Archive for the ‘Mesothelioma’ Category
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
Commercial insurer CNA Financial Corp. has completed its transfer of $1.6 billion of asbestos and environmental pollution liabilities to a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
As a result, CNA said it expects to recognize an after-tax loss of approximately $370 million for the current quarter.
CNA Financial has said the deal eliminates “a significant source of uncertainty” for the Chicago company, which is primarily owned by Loews Corp., a conglomerate controlled by New York’s Tisch family.
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Saturday, August 21st, 2010
Asbestos use in India is booming. The country is now the world’s second largest market, behind only China, consuming nearly 350,000 metric tons in 2008. The asbestos industry generates more than $850 million a year in revenue, and directly employs 300,000 people; indirectly, it supports as many as 3 million more. Backed by a powerful lobby, asbestos use in India shockingly has risen by 83 percent since 2004 according to government figures. All of this despite that fact that a wide body of scientific research long ago linked asbestos exposure to a variety of diseases including the deadly cancers, malignant mesothelioma and lung cancer. 52 nations world-wide have banned the use of asbestos. The European Union has a total ban on asbestos and asbestos use in the United States has been highly regulated since the early 1970s.
Extensive lobbying efforts by industry have left asbestos products in India with no warning labels and trade unions have no mandate to prevent asbestos-related disease at workplaces. The Indian government has made no official finding that asbestos is linked to human cancer.
One factor which aides the asbestos industry in India, note some experts, is the fact that nearly 450 million people in India live below the poverty level. As Gopal Krishna of the Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) stated, “the asbestos market – despite being a health hazard – has grown because it serves the market for poor and that market is ground at a tremendous pace, So, nobody has the time for complaints”
For more information on the asbestos tragedy in India, see the Dangers in the Dust: Inside the Global Asbestos Trade, a news series by the BBC and the International Consortium for Investigate Journalists.
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Monday, August 2nd, 2010
This summer, when Kellogg recalled 28 million boxes of cereal, the company was concerned about elevated levels of a chemical in its packaging.
But Kellogg said a team of experts it hired determined that there was “no harmful material” in the products.
Federal regulators, who are charged with ensuring the safety of food and consumer products, are in the dark about the suspected chemical, 2-methylnaphthalene. The Food and Drug Administration has no scientific data on its impact on human health. The Environmental Protection Agency also lacks basic health and safety data for 2-methylnaphthalene — even though the EPA has been seeking that information from the chemical industry for 16 years.
As today’s Washington Post reports, the cereal recall hints at a larger issue: huge gaps in the government’s knowledge about chemicals in everyday consumer products, from furniture to clothing to children’s products. Under current laws, the government has little or no information about the health risks posed by most of the 80,000 chemicals on the U.S. market today.
The information gap is hardly new. Of the more than 80,000 chemicals used in the United States, only 200 have been reviewed by the EPA in the past 30 years. The hurdles that exist for classifying a substance as a toxin under the Toxic Control Substance Act are daunting and prevent the protection of the public. For instance, legal hurdles and court battles have prevented the EPA from issuing an outright ban on asbestos, a well documented carcinogen, under the TCSA.
The TSCA must be updated and strengthened. A greater emphasis needs to be placed on industry to conduct research and testing and to provide those results to the EPA. Additionally, the EPA must be allowed to rely on sound, existing science to classify and regulate toxins under the TSCA.
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Thursday, July 29th, 2010
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that two plaintiffs alleging that exposure to asbestos caused their illnesses cannot have their cases dismissed on summary judgment simply because the plaintiffs’ doctor opined that their illnesses are attributable both to exposure to asbestos and to smoking.
According to the plaintiffs’ attorney, the court’s ruling in Summers v. Certainteed Corp. and Nybeck v. Union Carbide Corp. could impact many cases beyond asbestos litigation by setting the standard of review of summary judgments as a de novo review, rather than an abuse of discretion standard of review.
Justice Max Baer, writing for a majority including Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille and Justices Debra Todd and Seamus P. McCaffery, overruled a prior Superior Court ruling, Quate v. American Standard Inc.
