mesothelioma risk

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    Asbestosis and Mesothelioma Rates Remain High in Louisiana

    ByAlex Strauss

    A new report has some discouraging health news for the residents of Louisiana: Their risk of mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases remains higher than residents of other states, despite an increase in asbestos regulation. In a recent study of the chronic, debilitating lung disease, asbestosis, researchers in the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals note that the state has more facilities that produce, process or use asbestos than any other state in the US. Like mesothelioma, a deadly cancer of internal body membranes, asbestosis is caused by inhaling or ingesting asbestos fibers. “As a condition highly associated with occupational exposure, its incidence has been affected by changes in industry standards,” the authors write in the Journal of the Louisiana State Medical…

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    Mesothelioma May Affect New Generation of Vets

    ByAlex Strauss

    There is mounting evidence that military veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan may be at risk for mesothelioma and other serious respiratory issues because of exposure to airborne toxins. A recent issue of the Marine Corps Times tells the story of several veterans faced with huge medical bills because of mesothelioma or other serious respiratory issues. Mesothelioma is typically associated with inhalation or ingestion of asbestos. A number of veterans of Middle East conflicts believe the contaminants that they inhaled around open air burn pits or in desert dust is to blame for their rare medical conditions such as mesothelioma, constrictive bronchiolitis, or the newly-named “Iraq/Afghanistan War Lung Injury.” Dr. Terry Walters, deputy chief consultant of the Veterans Administration’s environmental…

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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…

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    Navy Did Not Protect All Veterans from Mesothelioma

    ByAlex Strauss

    Calling it one of the “most knowledgeable organizations in the world regarding the health hazards of asbestos,” a San Francisco-based chemical risk assessment company says that the U.S. Navy was ahead of the curve in attempting to protect veterans and civilians from mesothelioma in the 1960’s.  Ships of that era were heavily laden with asbestos, making Navy veterans among the most common victims of mesothelioma, the most serious of the diseases caused by asbestos exposure. But according to Kara Franke and Dennis Paustenbach who examined dozens of published and unpublished documents on asbestos knowledge from 1900 to 1970, the Navy understood the health hazards of asbestos as early as the 1930’s. Although they continued to require its use on ships, the Navy…

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    Demolition May Raise Mesothelioma Risk

    ByAlex Strauss

    Do not take the dangers of asbestos for granted. That warning comes directly from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which admits to having done exactly that when it experimented with relaxing some of its own regulations for safe asbestos handling. EPA began regulating asbestos use after the material was linked to mesothelioma and a range of other health problems in the 1960’s. Airborne asbestos fibers can lodge in the lungs, triggering mesothelioma even decades after exposure. Despite the danger, beginning in 1999, EPA considered alternative methods to “augment” the Asbestos National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, the act that governs asbestos handling during demolition. The alternative methods considered, including the Fort Worth Method and the Alternative Asbestos Control Method, leave some…

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    New Asbestos Test May Help Protect Against Mesothelioma

    ByAlex Strauss

    Although it is known to cause mesothelioma and a host of other diseases, asbestos is still in use in workplaces around the world. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), as many as 1.3 million Americans are exposed to significant amounts of asbestos in the workplace. Historically, those who mine the raw material are at greatest risk for mesothelioma, along with those who work in construction or in manufacturing asbestos-containing products. Inhaled fibers can cause irritation and inflammation that can trigger mesothelioma and other asbestos related diseases even decades after exposure. Because higher concentrations of airborne asbestos increase the health risk, workplace monitoring of airborne asbestos is required to help protect workers from mesothelioma and other diseases.  Phase contrast microscopy…

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    Mesothelioma Risk in Consumer Products

    ByAlex Strauss

    Tremolite asbestos is a non-commercial form of amphibole mineral found in some chrysotile, talc and vermiculite deposits.  Like all forms of asbestos, it carries the risk of asbestosis, lung cancer and malignant mesothelioma.  Although people who live or work around asbestos mines or work directly with asbestos-containing products are at greatest risk, tremolite may also pose a mesothelioma risk to consumers. A recent study by a California firm called ChemRisk is warning that hundreds of consumer products contain mesothelioma-causing tremolite.  To get an idea just how great the mesothelioma risk is, the group looked at the exposure-response relationship in two high-asbestos environments – the Thetford chrysotile mine in Canada and the vermiculite mine in Libby, Montana.  For people working in these…

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    Mesothelioma Sometimes Spreads to Unexpected Places

    ByAlex Strauss

    The asbestos-linked cancer mesothelioma is usually found in the pleural cavity around the lungs, or the peritoneal cavity encasing the abdomen. But several new studies are reminders of the fact that mesothelioma can spread (metastasize) to unexpected areas of the body. An article in a recent issue of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery details the case of a 72-year-old woman who was successfully treated for malignant pleural mesothelioma, only to have the disease show up again 2 years later in her colon.  After receiving a diagnosis of malignant pleural mesothelioma, the patient underwent surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.  But after two years of follow-up, she was admitted to the hospital with anemia and a CT scan found a large bleeding polyp in…

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    Later Exposure Lowers Mesothelioma Risk

    ByAlex Strauss

    The later in life a person is exposed to asbestos, the less likely they are to develop mesothelioma, regardless of how long the exposure is.  That is the conclusion of a large population-based control study in France aimed at calculating the risk of mesothelioma among workers based on the time and duration of their asbestos exposure. Asbestos is the only known cause of malignant pleural mesothelioma, a cancer in the tissue around the lungs. Asbestos was once a common component of building materials and insulation in France, just as it was in the rest of Europe and the U.S. Most people who develop mesothelioma have been exposed to asbestos at work or at home at multiple times in their lives. For the new…

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    Royals Address Mesothelioma Risk at Home

    ByAlex Strauss

    Once widely used as a building material and insulator, asbestos has been linked to a range of health problems including asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining that can spread quickly. Great Britain has one of the highest per capita rates of mesothelioma in the world with an estimated 4,000 deaths from the disease each year. By contrast, about 2,500 people die of mesothelioma in the U.S. Though asbestos use is now banned in new construction in Great Britain, the BBC has reported that as many 500,000 commercial and residential properties still contain the substance, including the apartment at Kensington Palace where the young Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton, plan to…