AboutMesothelioma.Net

Riders on 'Breathtaking' Journey to Raise Awareness of Asbestos-Related Disease

Thursday, July 2, 2009

A team of cyclists is near finishing a 1,200-mile ride from Glasgow, Scotland to Southampton, England to raise awareness of the plight of asbestos-related cancer victims and promote the idea of a national research center.

Since late June, the three riders have been riding through some of the areas most affected by mesothelioma to highlight the asbestos-related cancer’s deadly legacy. The Southhampton and Portsmouth areas have been particularly hard hit because of shipbuilding and railway industries.

The team, which includes two British lawyers who specialize in asbestos disease cases, is seeking to call attention to the fact that there isn’t dedicated government funding in Britain for asbestos cancer research, even though it's a leading cause of work-related deaths. The cyclists will finish the ride by July 5.

Here’s their blog of the journey: http://breathtakingjourney.blogspot.com/.

Labels: International News

posted by Your Attorney at 8:51 AM
Link to this article

Pennsylvania Residents Want Asbestos Waste Removed

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

By WADE RAWLINS
Residents of a Pennsylvania community would like for federal environmental investigators to remove asbestos waste from their community rather than bury it. In April, the BoRit site joined the national Superfund list, a tally by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of the nation’s most polluted sites in need of cleanup.

EPA officials listed the site because it’s in a densely populated area near Philadelphia, and nearby residents could potentially be exposed to airborne asbestos and to asbestos contamination along Tannery Run, Rose Valley Creek and Wissahickon Creek. Microscopic asbestos fibers can be inhaled when airborne and lodge in the lungs, causing respiratory problems and various forms of cancer, including mesothelioma, decades after the initial exposure.

In a June 11 letter, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, of Pennsylvania urged the EPA to give strong consideration to complete removal, destruction or recycling of the asbestos at the site, according to the Ambler Gazette newspaper.

“It is my understanding that EPA is in the process of shipping dirt to the BoRit site,” Specter wrote, according to the newspaper. “My constituents are understandably concerned that this dirt will be used to cap the site and have advised me that previous capping attempts have not been successful.”

Specter said it was critical that EPA carried out a cleanup plan that provided permanent protection to residents’ health and the environment.

Specter’s letter followed a petition drive organized by Citizens for a Better Ambler that gathered more than 2,000 signatures,

BoRit Site History

Starting in the early 1900s, the BoRit site was used to dispose of asbestos waste from the former Keasby and Mattison Company, Certainteed Corporation and Nicolet Industries, according to state and federal investigators. The industries produced asbestos products ranging from electrical insulation to brake linings, as well as piping, roofing shingles and laboratory tabletops. Asbestos manufacturing occurred on or near the site through the late 1980s, investigators said.

The 32-acre site includes three adjoining tracts: an asbestos waste pile, a 15-acre reservoir owned by Wissahickon Waterfowl Preserve and a former park and playground owned by Whitpain Township.

The waste pile covers about two acres and rises about 20 feet above the ground surface. The berm of the 15-acre reservoir was built of asbestos shingles, millboard and soil, and asbestos product waste such as piping and tiles is visible surrounding the reservoir and stream banks, the EPA said. The third disposal area, which covers 11 acres, was a depression that was filled and eventually used as a park and playground for a number of years. In the mid-1980s, it was closed and fenced off due to asbestos contamination.

In March, health investigators with the Pennsylvania Department of Health and federal Centers for Disease Control’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry released a study of cancer incidence in communities near the BoRit site.

Looking at cancer cases reported in three zip codes closest to BoRit, they found an elevated rate of mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs linked closely to asbestos exposure, as compared to the rest of Pennsylvania. But they said the difference was not statistically significant.

Investigators said the cases of mesothelioma were most likely due to exposures that occurred in the past when asbestos facilities were operating and exposing workers and their families. They said recent air tests near the site indicated that residents were not currently being exposed to asbestos at a level of health concern. Most cases of mesothelioma occur decades after the initial exposure to asbestos.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health said former plant workers are most at risk of asbestos-related disease. Family members who lived with workers also may have been exposed to asbestos, and residents who lived near the plant.

The BoRit site is a few hundred yards from another site where asbestos waste was dumped. The EPA cleaned it up in the early 1990s.

