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On September 26th We Remember Asbestos Victims and Push Forward for a Ban

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The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) takes asbestos exposure seriously as they have heard the stories of thousands who have died, and so each year on September 26th they remember asbestos victims and push forward for a ban on this deadly mineral.

While many countries around the world have banned the use and import of asbestos, it is still legal in the United States. It is proven to be a cancer-causing substance for those exposed as there is no safe level of exposure to asbestos.

Mesothelioma Awareness Day

This year the ADAO has moved from a Mesothelioma Awareness Day on September 26th to proclaiming September a Mesothelioma Awareness Month to increase the reach to people that can be educated to the threat of asbestos use and the need for caution when working with any material that may contain asbestos.

How can we remember asbestos victims and push forward for a ban?

• Right now you can sign a petition to ban asbestos. By clicking this link, you’ll be directed to a page where you can sign. The more legislators who see the interest of citizens for a ban, the more they can push the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to increase the current rules, recognize the dangers, and get to the point of an outright ban.

• Join the chat on Twitter September 26th, from 12-1 PM ET. Go to #ENDMeso – for that hour, you’ll find questions about asbestos awareness as well as comments from people personally affected by asbestos exposure and mesothelioma, a deadly disease directly connected to exposure. The purpose is to create a global conversation between experts, victims, advocates, and anyone concerned about the dangers and the long delay in stopping the use of asbestos in the US.

• Light a candle on September 26th for the Mesothelioma Warriors lost to the disease and those who continue to fight for their lives.

• Participate in the 9th Annual Miles for Meso 5K Race and 3K Walk/Fun-Run. Last year $30,000 was raised to help fund awareness and education efforts. The race in in Alton, Illinois, but is available to anyone through the ADAO’s Virtual Team where you can join in from the front of your computer.

The urgency of a ban

Mesothelioma is a disease that often takes decades to appear after exposure. It currently has no cure. Because of the long lag between exposure and diagnosis, people exposed today may not develop the disease until 2050! This cycle needs to stop now and asbestos must be banned to stop it.

In addition to the steps you can take outlined above, you can donate to the ADAO as a partner in the fight for a ban. You can directly contact the EPA and your legislators. You can be an advocate for the health of many by adding your voice to stop the import and use of asbestos now.

Flintkote in New Orleans: Fifty Years of Asbestos Exposure in Manufacturing

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The Flintkote Company established its product line in Massachusetts for over 30 years before opening a plant in New Orleans in the late 1930s. Thus began forty years of asbestos exposure in manufacturing roofing products and floor tiles in NOLA. 

By 1963, Flintkote had 147 plants, including 21 international. Though they produced gypsum, paper products, pipes, and other cement and asbestos products, their focus was on construction materials throughout the 1970s. But in 1987, Flintkote sold its construction, stone, and cement products units as they turned their attention to their enormous asbestos liabilities.

Flintkote today is known for its asbestos-related lawsuits. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2004. At that time, they had paid $630 million for over 350,000 asbestos claims with over 155,000 cases yet to be tried at the time of bankruptcy. They remain liable for damages created by their use of asbestos. 

Asbestos exposure in manufacturing

The New Orleans plant was located at Poland Avenue and N. Galvez Street along a waterway that flowed directly into the Mississippi River. Workers handled raw asbestos here while adding it to roofing products and floor tiles. This continued at the New Orleans plant until the late 1970s. 

Results of asbestos exposure

By handling the asbestos with no protection, the microscopic fibers were allowed to permeate the air and, subsequently, enter the lungs through inhalation. These fibers can stay in the lungs for years – or decades – until possibly leading to lung cancer, asbestosis, or the fatal mesothelioma.  

Even today, there are workers fighting for justice after exposure at this plant. If you, or a loved one, believe you were exposed to asbestos, it is critical to see a doctor for regular medical exams. 

Asbestos Job Sites Louisiana

Will Elephants Help Scientists Find a Way to Combat Human Cancers?

