Category: Asbestos Exposure
Canadian Government Understood But Ignored Hazards of Chrysotile Asbestos
The Canadian government privately acknowledged that the dangers of asbestos warranted limits on export, but publicly blocked international efforts to add greater restrictions on the use of asbestos, according to press reports. Exposure to asbestos causes serious respiratory diseases including lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung.
According to the Calgary Herald newspaper, a memorandum to Environment Minister Peter Kent stated that the scientific panel for the United Nation’s Rotterdam Convention was on firm ground in 2002 when it first proposed listing chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous material on the international list of hazardous industrial chemicals. Asbestos is a known cause of cancer recognized by the World Health Organization.
Inclusion on Annex III of the UN’s Rotterdam Convention requires that countries exporting the listed materials must inform importing countries of the health risks, detail safe handling procedures and obtain informed consent from the importer. All countries must agree for a product to be listed, so one country can block the addition of a hazardous material to the list.
“Since 2002, chrysotile has been proposed four times for addition” to Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention,” states the 2011 memo prepared by Deputy Environment Minister Paul Boothe and his associate Andrea Lyon. “At previous meetings and again last June, Canada acknowledged that all criteria for the addition of chrysotile asbestos to the Convention have been met, but opposed its addition.”
Canada has been a leading exporter of chrysotile asbestos, primarily to developing nations with weak or non-existent laws protecting workers. The government has continued to support the asbestos industry, despite repeated admonitions from leading health groups in Canada and abroad of the dangers of asbestos. Most people who develop mesothelioma were exposed to microscopic asbestos fibers in the workplace over a period of weeks, months or years.
Minister of Parliament Pat Martin, a former miner and critic of the asbestos industry, said the Canadian government has been turning a blind eye to the death and disease that asbestos mind in Canada has left behind in many developing countries.
“Both in Canada and abroad, our government refused to act to protect people from asbestos,” Martin said in a statement on his website.
In the United States, approximately 2,500 to 3,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year. Most are older workers, retired workers and veterans who were exposed to asbestos in a workplace. Many asbestos manufacturers were aware of the health hazards of asbestos, but continued selling asbestos-containing building materials and other products for decades with inadequate warnings of the health hazards.
Mesothelioma symptoms typically take 20 years to 50 years to appear. But once the disease develops, it advances aggressively. Mesothelioma is incurable, but there are treatments to control the disease if it is diagnosed at an early stage.
For more information about mesothelioma, click here.
British Study Finds Many Workplace Cancer Cases Involve Asbestos Exposure
About 13,600 new cases of cancer and 8,000 cancer deaths in Great Britain each year are linked to workplace exposures, particularly jobs involving exposure to asbestos or diesel engine fumes, a new study shows.
The study, funded by the British Health and Safety Executive, a government work safety agency, found that nearly half of the cancer deaths were among male construction workers who are most likely to encounter asbestos, a known carcinogen and other carcinogens such as silica and diesel exhaust. Breathing asbestos is associated with serious respiratory diseases including lung cancer, malignant mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung, and asbestosis, a chronic scarring of the lung.
The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, indicated that four in 10 work-related cancer cases and nearly half the occupation-related deaths in Britain involved construction workers. Around 70 percent of the occupation-related deaths in construction workers were linked to asbestos.
Even though asbestos is no long used in new construction, remodeling and maintenance on older buildings containing asbestos materials can put workers at risk of exposure to the asbestos fibers.
“This study gives us a clear insight into how the jobs people do affect their risk of cancer,” Dr. Lesley Rushton, an occupational epidemiologist at Imperial College London said in British Journal of Cancer press release. “We hope these findings will help develop ways of reducing health risks caused by exposure to carcinogens in the workplace.”
The researchers cautioned that the estimates of cancer cases and deaths related to occupational exposure are conservative and could be high as new work-related risk facts are identified.
Asbestos remains the most important occupational risk factor.
Dame Helena Shovelton, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, a non-profit group, said in a BBC news report that asbestos-related diseases kill more people in Great Britain than traffic accidents and the number of deaths is projected to continue increasing in Britain until 2016.
Millions of houses and building were built in Britain and the United States during the decades when asbestos was a widely used building from World War II to about 1980. As long as people are living or working in the buildings, they are at risk of exposure to asbestos if the material is disturbed.
When inhaled, microscopic asbestos fibers typically lodge in the lungs, causing inflammation that can eventually lead to malignancy. Symptoms of mesothelioma and other asbestos diseases typically take 20 years to 40 years to appear. People recently diagnosed with mesothelioma may have been exposed to asbestos in the 1960s or 1970s.
Approximately, 3,000 people are diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma each year in the United States. Most are older workers, retired workers and veterans who were exposed to asbestos in a workplace such as a factory, shipyard or construction site. Construction workers and demolition workers are among the occupations most at risk today of asbestos exposure.
Veterans With Mesothelioma Should Get Counsel About Compensation, Study Says
Veterans who served in many occupations in the military including boiler room work, shipyard work, insulation work, demolition and construction may have breathed asbestos fibers, a known cause of cancer. Malignant pleural mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer that produces tumors in the lining of the lungs and is a signature disease of mesothelioma.
But veterans are rarely advised during treatment of the cause of malignant pleural mesothelioma or the potential to obtain compensation for the harmed caused by asbestos manufacturers, according to a study in The American Journal of Medical Sciences. Mesothelioma is most commonly caused by occupational exposure to asbestos.