In that 2003 case, the Superior Court ruled that when a plaintiff has symptoms that could arise from exposure to asbestos, as well as from another malady, “‘the existence of those non-asbestos-related medical conditions negate his ability to establish the necessary causal link between his symptoms and asbestos exposure,’” Baer said.
The Supreme Court rejected the bright-line rule implied in Quate — that plaintiffs should be precluded from recovery when their breathlessness and other symptoms could be attributable to diseases, some of which are caused by asbestos exposure and some of which are due to other causes.
Baer said such issues of causation, when backed by “reasonably certain expert opinions,” should survive summary judgment and go to juries to determine causation.
“Under this commonwealth’s jurisprudence, where it is clear that reasonable minds could differ on the issue of causation, precluding asbestos litigants from pursuing causes of action, supported by competent medical evidence, merely because of the existence of competing health conditions, is unsustainable,” Baer wrote.
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Saturday, July 24th, 2010
asbestos worker in china
A recent news report, Dangers In the Dust: Inside the Global Asbestos Trade, by the BBC and the International Coalition of Investigative Journalists reveals that the asbestos industry has spent over $100 million in recent years to lobby and promote the continued use of asbestos in developing nations around the world.
Part of the asbestos industry’s effort has included using industry-funded researchers to place into the scientific literature hundreds of articles claiming the chrysotile asbestos can be used safely. Their central position is that chrysotile, or white abestsos, is the only kind sold today and they claim it is orders of magnitude safer than brown or blue asbestos.
The industry’s position flies in the face of world scientific consensus from such groups as the World Health Organization, American Public Health Organization, the International Commission on Occupational Health, the EPA and 52 nations around the world that have banned the use of all forms of asbestos including chrysotile.
Perhaps nowhere is the industry as strong as in India, the world’s second-largest consumer of asbestos after China. There are more than 400 asbestos cement factories in India and the asbestos market is growing at a rate of about 30% annually. Tragically, if developing nations don’t begin to ban the use of asbestos, and nations such as Canada and Russia continue to export asbestos, the death toll of asbestos victims globally will continue throughout the 21st century. Already, at current consumption rates, China is expected to have 10,000 to 15,000 asbestos-related deaths per year by 2035. This after the United States and Europe continue to suffer thousands of asbestos related deaths a year from now decades old asbestos use.
Help stop history from repeating itself. Contribute the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat or help urge Canada to ban the export of asbestos to already troubled nations around the world.
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Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
Indian Workers Protest Asbestos
Despite proven links to cancer, a ban in the European Union and restrictions in the United States, industry lobbyists have ensured that asbestos is still very much in demand in the developing world, a report out today shows.
An investigation conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the BBC, Dangers In the Dust: Inside the Global Asbestos Trade , found that the asbestos industry has ignored waves of asbestos-related disease around the world that have led to bans or restrictions in 52 countries, and continues to ply the mineral in developing nations.
More than half of the two million metric tons of asbestos that were mined worldwide in 2009 was exported to developing countries India and Mexico, where demand is high for cheap building materials.
Most of the asbestos sold in those countries is used in cement for corrugated roofing, in water pipes and for home construction.
The asbestos industry’s growth has been fueled by an marketing campaign of international industry groups and led by the Canadian government backed Chrysotile Institute.
Asbestos fibers when inhaled can cause a variety of diseases in humans, including lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung. The continued export of asbestos to developing countries will tragically create a new generation of asbestos victims far into the 21st century.
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Monday, July 19th, 2010
The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), today released a statement from Linda Reinstein, CEO and Co-Founder, regarding the California proposed legislation to drop the state rock, serpentine.
“In a united call for compassionate action, The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) fully supports the Drop the Rock campaign to remove the official California State rock, Serpentine, which is the host rock for asbestos. The tragic irony of this designation is that asbestos exposure can cause numerous respiratory diseases and cancers including lung cancer and mesothelioma. The legislation behind the movement, SB 624, is about abolishing a symbol that conveys a very dangerous legacy. In 1965, Serpentine was designated as the state rock of California to promote the then lucrative asbestos mining industry, an industry that has since been closed down” said Reinstein.
