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Just a link today but, be warned, these photographs of asbestos victims that appeared in a Scottish Sunday newspaper last week make strong viewing. The photographs depict asbestos sufferers from around the world in distressing detail.
Tragic though it is, we are all used to hearing about the high occupational risk of asbestos-related disease endured by the likes of fire fighters, plumbers, and heating engineers. One working group that we rarely see mentioned, however, is teachers.
Among the most common structures in which asbestos was used were municipal buildings like schools. Sustained exposure in these buildings to staff, such as teachers can actually be harmed by older asbestos fixtures.
Food for thought eh?
Now here's an oft-forgotten side effect of asbestos - property prices.
Last November, health officials warned that living near an Eden asbestos mine could have serious health implications, including an increased risk of asbestosis and lung cancer. The officials reported that they had found a small but statistically large number of people living within 10 miles of the mine who had either died from or been hospitalized for asbestos-related conditions.
Residents of Eden are angry because they feel the report was presented without enough supporting research; indeed lung cancer is no longer a concern for health officials. Wendy Davis, the local Health Commissioner said, "the lung cancer association was, in retrospect, an error." She went on to say that what is not known is how lung cancer and asbestosis victims were exposed to asbestos, or even whether there is currently a health risk for residents.
Two meetings were set up to allow residents to discuss the issue with health officials. At the first meeting on Monday night, Wendy Davis apologized to residents for flaws in the studies. That apology was not enough to stem the flow of frustrated anger from residents, who say that the apology is not enough to repair the damage that's been done to the community's property values, their sense of safety, and their pride.
Officials say they will continue their research, and they hope residents will stay away from the mine.
Residents would like the state to do the same. "Leave the piles alone," said one, "leave them alone."
Edward C. Taylor, the inventor of Alimta, which is, so far, the most effective pharmaceutical treatment for mesothelioma, has, along with his wife, donated $1 million for chemistry research at Hamilton College.
Taylor arrived on the Hamilton campus in 1942 to study in the wartime accelerated program and he let the flip of a coin decide whether he should study biology or chemistry. As luck would have it, chemistry won.
More than 60 years later, the student who arrived at Hamilton with dreams of becoming a writer is professor emeritus of chemistry at Princeton University. He is also the inventor of one of the most successful cancer drugs in the world. "I owe my lifelong fascination with chemistry to Hamilton which is why I gave my gift to the chemistry department," he explained.
Alimta, developed in cooperation with Eli Lilly, is approved in 92 countries and is the preferred drug treatment for mesothelioma; it is currently undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of breast, neck, thyroid and head cancer.
Two years ago, Debbi Brewer from Plymouth in South West England was told she had mesothelioma. The lethal disease came as a consequence of hugging her father when she was a child. Her father who died from mesothelioma in the same year Debbi's illness was diagnosed, worked at Devonport Dockyard for the Ministry of Defence.
Having seen the suffering of her father, Debbi decided to try out a pioneering treatment in Germany and, since the treatment begun, has seen her cancer go into remission. She had her $7,000 a-time treatment, known as chemoembolisation, at the University Clinic in Frankfurt.
The treatment, which is usually used to fight liver cancer, involves inserting a catheter into the lung to administer drugs directly to the tumor Debbi has been told that her tumor is now less than half its original size and that it will not return.
Debbi refers to the treatment as her 'little miracle.'
Families in Concord, San Francisco are to receive a total of more than $4.3 million in damages for the deaths of three industrial pipe fitters from mesothelioma.
Plant Insulation Company, once a major supplier and fitter of insulation products in Northern California were adjudged to be 59% at fault for the death of William C Hearn, whose widow and son will receive $1.29 million.
The company was also found liable for the deaths of James Harris, of Sacramento County, who worked as a pipe fitter at Bay Area oil refineries, and George Wetch, who worked at chemical plants and oil refineries in Contra Costa County.
The British government is assessing the possibility of creating a National Centre for Asbestos Diseases and are currently in talks concerning possible funding for such a centre.
According to one medical expert, asbestos related disease such as mesothelioma, are the nation's number one public health disaster, yet government-funded research has been woefully inadequate. This despite the fact that mesothelioma is invariably fatal, with a median life expectancy of six to nine months from diagnosis.
The possibility of a dedicated centre is being welcomed by campaigners, who are eagerly awaiting the results of this weeks discussions.
Rosetta Genomics has announced the availability of a that can diagnose mesothelioma from other lung cancers.
The test - miRview(TM) meso - differentiates mesothelioma, a cancer connected to asbestos exposure, from other carcinomas in the lung.
Currently, there is no single diagnostic test that is entirely conclusive for this differentiation, and diagnosis of the condition may suffer from significant inter-observer variability. For this reason, a diagnostic test specific to mesothelioma is desperately needed.
Whether or not this is the long-awaited solution to the problems of diagnosing mesothelioma we are not qualified to say and, as this is a commercially available test costing $3,170, we would encourage anybody considering it to take professional medical advice.
Perhaps the best course of action would be to direct your medical team the the Rosetta Genomics site.
A study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine reveals that phosphates, which are commonly added to certain foods such as soda and processed cheese, may "stimulate" the development of cancer. The four-week program found that increased intake of inorganic phosphates strongly stimulates lung cancer development in mice.
What has this to do with asbestos related lung cancer? Well, the research team are proposing future studies, which will focus on humans who are suffering from certain types of lung cancer, including mesothelioma, and will likely measure their level of daily phosphate intake prior to their cancer diagnosis.
This will allow the team to determine whether or not these individuals were more likely to develop cancer because of a high level of inorganic phosphates.