The 2011 study, conducted by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and Stanford University, reviewed the charts of 16 patients who had been diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma. The researchers found documented occupational exposure to mesothelioma in 75 percent of the patients while two patients were presumed to have had bystander exposure. Workers who work around asbestos may bring the dust home on their clothes or hair and expose family members to asbestos dust.
Among the 16 veterans diagnosed with mesothelioma, the researchers found documentation of patient counseling about the cause of mesothelioma and opportunities for compensation in only one of the patient files.
The authors concluded that Veterans Affairs physicians may be missing opportunities to provide newly diagnosed patients beneficial information about their legal options and the potential of compensation.
Diseases caused by asbestos exposure take decades to develop. Most cases of asbestos-related lung cancer or asbestosis, a scarring of the lung, occur 15 years or more after the initial exposure. The time between exposure to asbestos and development of mesothelioma is 20 to 50 years. Most cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed 30 years or more after exposure.
Approximately, 2,500 to 3,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year in the United States. Most are men and many are veterans who were exposed during their years of military service. Mesothelioma is incurable, but treatments are available to control the disease, particularly if it is diagnosed before it becomes advanced.
For more information about mesothelioma treatment and legal options, click here.
Higher Risk of Mesothelioma Among Workers at Chlorine Chemical Plant, Study Finds
A new study published in June issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine reports excessive rates of pleural mesothelioma and bladder cancer among workers at a major chlorine chemical plant in France. Pleural Mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer of the lining of the lungs associated with exposure to asbestos.
The study, performed by French researchers in Grenoble, France, analyzed the incidence of tumors from 1979 to 2002 among 2,742 men who worked at the chlorine plant. The study found an significant excess of mesothelioma tumors among workers hired before 1964.
France now bans asbestos because it’s a known cause of cancer, including pleural mesothelioma, peritoneal mesothelioma and lung cancer. But for many years, asbestos was used in the diaphragm-cell process of making chlorine. Asbestos is still used in chlorine manufacturing plants in the U.S. Workers may be exposed to asbestos when transporting sacks of asbestos or when cutting open and emptying sacks of asbestos into mixing tanks. The handling of the empty sack also presented an exposure hazard.
Unlike France, asbestos is not banned in the United States, though its use has dropped significantly since its peak in the 1970s. But the chlorine manufacturing industry remains a significant consumer of asbestos in the U.S. Many older chlorine plants in the U.S. use asbestos diaphragms and gaskets as part of the production process, putting workers at risk of exposure to asbestos. Some have converted their chlorine manufacturing processes to more environmentally friendly, safer technology that do not use asbestos.
According to the 2012 United State Geological Survey of mineral commodities, U.S. industries consumed 1,100 metric tons of asbestos from January through July 2011. The chlorine manufacturing industry, which uses asbestos diaphragms in the manufacturing of industrial chemicals, accounted for about 30 percent of asbestos consumption, the report said.
As a result of past asbestos use in the U.S., Americans are now dying from asbestos cancers and asbestosis, a chronic scarring of the lungs, at the rate of 10,000 people per year, according to Barry Castleman, an environmental and public health consultant who testified before the U.S. Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee in June 2007.
Symptoms of mesothelioma typically take 20 to 50 years to appear after workers inhale microscopic asbestos fibers. Many workers exposed to asbestos in the 1960s or 1970s may only recently have begun noticing symptoms such as pain beneath the ribs or shortness of breath or only been diagnosed with mesothelioma or asbestos disease.
For more information about mesothelioma, click here.
Research Focuses on Treatments That Target Mesothelioma Tumors
For 15 years, Dr. Raffit Hassan, a clinical oncologist at the National Cancer Institute, has been researching the protein mesothelin and its use in the treatment of mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a cancer of the lining of the chest cavity and abdomen associated with exposure to asbestos.
A protein, mesothelin is present in normal tissue. But certain types of malignant tumors including mesothelioma express high levels of the mesothelin, making it a useful target for tumor-specific drugs. The ultimate goal of the National Cancer Institute is to develop new treatments for mesothelioma and other forms of cancer.
“Mesothelioma is not a very common disease, but it’s a tumor for which we really need to develop a good treatment,” Dr. Hassan said during a recent teleconference sponsored by the Meso Foundation, which provides information, research funding and advocacy for mesothelioma victims.
The first drug targeting mesothelin that Hassan has studied in clinical trials involving mesothelioma patients was Amatuximab, an experimental drug developed by Morphotek, a Pennsylvania company that develops cancer treatments. The treatment is an immunotoxin,a human-made protein that is designed to bind to cancer tumor cells, then inject toxins to kill them.
“I have been working on the same project for 10 years,” Dr. Hassan said. “I think we are starting to see some good results.”
The drug has been through phase I and II clinical trials and the results will be presented this summer. It has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
The researchers are evaluating whether the drug when combined with chemotherapy drugs is more effective at controlling mesothelioma.
“The results show the drug is safe and there is activity,” Hassan said. “To be really sure the drug benefits patients we’ll need to do a randomized clinical trial. That will be the next step.”
Approximately 3,000 people are diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma each year. Most are older workers, retired workers and veterans were exposed to asbestos dust in the workplace or during military service. Symptoms of mesothelioma typically take 20 to 40 years to appear. But the cancer is aggressive and more effective treatments are needed to control the disease and extend the lives of mesothelioma patients.
For more information about mesothelioma, click here.
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