Category: Asbestos Exposure
9/11 Health Care Bill Reopens Victims’ Compensation Fund
New York mesothelioma attorney Joseph W. Belluck said the signing of the 9/11 Health Care bill underscores the nation’s ongoing support for the rescue workers and NY residents who have suffered respiratory health problems related to breathing the toxic dust cloud after World Trade Center terrorist attacks.
“America has lived up to its moral duty to the brave responders who served selflessly on 9/11 and the days afterward,” said Belluck, a partner in Belluck & Fox, a personal injury law firm that represents victims of mesothelioma, a respiratory disease caused by breathing asbestos.
On Sunday, President Obama signed into law the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act that provides medical care and compensation to rescue workers and others harmed by the toxic dust after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The bill was named to honor a New York police detective who some consider to be the first responder to die from breathing the dust at Ground Zero. Zadroga died in 2006. In the closing days of 2010, Democrats and Republicans reached a compromise to pass the bill after years of wrangling about the cost.
The $4.3 billion measure provides $1.8 billion to establish a monitoring and treatment program to measure the ongoing health effects suffered by 9/11 first responders and New Yorkers of breathing the dust. It provides $2.5 billion to re-open the September 11 Victims’ Compensation Fund for five years to provide fair compensation for asbestos exposure, economic losses, and harm.
“Many New Yorkers’ lungs bear the damage from the toxic dust breathed after the 9/11 attacks,” Belluck said in a press release.. “Some firefighters still have abnormal lung function years later, and certainly respiratory diseases such as mesothelioma takes decades to appear.”
Mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung or abdomen, is linked to breathing asbestos. The microscopic asbestos particles lodge in the lung and may cause malignant tumors to appear 20 to 40 years later. Mesothelioma claims the lives of 2,500 to 3,000 Americans a year, most of whom were exposed to asbestos in a workplace many years earlier.
Mesothelioma Increasing Among Women in Great Britain, Latest Stats Show
New statistics from health officials in Great Britain show an alarming increase in cases of mesothelioma among women. For decades, men have been far more likely to develop mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer of the lining of the lung or abdomen.
Mesothelioma develops far more often in men traditionally because they had jobs in construction, mining and manufacturing that exposed them to asbestos, a mineral fiber. Inhaling asbestos dust is closely associated with developing mesothelioma and other serious respiratory diseases, though the symptoms may not appear for decades.
Cancer Research UK, a leading non-profit cancer organization, said that in the last decade, mesothelioma had shown a 57 percent increase in incidence among women—the highest rate of increase of any cancer. Uterine cancer increased by 33 percent and skin cancer or melanoma by 49 percent in the ten-year period through 2007, the group said.
The latest data from the Health and Safety Executive indicates that mesothelioma was listed as a cause of death for 384 women and 1,865 men in 2008. Great Britain has the highest incidence of mesothelioma in the world. The death rate has been increasing for decades and isn’t projected to peak in Great Britain before 2015. In the United States, mesothelioma claims 2,500 to 3,000 lives a year, but the incidence is about half of that of Great Britain.
Cancer experts said they do not know why the incidence of mesothelioma is increasing among women. Symptoms of mesothelioma typically do not appear for 30 year to 40 years after the initial exposure to asbestos. The perception among cancer experts who reviewed the data was that many women victims had not worked in industries traditionally associated with asbestos disease and had low level exposure to asbestos.
There is some speculation that the increase is linked to asbestos-riddled schools that were built in the 1960s and 1970s. Until it was banned in the UK, asbestos was widely used in building materials such as ceiling and floor tiles and insulation in construction of schools and other buildings because of its durability and heat resistant qualities.
Illegal Asbestos Removal Burns New York Contractor
A New York businessman has pleaded guilty in federal court to failing to conduct an inspection before an asbestos removal project, exposing workers and neighbors to deadly asbestos fibers. Breathing asbestos is linked to development of mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung or abdomen and other serious respiratory diseases.
Daniel Black, 56, president of Blackstone Business Enterprises Inc., a sheet metal and structural steel fabricator in Jamestown, New York, faces up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine for the Clean Air Act Violation. Blackstone Business will also pay a $205,000 penalty to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for citation related to improper asbestos removal and an additional $25,000 to the New York Department of Labor. Black also pleaded guilty to tax-related violations that came to light during the asbestos investigation.
In 2008, Black hired four temporary workers to remove asbestos insulation from steam pipes and cut down the steam pipes as scrap metal as part of a renovation of a four-story building at 100 Blackstone Avenue in Jamestown. The four men were exposed to asbestos during the renovation work, U.S. Attorney William Hochul, Jr., told The Post-Journal.
