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Month: June 2012

Navy Shipyards

Work at Shipyards Raises Risk of Mesothelioma

For decades, medical social worker Abby Shulman Palmer was perplexed by what caused the death of her father, a physicist who worked for many years at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Lester Shulman died of cancer in 1985 at age 69, but doctors never pinpointed where the cancer originated.

After Palmer took a job with the Mesothelioma Alliance as a social worker advocate providing information to mesothelioma patients about treatments and clinical trials, she educated herself about asbestos and gained new insights into her father’s illness.

Palmer, a native of Rockaway and graduate of Rutgers University, learned that the Brooklyn Navy Yard was a hotspot for asbestos exposure during World War II and afterward. Asbestos was widely used by the military in construction of ships because it was heat resistant, tough and inexpensive.

During World War II, Lester Shulman worked on a team that was developing degaussing procedures for U.S military ships to protect them from mines in the water. Degaussing is the process of eliminating unwanted magnetic fields. Asbestos dust was everywhere at Brooklyn Navy Yard, creating an occupational hazard to all workers. Shulman would have been regularly exposed to asbestos.

Inhaling asbestos causes serious respiratory disease including lung cancer and mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer of the lining of the lung. Navy veterans and workers in shipyards have an elevated risk of developing mesothelioma because of the prevalence of asbestos, though disease symptoms take decades to show.

“When my dad died, all we knew was it was cancer, and that it had spread, but the doctors never figured out the primary site,” said Palmer, who is profiled in June issue of the Rutgers alumni magazine. “When I talked with my mother and sister about the possibility that it might be mesothelioma, they said, ‘Wow, that certainly is a possibility.’”

Approximately 2,500 to 3,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year in the United States. Most are older workers, retired workers and veterans (primarily Navy veterans and yardbirds) who were exposed to asbestos in a workplace.

The symptoms of asbestos disease such as chest pain, fatigue and difficulty breathing typically take 20 years to 50 years to appear. But once the disease appears, it advances aggressively. Mesothelioma is incurable, but there are treatments to control the disease if it is diagnosed at an early stage.

Ignored Hazards of Chrysotile Asbestos

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.

Mesothelioma Hospitals and Doctors

Mesothelioma Patients Can Direct Friends to MedGift.com for Support

Diem Brown was just 22-years-old when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Now seven years later and suffering a relapse, she understands firsthand the issues cancer patients deal with on a day-to-day basis. Much like mesothelioma patients, Diem was not only overwhelmed by the disease, but also by the outpouring of support from friends and loved ones. Now when friends ask her “How can I help?” she can direct them to the patient registry website she developed – MedGift.com.

When a friend or loved one is diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma, an asbestos-caused pulmonary cancer, the first question asked of the patient is “What can I do for you?” Brown realized that answering this could be challenging and even awkward at times. But realizing that brides and mothers-to-be have the ability to ask for gifts and support from friends through gift registries, Brown was inspired to establish a registry for patients.

MedGift allows mesothelioma patients to separate their help into three sections: needs, wants and wishes. In the “needs” section patients can request financial support for paying bills. Some hospitals are directly linked to MedGift allowing friends to make payments directly against a patient’s bill. Under the “wants” section patients can request tangible gifts such as a blanket for warmth when receiving chemotherapy to fight mesothelioma. In addition, patients can request “wishes” such as babysitting, transportation to appointments or simply a prayer.

“It’s the first ever Patient Gift Registry,” according to Brown. “Any patient, from cancer to car accidents to wounded warriors, can list their hospital bills, ask for wigs, wheelchairs, certain foods or cosmetics. Their friends, family and co-workers can then go on and select an item from their patient gift registry, without even having to ask.”

In addition to the gift registry functionality, MedGift offers an online community through social media capabilities. MedGift is a secure site and it offers patients the ability to personalize their registry with photos, journal entries and to connect to Facebook and Twitter. With so many surgeries, treatments and appointments, many mesothelioma patients and their families find keeping a journal of their progress is an easy way to keep friends and families apprised of their progress without having to contact everyone individually.

If someone you know is battling mesothelioma, offering them some words of encouragement through a card and visiting them lets them know they are not alone. But being able to provide tangible support through their MedGift registry can offer them support that can help alleviate the stress they may be feeling when trying to deal with all aspects of their cancer.

Diem Brown is an entertainment reporter for Sky Living and a recurring cast member on MTV’s reality television series The Challenge. Brown, now 30-years-old, just learned that her ovarian cancer has returned.

Learn more about mesothelioma.

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.

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