Asbestos News, Information, And Resources

Yes. A very important characteristic of asbestos-related diseases is the long delay, or latency period, between asbestos exposure and the onset of disease. It is usually at least 15 years, and sometimes as long as 40 or 50 years, after the initial exposure before an asbestos-related disease develops. Because of this latency period, people exposed to asbestos many years ago are still at risk of developing an asbestos-related disease.

The most common asbestos-related diseases are asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma. Asbestos can also cause esophageal, pharyngeal, and laryngeal cancers, as well as stomach cancer and colon cancer.

BASIC FACTS ABOUT ASBESTOSIS, LUNG CANCER, AND MESOTHELIOMA

MESOTHELIOMA

For mesothelioma, the latency period between the person's first asbestos exposure and the start of this disease is at least 20 years and sometimes 50 years.

Early symptoms include shortness of breath, or wheezing upon exertion, i.e., dyspnea, and chest pain. A dry cough, malaise, and weight loss may also occur.

LUNG CANCER

Due to the latency period for lung cancer, this disease is usually diagnosed 25 to 40 years following the person's first exposure to asbestos.

The early symptoms of lung cancer are progressive weakness, weight loss, fatigue, and coughing or spitting of blood, i.e., hemoptysis.

The more asbestos dust inhaled by a person in the past, the greater the risk of that person developing lung cancer at some time in the future.

ASBESTOSIS

Asbestosis has a latency period of at least 15 years, and there may be no physical symptoms of this disease until 20 to 40 years after initial exposure to asbestos.

Early symptoms include shortness of breath, or wheezing.

Back To Contents At A Glance

As healthcare professionals, doctors have a particular point of view when it comes to their patients. They have their routines for delivering bad news and treatment. Yet, there comes a time that doctors must become patients. As doctors, they have the unique position of caregiver and cared-for. When they are treated by colleagues they have a primacy of perspective that gives them an advantageous viewpoint through which to analyze healthcare professionals. They can see how the manner with which patients are dealt may not be effective or even humane.

In a sobering account of one doctor's diagnosis of mesothelioma, "A patient's journey." (BMJ, subscription required), Dr. Kieran Sweeney seeks to expose the dire shortcomings of healthcare professionals' interactions with their patients. Through conversation, facial expressions, and mannerisms a doctor has a profound effect on how a patient copes with being diagnosed with a terminal disease. Dr. Sweeney hopes to make a change in the way that doctors currently conduct themselves when addressing the needs of sick patients.

Dr. Sweeney's story opens in the hospital. He was there for testing and no one seemed to want to let him know exactly what was going on. What follows is shocking:

While I was having the check film, my wife asked the specialist (cancer) nurse why everyone was so downcast. At that point, everyone around knew I had a mesothelioma, except me. I learnt about it by reading the discharge summary over a glass of sauvignon blanc with lunch at home: malignant mesothelioma. 'Patient is aware of the diagnosis,' said the discharge summary.

From there on out, Dr. Sweeney had entered "the kingdom of the sick," as he called it. He quickly became entirely disconcerted by the healthcare professionals treating him and through his story offers some suggestions:

...one's journey to this bleak place can be rendered more bearable if everyone who shares a professional role at the various staging posts bears the bleakness of the terminus in mind. Some simple ground rules could improve the nature of the professional patient interaction, if not actually displace its underlying, transactional mindset.

Please can all healthcare professionals stop asking patients to "Do this for me?" I'm not doing it for them, I'm doing it for me. The key point here is about locus of control. If I am asked, or more often instructed, to do something "for me"-meaning the health professional- then the locus of control for the transaction lies with that person. But the focus of the transaction should be me, the patient. Structured in that way, the "for me" defines the interaction as transactional-I am cared for-but not relational: one is left with the feeling that the professional does not care about me but does something to me.

Please can we avoid crass attempts at humour? There is nothing funny about clutching a plastic bag with all your clothes in, except your pants, socks, and shoes-just stop and think what that must be like-while trying to secure a hospital gown around you, and following, like some faithful gun dog, a radiology attendant who without introduction commands you, with a broad grin to acknowledge his witty lack of grammar, to "follow I!"

His point is not to completely categorize all healthcare professionals as out-of-touch, insensitive stoics. He intends to show that what doctors mean to convey and what they actually convey can end up being quite different. Not only this, but many times members of the same healthcare team have very different, sometimes contradictory, approaches to the personal aspect of treating the patient. He urges that this issue must be addressed.

Being a patient diagnosed with mesothelioma is especially difficult. There just aren't the same resources available. With awareness groups such as Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, this is hopefully something that will continue to change. Yet as it stands, mesothelioma patients truly need their doctors to treat them, not as just another patient, but personally, as individuals.

Dr. Sweeney closes stating:

In the care I have received, the transactions have been timely and technically impeccable. But the relational aspects of care lacked strong leadership and at key moments were characterised by a hesitation to be brave. What I have always feared in illness was anonymity, being packaged, losing control, not being able to say "this is who I am." In the end, one is left alone, here, in the kingdom of the sick.