Labels: Featured News

posted by Your Attorney at 12:22 PM
Link to this article

Vermiculite Insulation Contaminated With Asbestos May Be In Millions of U.S. Homes

Friday, June 26, 2009

By WADE RAWLINS
Today, millions of homes and businesses across the United States have a pebble-like insulation in the attic made from the mineral vermiculite. Once admired for its fire-resistance and insulating properties, vermiculite insulation is now considered a potential health threat because, if disturbed, it can release microscopic asbestos fibers into the air that can be inhaled into the lungs.

Breathing asbestos can cause serious respiratory problems and diseases such as lung cancer and mesothelioma. Still, federal environmental officials aren't ready to start a nationwide attic cleaning campaign to remove the insulation.

"As a reminder, there are towns and cities across the United States with vermiculite insulation in their homes and in commercial buildings," U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said recently. "EPA's advice in those situations remains the same. That is that that insulation be left in place, that it be undisturbed."

Do-It-Yourself Insulation

Vermiculite insulation is a pebble-like, pour-in product and is usually gray-brown or silver-gold in color. It was often sold under the brand name Zonolite and marketed as a do-it-yourself product. W.R. Grace stopped selling Zonolite in the early 1980s.

The EPA estimates there may be anywhere from 15 million to 52 million homes that have Zonolite attic insulation, Stephen J. Nesbitt, assistant inspector general at the EPA, told a congressional committee in September 2008.

Vermiculite is a naturally occurring mineral composed of shiny flakes resembling mica. A mine near Libby, Montana produced more than 70 percent of all vermiculite sold in the U.S. from 1919 to 1990, when the mine closed.

In its pure form, vermiculite isn’t harmful. But the vermiculite mined in Libby was contaminated by asbestos that also occurred in the area.

Public Health Emergency

In June, the EPA declared that the widespread release of asbestos in Libby and neighboring Troy, Montana constituted a public health emergency. Asbestos contamination in the Libby area has been blamed for the deaths of more than 200 people and the illnesses of more than 1,000 more to date.

For decades, miners in Libby were exposed to asbestos in their work and brought the toxic dust home on their clothes, unintentionally exposing their families.

Asbestos fibers embedded in lung tissue over time may cause lung diseases including asbestosis, lung cancer or mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer found in the lining of the lungs and almost always linked to asbestos exposure. The symptoms of the diseases often do not appear until 20 to 30 years after exposure.

Under the emergency declaration, the EPA plans to remove all uncontained vermiculite insulation from houses in Libby as part of the broader, ongoing cleanup. But the agency says that doesn’t mean that houses around the country containing vermiculite insulation require cleanup.

As long as vermiculite insulation remains undisturbed, it poses no risk and does not need to be removed, the EPA says. If homeowners plan to remodel their houses, requiring disturbance of vermiculite insulation, the EPA recommends that a trained asbestos removal professional should be used to ensure the material is handled properly to avoid any risk the home’s residents.

“We don’t believe cleanup actions are necessary outside of Libby and Troy at this time,” said Jackson, the EPA administrator. “However, health concerns and precautions for minimizing exposures always can be better understood by the public.”

Jackson said the EPA planned a new national education program focused on vermiculite insulation to ensure the safety of all Americans.

Labels: Featured News

posted by Your Attorney at 1:12 PM
Link to this article

Iron Range Meeting to Plan Mesothelioma Study

Thursday, June 25, 2009

52 miners working at Minnesota’s Iron Range have been found to have mesothelioma, an asbestos-related cancer. Mesothelioma has been traditionally associated with asbestos exposure; however, there is no known asbestos in the iron ore deposit. When asbestos fibers become airborne, they are breathed into the lungs where serious illness can develop up to 40 years after exposure.

The Minnesota Department of Health will be conducting studies on the miners to determine if they have been exposed to asbestos at any time in their lives, prior to working at Iron Range. Some of the mine workers believe that the taconite dust in the mines is the cause of their illness. No studies to date have proven that mesothelioma can be caused by airborne particles other than asbestos.

Mine officials want to know whether iron ore mining can be linked to mesothelioma. The company is planning an expansion at its Northshore mine, and they want answers so they can move forward with the plan. The mining representatives support the health study, but they don't believe the taconite dust is dangerous.

