Two UK dockworkers (what we would call longshoremen) one of whom died of mesothelioma and another suffering from asbestosis have won compensation claims against their own government for putting them in harm’s way. Under British law up to that point, they would have only had a case against the ship owners (the US analogs would be the Jones Act and the Death on the High Seas Act), most of which aren’t around any more. The men had to unload raw crocidolite and amosite asbestos fiber from South Africa. The fiber was packed in burlap sacks that leaked huge amounts of fiber into the air, which would have been especially deadly when the ambient air was in the confined hold of a ship (If you want to see how ships were unloaded before all cargo was containerized, just see the 1955 movie “On the Waterfront” with Marlon Brando). Cases have brought on this basis in the US against the shipping lines, but never against Uncle Sam.
Archive for January, 2009
UK Dockworkers Win Suits Against Government for Mesothelioma, Asbestosis Claims
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009Chemoembolisation Treatment Gives Hope to UK Woman
Monday, January 5th, 2009A 49-year old woman with pleural mesothelioma contracted through household exposure (her father worked at a shipyard) has experienced what she describes as a miraculous result through chemoembolisation treatments in Frankfurt, Germany. Chemoembilisation involves two treatment steps: first, delivering chemotherapy drug directly to the tumor site. This is not that new and is generally known in this country as “intrapleural” or “intrapertoneal” chemotherapy. It eliminates a lot of the side effects of chemotherapy because the drug is not administered to the whole system; second, the blood vessels supplying the tumor are restricted to decrease the blood supply to the tumor and also to keep the chemotherapy concentrated in the tumor. Chemoembolism has been in use for treatment of liver cancer for some time, but using it to treat a mesothelioma tumor is something new.