His story is a call to action. Perhaps the suggestions he's provided will be taken to heart by many clinicians whose intentions are assuredly not to be cold and impersonal. The healthcare community needs stories like these, and not just from doctors, in order to evaluate and train themselves in the highly delicate art of patient relations.

With a subscription to BMJ you can read Dr. Kieran Sweeney's full story about his diagnosis of mesothelioma, "A pateint's journey".

For a guide on the types of professions often linked to asbestos exposure, who else might be at risk, and diseases associated with asbestos visit our Asbestos-Related Diseases And Legal Compensation guide. Here you will also find an overview of how to initiate the process of getting legal compensation for your asbestos-related illnesses.

Back To Contents At A Glance

Attorney Tom Lamb represents plaintiffs in cases involving asbestos-related diseases and asbestos cancers such as mesothelioma. These articles were posted originally on his blog, Asbestos HUB, which can be found at http://asbestoshub.com/. For more asbestos and mesothelioma, as well as information about the Law Offices of Thomas J. Lamb, P.A., visit their web site at http://www.Asbestos-Mesothelioma.com.

Japan Study Shows 1 in 8 Lung Cancer Cases Due to Asbestos
June 8, 2009

Pleural plaques, or a thickening of lung membranes due to asbestos exposure, were found in one in eight lung cancer patients in Osaka, Japan. The finding is documented in medical research papers jointly released by 12 medical institutions.

The research team said the number of people who died from asbestos-related lung cancer could amount to several thousand people per year since roughly 60,000 people die from lung cancer each year in Osaka.

Read the full article at Asbestos HUB...

Things Are Looking Good at W.R. Grace
May 13, 2009

W.R. Grace was collectively found not guilty of conspiracy, violating the Clean Air Act and obstruction of justice in the contamination of the town of Libby, Montana. They can now exit from an eight year bankruptcy.

A conviction in the case would have meant more than $280 million in fines and restitution, and a delay in exit from bankruptcy. Not surprisingly, Grace stock went up 36 percent in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

One former Libby resident reacted angrily to the verdict. Mike Crill, 54, yelled inside the courthouse, "What did they die for? Who's guilty for killing me? They're guilty of killing Mike Crill and his family and everybody."

Crill said his parents, uncle and father-in-law all died of asbestos-related diseases. Crill, who used to fill railroad boxcars with vermiculite at work, said he and his wife have both been diagnosed with scarring of the lungs.

Grace filed bankruptcy in 2001 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware, seeking protection from more than 100,000 claims for damages related to asbestosis, most of them unrelated to Libby.

Prosecutors alleged that the company and seven former executives conspired for decades to expose Libby residents to asbestos-contaminated vermiculite.

Asbestos-related diseases, including asbestosis and and mesothelioma, have killed more than 200 people in the Libby area and sickened more than 1,200. Libby residents die from asbestosis at a rate 40 to 80 times normal, the government said.

During the trial, Judge Molloy frequently criticized the prosecution's case outside the presence of the jury, and limited the evidence the government was permitted to present. Several of his pretrial rulings were reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco before the start of the trial. Despite the roadblocks, W.R. Grace prevailed.

Back To Contents At A Glance

Top photo courtesy of Asbestorama

W.R. Grace Criminal Trial Begins February 2009
February 16, 2009

Hundreds of deaths in Libby, Montana have been blamed on a vermiculite mining operation once operated by W.R. Grace. The contamination of Libby, Montana could be considered one of the most far-reaching environmental crimes and the federal government is about to start prosecutions in federal court in Missoula, in February 2009.

An indictment charges that W.R. Grace & Co. and six of its one-time employees knowingly endangered the lives of mine workers and other residents of Libby, and ignored warnings by state agencies to clean up the contaminated vermiculite mining operation. Asbestos contamination has been blamed for the deaths of about 200 Libby residents, and has sickened hundreds more.

According to W.R. Grace's own records, the Libby vermiculite mine belched out tons of tremolite asbestos dust into the air every day it operated. As a result, the population has been diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases at more than 40 times the national average.

Read the full article at Asbestos HUB...

UK Woman Gets Mesothelioma From Washing Husband's Clothes
January 21, 2009

Sylvia Coster, 73, from Totton, in the UK had eight times the normal amount of asbestos particles in her lungs when she died. The cause? Washing her husband's asbestos covered clothes and visiting her father at work.

Sylvia's husband Dennis had brought home his overalls for washing when he worked at Pirelli in Eastleigh during the 1960s.

It is the latest in a series of deaths by industrial disease that face Hampshire women who came into contact with the material decades ago as they greeted their husbands home and did the weekly wash.

Mrs. Coster came into contact with asbestos while shaking asbestos particles off her husband's clothes. She said that her husband came into so much contact with asbestos that it would gather in the turn-ups of his trousers.