A meeting will be held June 25th as the next step in the effort to determine the cause of the high rate of mesothelioma in the Iron Range workers. The meeting will lay out the plans for conducting a major survey of taconite workers' lung health. Participants will get an x-ray, blood test, and breathing test. The study gets underway this summer.

Taconite Potential Cause of Mesothelioma
Iron Range Study Underway

Labels: Asbestos, Cancer, Mesothelioma, National News, Research

posted by Nancy Meredith at 3:14 PM
Link to this article

Israel City Has One of Highest Rates of Mesothelioma

The city of Nahariya and surrounding area on the northern coast of Israel has one of the highest concentrations of people with mesothelioma in the world, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports.

The incidence of the disease in the area reached 5.72 per 100,000 residents between 2002 and 2008, Dr. Micha Bar-Hana, director of the Israel Health Ministry’s cancer registry, said at a conference at Petah Tikva’s Medical Center. That compares to a rate of 3.55 cases per 100,000 people seven years ago.

Nahariya was home to the only asbestos plant in the nation, which was shut down in 1997. Mesothelioma develops several decades after exposure. Most cases involve people who worked with asbestos. Health experts expect the number of cases will go up in coming decades.

The area around Genoa, Italy, has the highest rate of asbestos-related cancer cases in the world with 5.8 cases per 100,000 people, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Dr. Avi Weiner, an expert in work-related diseases in Haifa, said that people who were in close contact with those who were directly exposed also were at risk of developing mesothelioma. He said he’d seen two cases of wives who became ill because their husband’s clothes carried asbestos particles.

Nahariya Story

Labels: International News

posted by Wade Rawlins at 2:35 PM
Link to this article

Three Louisiana Companies Cited for Asbestos Violations

Three Louisiana employers have been cited $112,000 in penalties for 10 alleged serious violations of federal health and safety rules involving asbestos removal.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Louisiana Health Care Consultants LLC, Dean Building Holdings and Bob Dean Enterprises Inc., jointly for failure to provide proper supervision during the removal of a ceiling containing asbestos and failure to provide respiratory equipment to workers and for not informing them that the work site contained asbestos.

The citations stemmed from work performed at the State National Life Building in downtown Baton Rouge, which is owned by Dean Building Holdings and managed by Bob Dean Enterprises. Louisiana Health Care Consultants specializes in the management and maintenance of nursing homes.

“These companies failed to follow OSHA’s standards for asbestos-related projects in the construction industry,” said Dean McDaniel, the agency’s regional administrator in Dallas. “Employers must be committed to keeping the workplace safe and healthful to prevent injuries, illnesses and fatalities.”

Serious violations are issued when there is a substantial probability that death or serious injury could occur from a hazard that the employer knew about or should have known. The companies have a period of time to respond.

Louisiana Asbestos Citations

Labels: National News

posted by Wade Rawlins at 2:29 PM
Link to this article

Argentina Plant Workers Bring Lawsuit Against DuPont Co. Over Alleged Abestos Exposure

A lawsuit has been filed against Dupont Co. by three former workers at the DuPont plant in Mercedes, Argentina. The three allege that their asbestosis was caused by decades of exposure to asbestos in the plant. The suit has been filed in the state of Delaware.

The asbestos was found in the insulation covering the pipes, where significant heat passed through during production of nylon. The plaintiffs’ lawyer, claims that DuPont identified and cleared up the asbestos at a nylon plant in Delaware in the early 1970s. However, asbestos was still present in 2004 in the Argentina plant, at which time the plant was sold.

The lawsuit alleges DuPont applied a double standard when protecting workers from the asbestos. The suit also alleges that DuPont protected American workers but failed to ensure that the Argentina workers were protected and working in a safe environment. DuPont had been aware of the asbestos in the plant for several decades, according to the complaint.

The Delaware location was selected for filing of the lawsuit since the Delaware courts have experience handling international asbestos cases. All three of the men have asbestosis while two of them also have asbestos-related cancers.

Workers Sue DuPont

Labels: Asbestos, Cancer, Headline News, International News

posted by Nancy Meredith at 1:54 PM
Link to this article