Mesothelioma Still Rising Despite Ban in Ireland
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Mesothelioma Still Rising Despite Ban in Ireland

ByAlex Strauss

A study in Ireland confirms that it can take many years for a ban on asbestos to have a measurable impact on a country’s rates of malignant mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is the most serious of a list of diseases – including lung cancer, pleural plaques, asbestosis, and others – linked with exposure to asbestos dust. Affecting the linings around the lungs and other organs, mesothelioma is often resistant to most cancer treatments and may be fatal within a year of diagnosis. According to the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat, Ireland is one of 55 countries that have enacted some type of asbestos ban. However, although Ireland banned asbestos in 2000, a new study published in Cancer Epidemiology shows that incidence of the…

Mesothelioma Victims’ Victory in Pennsylvania
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Mesothelioma Victims’ Victory in Pennsylvania

ByAlex Strauss

Workers and their families have won a victory in Pennsylvania after the state Supreme Court ruled that they could sue former employers over late-manifesting industrial diseases like mesothelioma. The decision focused on a provision in Pennsylvania’s Workers’ Compensation Act that says workers cannot sue an employer if their occupational disease occurred more than 300 weeks after their on-the-job exposure. While many occupational injuries and diseases occur within weeks or months of exposure to a toxin, asbestos diseases like mesothelioma are a notable exception. Believed to be caused by chronic irritation from inhaled or ingested asbestos fibers, mesothelioma does not usually begin to cause symptoms until at least a decade after exposure. Expressing the opinion of the majority, Supreme Court Justice…

Mesothelioma Still Carries Heavy Mortality Burden in U.S.
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Mesothelioma Still Carries Heavy Mortality Burden in U.S.

ByAlex Strauss

Asbestos exposure cost Americans more than 427,000 years of potential life in the first decade of the new millennium. That figure comes from a study on mesothelioma and asbestosis – the two most deadly asbestos-related diseases – conducted by the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Using National Center for Health Statistics mortality data, NIOSH researchers evaluated premature deaths and “loss of potentially productive years of life” attributable to either asbestosis or mesothelioma between 1999 and 2010. The data included only people 25 years or older with an underlying cause of death listed on their death certificate of either asbestosis or malignant mesothelioma. When the figures were calculated using the normal life expectancy for each asbestosis victim…

Mesothelioma Case Shows Danger of Accidental Asbestos Exposure
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Mesothelioma Case Shows Danger of Accidental Asbestos Exposure

ByAlex Strauss

A mesothelioma case in Birmingham, England is a dramatic illustration of the very real danger of hidden asbestos. The widow of a physician who died of mesothelioma last year at the age of 51 claims her husband was exposed to asbestos just walking to and from his medical classes. Monisha Coelho believes that exposed asbestos insulation in the underground hallways that connect the University of Birmingham to buildings on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital campus triggered Dr. Ian Pardoe’s mesothelioma. In an article in the Birmingham Mail, Coelho explained how her husband decided how and where the deadly exposure had occurred. “Ian thought long and hard about where he might have come into contact with asbestos,” Coelho told the paper. “He…

Mesothelioma: Surveillance May Reveal Unexpected Exposure Risks
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Mesothelioma: Surveillance May Reveal Unexpected Exposure Risks

ByAlex Strauss

Researchers say continual surveillance for incidents of mesothelioma in the population can turn up some unexpected sources of asbestos exposure, including the home. Asbestos is the primary cause of mesothelioma, a virulent cancer that attacks the linings around organs and can quickly become debilitating. Most mesothelioma patients were first exposed to asbestos on the job, either in construction or in an industrial setting. For decades, asbestos was used in multiple building products and various insulating materials for its strength and heat resistance. But the job site is not the only place where people might encounter asbestos, as Italian researchers found out when they analyzed nationwide mesothelioma data.  Their study, the results of which were recently published in the medical journal Epidemiology and…

Mesothelioma Rates Steady Despite Declining Asbestos Use
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Mesothelioma Rates Steady Despite Declining Asbestos Use

ByAlex Strauss

Although asbestos use in the United States has been in decline for more than 30 years, the threat of mesothelioma is still very real. A new CDC analysis of data from the National Program for Cancer Registries and the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results program shows that mesothelioma rates in the U.S. remained steady from 2003 to 2008. The National Program for Cancer Registries is a national database of all cancer cases in the U.S. It allows the CDC to observe and track trends and find patterns in cancer occurrence. The newly-released CDC mesothelioma analysis was based on the theory that “the decline in asbestos use in the United States may impact mesothelioma incidence.”  But according to a summary of the…

Mesothelioma Study Suggests Iron Makes Asbestos Toxic
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Mesothelioma Study Suggests Iron Makes Asbestos Toxic

ByAlex Strauss

An Italian study is shedding some light on exactly what makes asbestos so toxic to people and can eventually lead to mesothelioma. Asbestos, which was used for decades as an insulator and building material, is the mineral most closely associated with malignant mesothelioma, a virulent cancer. Asbestos has also been linked to lung cancer, asbestosis and disabling lung scarring. Although its toxicity is well known, the reasons for that toxicity are still unclear. Some scientists believe that iron, which is toxic in the body in large amounts, may be partially to blame. They have shown that iron can alter the production of cancer-preventing enzymes by changing DNA, and have suggested that ridding the body of excess iron may be one way…

Mesothelioma Risk High if Raised Near Asbestos
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Mesothelioma Risk High if Raised Near Asbestos

ByAlex Strauss

There’s more evidence that exposure to asbestos early in life increases the risk of mesothelioma and a host of other cancers. A team of Australian researchers have released the results of a study of more than 2,400 adults who lived in an asbestos mining town during their childhoods (under the age of 15). The study participants all lived in a town where crocidolite, also known as blue asbestos, was present. Crocidolite is the most common type of asbestos found in Australia. Among the 2,460 people evaluated, there were 217 (93 female) incident cancers and 218 (70 female) deaths. Compared to other Australians women, the women who had lived around asbestos as children were more likely to have mesothelioma, ovarian, and brain cancers….

Mesothelioma Rates Higher Near Exposed Asbestos
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Mesothelioma Rates Higher Near Exposed Asbestos

ByAlex Strauss

Disturbing naturally occurring asbestos, whether for farming or building, can significantly raise the risk of mesothelioma and several other cancers. That is the conclusion of a Chinese study comparing the distribution of mortality rates of six kinds of cancer with land use patterns in the Dayao area of China. The study focused on mesothelioma, lung cancer, intestinal cancer, nasopharyngeal and laryngeal cancer, liver cancer and stomach cancer.  Rates were calculated using geographic information systems data. The study found that the mortality rates from mesothelioma and three of the other cancer types were “significantly associated” with outcropped asbestos, asbestos in the soil that was exposed by digging. Asbestos is a silicate mineral that occurs naturally in many parts of the world and…

Mesothelioma Risk from Vintage Prefab Homes
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Mesothelioma Risk from Vintage Prefab Homes

ByAlex Strauss

The mesothelioma death of an elderly English man is more evidence of the danger posed by aging asbestos, especially in the country’s vintage prefab homes. Although Arthur Brown was 91-years old and had multiple health problems, the fact that he died of mesothelioma, the asbestos-linked cancer, has made headlines in England because, unlike most mesothelioma sufferers, he had never worked in the asbestos industry or lived with anyone who had.  Just as concerning is the fact that Brown’s wife also died of this very rare cancer. Brown and his wife spent much of their adult lives in one of the more than 150,000 prefab houses built in Britain just after World War II. Ordered by Winston Churchill as an inexpensive way to…