Read the full article at Asbestos HUB...

About the W.R. Grace Asbestos Criminal Trial...
January 20, 2009

Not much, just a quick update.

Lawyers are scheduled to hold pretrial arguments in January 2008 on what evidence can be presented during the federal criminal trial against W.R. Grace & Co.

The case involves public exposure to asbestos in the Libby area, where Grace used to operate a vermiculite mine. The government alleges W.R. Grace's former managers conspired to hide health risks associated with the asbestos mine. Grace has denied any criminal wrongdoing.

The trial before U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy is scheduled to start Feb. 19 and last about three months.

Read the full article at Asbestos HUB...

Vermont Asbestos Meeting Shows Residents Concerned About Property Values. And Perhaps Health.
January 19, 2009

Hundreds of people crowded a meeting with Vermont state health and environmental officials after conflicting results of a recent study of asbestos disease in the area in January 2009.

The state Health Department study found an elevated incidence of deaths and hospitalization for asbestosis, a lung disease, among residents within a 10 mile radius of the now-closed Vermont Asbestos Group mine in Eden and Lowell.

The actual number of cases between 1994 and 2006 was three deaths and 14 hospitalizations, a small number but statistically significant for a small area, and the study did not attempt to determine how the patients had been exposed to asbestos. Um, the mine maybe?

Read the full article at Asbestos HUB...

Back To Contents At A Glance

Asbestos Still a Problem In Schools
January 15, 2009

Crestwood Middle School in Chesapeake, Maryland, closed in early January 2009 after tests found elevated levels of asbestos in the air.

Students were evacuated after one of six air-quality tests performed at the school came back too high, said school spokesman Tom Cupitt. They didn't say how high but even one fiber is too many.

The school's 600+ students were taken to another school a few miles away.

The division is waiting for the results of more tests to determine when students will be allowed back in the school or what measures need to be taken.

Read the full article at Asbestos HUB...

Vermont Plagued by Old Asbestos Mine
January 13, 2009

The results of a November 2008 report that analyzed hospital and death records for residents of 13 towns around the now-closed asbestos mine on Belvidere Mountain near Eden, Vermont, strongly suggest an increased risk of asbestos diseases and death among those who live near the mine. Asbestos was mined in Vermont for almost 100 years.

Health officials are going to Eden and Lowell in early January 2009 to discuss a report linking lung disease to people who lived in the towns closest to the mine. Some residents are angry; others dismiss the idea that there is a health risk.

Read the full article at Asbestos HUB...

Back To Contents At A Glance

"Today we honour the memory of this great Australian Bernie Banton in opening the world's first dedicated asbestos research centre," begins Kevin Rudd's passionate address at the opening of the Bernie Banton Centre.

Bernie Banton was an enthusiastic and deeply caring promoter of asbestos research. He fought throughout his life to gain public, and political, awareness of the dangers of asbestos. He not only fought by the sides of those afflicted with and affected by mesothelioma and asbestosis, but he suffered from asbestos-related cancer himself. He finally succumbed to the cancer in November of 2008. Now, appropriately, an asbestos research center is opening in the very hospital where he was treated and christened with his name.

"This centre has just one purpose - to improve the lives of asbestos victims and their families through new inventive treatments and solutions to asbestos related diseases. The centre's work is important for the lives of every person whose exposure to asbestos, however small, has resulted years later in asbestos-related diseases."

With incidents of asbestos-related health problems on the rise, the center is a welcomed site for the improvement of treatment strategies and hopefully the pathway to finding a cure. In his opening address, Kevin Rudd drew attention to the frightening statistics surrounding asbestos exposure:

"Every year around 600 Australians are diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases, of which 350 occur here in NSW. Next year around 750 Australians will be diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases... The incidence of these diseases is rising because it takes decades from the time of exposure to the time of diagnosis of the disease. By 2020 it is estimated Australia will have 13,000 cases of mesothelioma, and a further 40,000 people will have contracted asbestos-related cancer. These are very bad figures."
He points out that although the majority of these people were exposed to asbestos in their workplaces, the victim list does not end there: wives exposed by merely doing laundry which contained asbestos dust from their husband's clothing to innocent children playing near construction sites where building materials wrought with asbestos fibers were laying around.
"These were just honest Australians. These were just innocent Australians. These were just working Australians, supporting their families, supporting themselves. Doing no harm to anybody but great harm was done to them. Working Australians whose lives and whose families' lives were changed forever because of a few tiny fibres breathed in some 20 or 30 years ago."

The research center is a step in the right direction. Dedicated to research and prevention of asbestos exposure, it will serve as a marker of progress and a beacon of hope.


Click the picture for a video with a more detailed report on Bernie Banton and the new center.

Read Kevin Rudd's opening address here.

Back To Contents At A Glance

Top photo courtesy of Kevin Rudd