort to discover what average asbestos exposure in their industries were, and subsequently determine the amount of risk to the worker’s good health. As it turned out, about one fifth of those individuals interviewed were already diagnosed with mesothelioma.
Laws that either ban asbestos or place rigid regulations enforcing its safe handling and proper transport and disposal are unlikely to be passed in the near future in Mexico or other developing nations that import and implement the substance. Supplying nations such as Canada and Russia provide constant pressure to sway international laws regarding the substance’s exportation, and in an effort to quickly and efficiently construct homes, goods and infrastructure, many developing nations are glad to import it.
Posted in News | No Comments »
February 11th, 2010
A new and promising treatment for mesothelioma, an aggressive and incurable cancer caused by asbestos, is in the early stages of development. Photodynamic therapy, or PDT, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for a variety of cancers, and is currently being tested for use as a mesothelioma treatment.
Mesothelioma is indicated by malignant tumors of the mesothelium, that is, the soft tissue that encases and protects many of our vital organs. The devastating cancer has been linked with exposure to asbestos fibers, and while the disease can take up to half a century to fully develop, all persons that have been exposed to the dangerous substance are at risk.
When asbestos fibers are either inhaled or ingested, the microscopic, needle like particles are not detained by our body’s normal defenses for inorganic foreign irritants. The fibers pass through the lungs or digestive tract and eventually become lodged in the mesothelium where the tissue begins to react by scarring. This scarring can eventually form dangerous, malignant tumors which can be difficult to detect with conventional methods, contributing to the disease’s difficult diagnosis.
Photodynamic therapy is an exciting development and a promising potential treatment option. The therapy uses a non-toxic, photosensitizing compound to target cancer cells and cause them to become vulnerable to visible light. Affected tissues are then exposed to light – usually during surgery – which destroys the targeted cancer cells. Unlike chemotherapy and radiotherapy, PDT targets cancer cells specifically rather than just areas of the body affected by the tumor. This means that far less damage is done to normal, healthy cells which greatly detracts from the debilitating weakness and general lethargy that normally follows conventional treatments.
More than 3,000 Americans are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year. The disease is infamous for its grim prognoses; patients with a positive mesothelioma diagnosis are often expected to live for no more than about two years. Asbestos, the substance that causes the disease, while banned in most developed nations including the European Union is still used in the United States. Strict regulations, however, are applied to encourage its safe handling in the USA. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of asbestos products are still used freely in developing nations as industrial insulation, fire retardation additives, and strengthening additives in cement and other building materials.
Researchers and medical professionals are constantly working to improve existing mesothelioma treatments and discover new, potentially more effective treatments such as photodynamic therapy.
Posted in News, Treatments | No Comments »
February 1st, 2010
The Cass Street Bridge, a large commuter bridge in Tampa, Florida has been re-opened to the public after it underwent a series of major overhauls which began last year. The bridge was the primary avenue used by many commuters for getting to and from Tampa’s busy downtown area until it closed last July, displacing traffic and creating difficulty for some drivers whose normal, daily routes included the popular bridge. The bridge, originally constructed some time during the 1920’s, is nearly a century old and until now hasn’t undergone any serious renovation work since the late 1940’s. Included in the recent maintenance efforts was the replacement of sections of corroded and degraded steel, the removal of asbestos materials in accordance with federal and state regulations, and repainting to protect the bridge from the daily battery of normal weather conditions.
Asbestos removal has become a fairly standard part of modern renovations in both the commercial and residential sectors. Products made from asbestos fibers were used throughout most of the 20th century for insulation and fire retardation purposes, in spite of the fact that it was found to be hazardous to human health as early as the 1930’s. In 1989 the United States Environmental Protection Agency issued the Asbestos Ban and Phase Out Rule intended to completely bar asbestos products from being used in any form in the United States. The rule was overturned just two years later in 1991, possibly due to the prevalence of the substance’s use throughout the construction, manufacturing, and refining industries, resulting in strict regulations which aim to reduce human exposure to asbestos without completely banning products that contain the mineral.
Asbestos exposure occurs when microscopic asbestos fibers are either inhaled or ingested by occupants of buildings which contain the substance. The tiny fibers can become lodged in the mesothelium, a protective soft tissue which encases our vital organs, accumulating over time and causing sever internal scarring. Mesothelioma, an incurable and aggressive cancer that claims some 3,000 American lives annually, refers to the development of this scar tissue into malignant tumors. While palliative care options including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery are available to mesothelioma patients to improve their quality of life, the prognosis for the cancer is fairly dismal and often predicts that patients have no more than about eighteen months to live.
Mesothelioma is difficult to diagnose due to its general, flu like symptoms and its incredibly long latency period – or time that normally elapses between exposure to asbestos and development of the disease. Modern regulations concerning the abatement of asbestos materials during municipal, commercial and residential renovations is a good step towards avoiding an increase of mesothelioma diagnoses in the coming years.
The Cass Street Bridge, conducting an estimated 12,000 vehicles to their destinations daily, is now open to the public. The total renovations, including asbestos removal efforts, cost nearly two million dollars.
Posted in General, News | No Comments »
|
|
|
|
|
|