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New cells going awry as they replace older cells in the body can often lead to cancer, but a study in the Cell Reports journal describes a way that elephants may lead scientists to new ways to combat human cancers.

Bigger may be better

Since cells are a critical component of acquiring cancer, it is reasonable to think that a large mammal, such as an elephant, would develop more cancers than a smaller mammal, such as a human, since it would clearly have hundreds of times more cells in its large body. However, elephants rarely get cancer in any form.

A paper published by Joshua Schiffman, a pediatric oncologist at the University of Utah, and his team, pointed out an interesting finding showing organism size and cancer rates are the reverse of what rational thought would suppose. In our bodies is a tumor-suppressing gene – P53. Whereas humans have one copy of this important gene; elephants have 20.

The purpose of P53

P53 acts as a genetic triage manager, recognizing abnormal DNA and determining whether to repair or destroy the cell. This is where elephants excel with their overload of P53. For the most part, damaged cells in elephants are killed, not repaired, while other mammals – including humans – tend to try to repair first. Since these damaged cells are killed immediately in elephants, they don’t have time to become cancerous.

Vincent Lynch, who led the study team and is an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, stated, “Elephants are weird. Their cells just die if you give them DNA damage.” He wanted to know why. This quest lead to finding the answer in LIF genes.

What are LIF genes?

He found this strange phenomenon by looking for what genes might be genetically different between an elephant and other small-bodied mammals. Primarily they were looking for genes with extra copies. That’s when he found that one gene, Leukemia Inhibitory Factor, or LIF – known for enhancing fertility – also killed aberrant cells. Almost every mammal, including humans have one copy of LIF, but elephants, manatees, and the hyrax, have many. Elephants have anywhere from 7 to 11 copies. LIF6 is the only gene that appears to act as the executioner when P53 orders a cell killed and only elephants have that specific gene.

Lynch and his team confirmed their suspicions by damaging DNA from African elephant cells in the lab. This pulled the trigger for P53 to give orders to the LIF6 gene, which then killed the damaged cells. But, when LIF6 was made non-functioning, the P53 had nowhere to turn and the elephant sensitivity to cell damage no longer worked, leaving the damaged cells free to roam and multiply.

Ways to combat human cancers are just beginning

P53 and LIF6 functions in elephants are remarkable finds, but there is more to study. In fact, one ongoing study focuses on a set of genes that works to repair elephant DNA instead of killing the cells.

Researchers hope that these in-depth studies of cancer defenses in elephants will be the start of finding additional treatments for cancer in humans.

Is the EPA Making Asbestos Great Again?

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Is the EPA allowing asbestos again? Maybe. But there’s still time to act. The proposed EPA rule that is at the center of this firestorm is available for public comment until August 10.

Before we get to the current controversy, let’s review how we got here.

There’s Never Been an Asbestos Ban?

The undisputed recognition of asbestos as a killer lead OSHA to regulate asbestos in 1972. Millions of American lives were at stake. OSHA regulation made a real impact and saved lives by limiting asbestos exposure in the work place. In turn, many asbestos containing products could no longer be used in a way that complied with OSHA regulations. So, a steep decline in the manufacture of asbestos products ensued.

In 1989, the EPA followed up with what was to be the final blow – a complete ban on asbestos under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Weaknesses in TSCA, however, led to an appellate court overturning the ban. So, while Europe banned asbestos in the mid 1990s, there’s never been an outright ban on the use of asbestos in the United States. We’ve had restrictions on the deadly fiber, but no complete ban.

A New Hope

Finally, in 2016, a bipartisan effort in Congress led to a reformed TSCA giving the EPA new tools to review thousands of chemicals. Asbestos, the EPA announced in the closing days of the Obama administration, was one of the first ten chemicals to be reviewed under the new TSCA. Just two years ago, the scientific community widely believed an asbestos ban in the United States was finally in sight.

EPA Under Trump Administration

TSCA, however, requires a three year review period. Thus, the majority of the TSCA asbestos review is now happening under President Trump’s EPA. And that’s where things have taken an unexpected turn. The EPA’s approach involves a three-fold problem.