Asbestos was once used in a wide variety of building materials including insulation and tiles. Renovation and demolition activity is a common way that unprotected workers are exposed to asbestos today. For that reason, New York and federal laws strictly regulate the removal of asbestos and require contractors to conduct asbestos surveys to identity the material and contain it to prevent the potential release of toxic asbestos dust. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Black knew asbestos was present in the building because of prior asbestos projects conducted at Blackstone.
Investigators with the New York Department of Labor Asbestos Control Bureau and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration began investigating Blackstone in 2008 after being told that an asbestos disturbance project had occurred. They took samples and determined that asbestos was present at the site.
“These cases are very important to prosecute because the air we breathe, it’s critical that it remain untainted with asbestos,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron Mango. “As renovation of older buildings occurs, it has the potential to be released into the environment, and it is the U.S. Attorney’s position that whenever such renovations may release asbestos into the atmosphere, everything needs to be done to appropriately handle the asbestos. Asbestos is very dangerous.”
Approximately 2,500 to 3,000 Americans are diagnosed each year with mesothelioma. People with mesothelioma typically develop symptoms 20 years to 40 years after exposure to asbestos.
Asbestos Fuels Mesothelioma Epidemic in Hong Kong
With a booming Asian economy, Hong Kong used asbestos extensively in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in the shipyard and construction industries. Asbestos exposure is closely associated with asbestos-related respiratory diseases such as pleural mesothelioma that often appear decades after workers inhale asbestos fibers.
Since 2000, Hong Kong has experienced an epidemic of malignant mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs or abdomen, according to a recent article in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The epidemic parallels the peak usage of asbestos in the early 1960s since symptoms of asbestos-related disease typically take 30 to 40 years to appear.
Researchers from Australia and China predict that the number of cases of mesothelioma in Hong Kong will peak around 2014, then slowly taper off based on data from the Hong Kong Cancer Registry.
Malignant mesothelioma was rare before the 1950s, but has increased sharply since the 1970s in many parts of the world. Exposure to asbestos in the workplace is considered the highest risk factor for developing asbestos cancer.
The researchers observed a notable increase in incidence of mesothelioma from 1976 to 2006 in Hong kong. The highest incidence was among males 70 years or older.
The increasing incidence of mesothelioma in Hong Kong is similar to trends observed in many countries including France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Australia and Japan. The number of cases of mesothelioma in the United States, which restricts asbestos use, has increased to 2,500 to 3,000 a year. The incidence of mesothelioma in many South American countries such as Brazil is expected to keep rising for 10 to 20 more years because of later restrictions on asbestos use.
Hong Kong banned the import and sale of blue asbestos (crocidolite) and brown asbestos (amosite) in 1996. But the country has allowed the continued use of chrysotile asbestos in various industries. While the asbestos industry has claimed that chrysotile asbestos is less toxic than other forms, health organizations have said chrysotile asbestos is a human carcinogen and also causes malignant mesothelioma.
Asbestos Exposure Still Experienced by Majority of World’s Population
The use of asbestos has dropped from more than 4 million metric tons to 2.1 million metric tons in the past 25 years as one country after another has banned the cancer-causing mineral fiber. Yet, a majority of the world’s population still lives in countries including the United States that do not ban asbestos or asbestos-containing products. And demand for asbestos is surging in industrializing countries such as China and India where safeguards on worker exposure are weak or non-existent.
Today, the top users of asbestos are China, Russia, India, Kazakhstan and Brazil. These countries export asbestos-containing products to other countries including the U.S. where the products are used in the automotive and construction industries and pose an ongoing threat of asbestos exposure. Asbestos causes about half the of total deaths from workplace-related cancers such as mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung or abdomen, according to the World Health Organization.
While the U.S. stopped mining asbestos and producing asbestos in 2002, according to a recent article in Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, U.S. companies imported more than 1,400 metric tons on chrysotile asbestos, primarily from Canada, in 2008. Much of it is used for roofing products. In addition, the U.S. imports large quantities of asbestos-containing products such as cement pipe, asbestos-lined brake pads and gaskets.
According to global estimates reported by the World Health Organization 125 million people are exposed to asbestos in the workplace and more than 107,000 people die each year from asbestos-related mesothelioma, lung cancer and asbestosis resulting from occupational exposures. Many experts believe current estimates of asbestos-related disease and deaths understate the actual numbers. Since mesothelioma did not receive its own classification in the International Classification of Diseases until the mid-1990s, many asbestos-related deaths were not classified as such.
Given the decades-long latency period from exposure to asbestos to development of mesothelioma, the epidemic of asbestos-related diseases is still spreading and will for decades to come, particularly in countries still heavily using asbestos.
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