The World Health Organization, The Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Surgeon General agree: all forms of asbestos are carcinogenic and there is no safe level of asbestos exposure. According to the State of California Department of Conservation, ‘Chrysotile often occurs as fibrous veinlets in serpentine. Chrysotile in fibrous form is the most common type of asbestos…serpentine often contains some asbestos, and exposure to asbestos fibers have potential human-health consequences…’
SB 624 enjoys widespread bipartisan support. It unanimously passed the Manhattan Beach City Council, Californian State Senate and California Assembly Committee on Natural Resources and is supported by such organizations as the Children’s Hospital of L.A.
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Saturday, July 17th, 2010
Researchers at Columbia University report that changes in the size of tumors in patients with mesothelioma who have undergone chemotherapy may be useful in predicting their response to treatment and survival. Mesothelioma is an incurable cancer of the lining of the lung associated with exposure to asbestos.
In a new article in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, researchers at Columbia’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center describe the outcomes of clinical trials involving 30 mesothelioma patients who were treated with chemotherapy followed by surgery and radiation.
The researchers took CT scans of the 30 patients’ lungs and calculated the size of their tumors before and after two rounds of chemotherapy. Patients diagnosed with stage III and stage IV cancer generally had larger tumors than those with less advanced cancer. The percentage change in the size of the tumor from the initial measurement to their evaluation after two cycles of chemotherapy was strongly associated with patients’ overall survival, the researchers said. They found a significant difference in the length of survival among patients whose tumors increased after chemotherapy and those whose tumors decreased.
The researchers said computer-aided measurements of tumors may offer doctors a more reliable way to assess patients’ response to treatment and could provide additional information about patients’ prognosis
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Thursday, July 15th, 2010
The Associated Press reports that geologists and industry advocates are pushing California lawmakers to keep serpentine as the official rock of California. Their arguments for keeping the rock: the asbestos often found in serpentine is not as dangerous as other types of asbestos and trial lawyers will create new claims if serpentine is declassified.
The health concerns regarding asbestos are well documented. The World Health Organization, among numerous health organizations, has found that all types of asbestos, including chrysotile – the kind found in serpentine, are hazardous to humans. No safe level of asbestos exposure has been identified. Indeed, even lower level exposures to asbestos, including chrysotile, can cause the development of mesothelioma. For these reasons, over 50 nations world-wide have banned the mining and use of all forms of asbestos. There is no real debate in the scientific world about whether chrysotile or any other forms of asbestos are toxic.
As for new litigation that will be caused by stripping the rock of its official title – that’s a scare tactic. As Ben DuBose stated in today’s Associated Press report, removing serpentine as the California state rock will not result in any new types of litigation. The reason – it’s not the rock itself but the asbestos that’s commonly contained in the rock that poses the hazard.
The reason California needs to drop the rock – it’s really out of respect to all of the asbestos cancer victims, including several thousand in California. The proposed law is the decent thing to do since the asbestos industry pressured the California legislature to give serpentine its special status in the first place.
For more information, see our previous post on whether to drop the rock.
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Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
The Canadian Cancer Society is standing up with other public health groups and international scientists to call for an end to Canadian asbestos mining. The Cancer Society stepped in to urge Premier Jean Charest to deny a $58 million loan to keep the Asbestos, Quebec mine, currently in bankruptcy, operating for 25 more years. Asbestos, a known carcinogen, is blamed for causing mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis and other respiratory illnesses which continue to develop around the world including Canada and the US.
The action was followed by the town of Asbestos cancelling their participation in one of the Canadian Cancer Society’s premier fundraising events, Relay for Life. The mayor of Asbestos said, “We want to work with our partners and not with our detractors,” and believes that asbestos is safe when properly handled.
Canada is a major exporter of asbestos to developing nations such as India, Mexico and Brazil where asbestos is still used in new construction materials. Countless workers will continue to develop asbestos disease in these countries for decades to come as a result of Canada’s actions.
Even small amounts of asbestos when inhaled can cause mesothelioma, lung cancer and other asbestos related diseases.
The Cancer Society states that their concern is the health of the public and “we are concerned about the fact that asbestos is a fiber that is killing people.” The Canadian Cancer Society vows to continue to apply pressure to politicians, and to put Canada’s public health first. Other Canadian organizations have joined the cause, including the Canadian Public Health Association and the Canadian Medical Association.
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