First, on June 1st, the EPA announced a “Significant New Use Rule” (SNUR) – a proposed framework that will create opportunities for “new uses” of asbestos. The EPA insists it took unprecedented action by requiring EPA approval before manufacturers can import or use asbestos in the manufacture of products. But when there is no safe level of exposure to asbestos, why create a system in which the EPA can now approve new uses of this deadly fiber? Banning asbestos would be unprecedented action – not creating a system to actually approve of new asbestos use.

Second, in May 2018, the EPA published a “Problem Formulation of the Risk Evaluation for Asbestos.” The document lays out the EPA’s planned approach for evaluating new uses of asbestos and what to consider as part of the three year TSCA asbestos review. The problem with the Problem Formulation: the EPA won’t consider pre-existing information on the health consequences of legacy uses of asbestos, such as building materials that remain in place across America. Instead, the agency will focus on “new uses for manufacture, processing or distribution is intended, known to be occurring, or reasonably foreseen.”

This will severely limit the types of exposures the EPA will include in formulating the risk of new asbestos uses. As a result – the EPA most likely will find lower levels of risk and will likely impose fewer restrictions.

Finally, the EPA recently proposed a “scientific transparency” rule which sounds great, but would prohibit the agency from considering most large scale, peer-reviewed medical research concerning the health consequences of the substances we breathe, eat and drink.

Combine all of these issues and it’s clear the EPA under the Trump administration has no plans to ban asbestos. In fact, if the SNUR rule takes effect, the EPA will have a framework to approve new asbestos uses. Existing OSHA regulations and the specter of asbestos legal liabilities will probably prevent very many new uses of asbestos from becoming a reality, but there shouldn’t be any.

The EPA’s mission is to protect human health and the environment. The proposed asbestos SNUR does neither. A U.S. ban on asbestos would.

An even broader question: if the EPA is taking such tepid measures with an undisputed human carcinogen like asbestos, what will the agency do with the thousands of lesser known chemicals still to be reviewed?

Asbestos Found in Playskool Crayons

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When thinking of asbestos exposure, building materials may come to mind first, but now tests show asbestos found in Playskool crayons sold at Dollar Tree.

It appeared that the asbestos found in many brands of crayon in 2015 had been remedied, but this brand still tests positive. Kara Cook-Schultz, toxics director at U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), revealed, “The good news is that when we were testing three years ago, all sorts of brands came back with asbestos. Now it’s just this one.”

Though there were trace amounts found, there is no safe level of asbestos. Children tend to put crayons in their mouths and could breathe fibers transferred to the coloring surface. These fibers can cause breathing problems and even cancer – though these would be discovered years or decades in the future.

While Dollar Tree maintains that independent testing of all their products for children showed they met all legal and safety standards, Hasbro, owner of Playskool, said they will investigate the claim and will work alongside Leap Year that licenses the products.

While U.S. PIRG found the majority of products tested were free of toxins this year, there were some, in addition to the Playskool crayons, that parents and teachers should avoid as they prepare for back to school.

Children’s products to avoid:

Asbestos found in Playskool crayons is not the only asbestos exposure to children

• Blue three-ring binders made by Jot and sold at Dollar Tree tested positive for phthalates, a substance linked with asthma, obesity and lower-IQ scores, for instance.

• Dry erase markers made by Expo and The Board Dudes tested positive for carcinogenic BTEX chemicals, such as benzene, xylene, and toluene.

• Additionally, two types of children’s water bottles were previously recalled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission for containing lead — Reduce Hydro Pro Furry Friends water bottle, sold at Costco and Amazon, and GSI Outdoors Children’s Water Bottles, sold at L.L. Bean. Despite the recall, a CBS New reporter was able to order the Hydro Pro Furry Friends product from Costco online.

The good news

By knowing this information, you can buy clean brands with confidence. In the case of crayons – Crayola, Rose Art, Disney Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Crayons, Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and other brands were declared safe.