Financial Assistance and Medical Benefits Available To Libby Mesothelioma Patients

Libby, MT—For those Libby residents who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma or other asbestos-related disease, federally funded medical care will be available.

The program of medical services will be funded by a $6 million grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, which was issued to the Lincoln County Health Department and a consortium. They will help provide care for those residents of the area who have contracted an asbestos-related disease from the now-defunct vermiculite mine owned and operated by W.R. Grace and Co.

Screening begins next week for the program. In order to be eligible for CDC-funded screening for the problem, you must have lived or worked in the Libby area for a minimum of six (non-consecutive) months prior to 2015. Additionally, a minimum of 10 years must have passed since your first potential exposure to asbestos, as the diseases associated with this mineral generally take over 10 years, and sometimes up to 50 years, to be accurately diagnosed because they have a very long latency, or delay, period.

Mesothelioma, a rare cancer which is nearly always linked directly to asbestos exposure, targets a particular membrane that surrounds the lungs and lines the chest cavity. Because of its long latency period, most patients are not diagnosed until they are elderly, when the disease is already greatly advanced. For this reason, mesothelioma is usually not very responsive to treatment, and palliative care to ease a patient's pain and help keep them comfortable is the best that can be anticipated.

Mesothelioma is diagnosed in over 2,000 new patients in the United States each year. Because of the mining of vermiculite in the Libby area, and the widespread use in the community of contaminated vermiculite materials, the proportion of people affected by this disease in this area is much higher.

Woman Develops Mesothelioma From Secondhand Asbestos Exposure

Seven Hills, Queensland, AUSRALIA—In another of a growing number of cases of secondhand asbestos exposure, a woman who contracted mesothelioma from washing her husband's work clothes is suing the State Government and building products manufacturer James Hardie.

The woman, whose first name is Joan and who wishes that her surname be withheld, has filed civil claim documents in the Australian Supreme Court. She is seeking $406,500 in compensation for having developed the asbestos cancer mesothelioma as a result of her husband's employment at the Bulimba power station from 1961 to 1984.

Asbestos, a substance which was once widely used for insulation and building purposes, but which has since been established as a carcinogen, can be transported as a fine particulate dust on a worker's clothing, hair and shoes. Joan said that she was in the habit of giving her husband a hug when he came home from work, and also of shaking out his overalls before laundering them. She likely inhaled the asbestos dust during these activities, and the microscopic fibers in that dust then settled into her lungs and the lining of the chest cavity known as the mesothelium.

Mesothelioma is a rare cancer, but a severe one. It may remain latent within the body for decades, or even 50 years, before it manifests itself as serious enough symptoms to require medical attention. Nevertheless, it has usually developed by this time to end stages, and may have spread throughout the body. There is little that can be done to effectively treat mesothelioma, especially at these late stages, and the average life expectancy for a mesothelioma patient is 18 months after diagnosis.

Joan, 83, is seeking damages from the State Government, for failing to provide facilities to clean her husband's clothes on site, and for failing to warn employees of the potential risks of inhaling asbestos fibers. She is also seeking damages from the James Hardie company, on similar grounds of continuing to manufacture and distribute asbestos-containing materials despite the known risks.

Joan's husband Roy, a former fitter and welder, has not been diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease.

improve traditional survival rates among malignant pleural mesothelioma patients

Recently published in the medical journal Lung Cancer, a clinical trial on trimodality therapy for mesothelioma found the combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy (radiation) to improve traditional survival rates among malignant pleural mesothelioma patients.

The clinical trial included 35 participants with malignant pleural mesothelioma, an aggressive form of cancer that affects the lining of the lungs. Mesothelioma can also affect the lining of the abdomen (peritoneal mesothelioma), heart (pericardial mesothelioma), or testicles (testicular mesothelioma). Pleural mesothelioma is the most common form of the disease, accounting for approximately 75 percent of malignant mesothelioma cases.

All participants of the trial were treated with a radical pleurectomy surgery, which is a type of surgery that competes against the more commonplace extrapleural pneumonectomy as a surgery option for pleural mesothelioma patients. Both surgeries are cytoreductive (which aims to reduce the amount of cancer cells present in the body) and seek to remove all tumors. However, radical pleurectomy is a less invasive surgery because it removes the pleura (the lining of the lung) and not the entire lung as in an extrapleural pneumonectomy.

Following the surgery, all participants underwent four cycles of chemotherapy with Cisplatin and Permetrexed. This treatment was followed by radiation therapy approximately four to six weeks after the radical pleurectomy.

Researchers stated, "The aim of our prospective study was to analyze the feasibility and describe the long-term outcomes of patients treated with RP [radical pleurectomy] as surgical therapy modality in a standardized trimodality therapy concept." Because not all patients are healthy enough to withstand a surgery as extensive as the extrapleural pneumonectomy, a radical pleurectomy could be a better option and thus warrants further research.

The results of this study were quite promising, with overall median survival at 30 months (the average mesothelioma patient survives four to 18 months after diagnosis). One-, two- and three-year survival rates were 69 percent, 50 percent and 31 percent, respectively. These results were so positive that researchers stated, "The relative small number of patients enrolled in this study protocol limits the results of the presented study… Overall survival might be affected by further still undefined tumor biological factors and non-surgical therapy modalities. Furthermore these high survival rates could be attributed to the patient selection."

Mesothelioma studies like this one are being conducted worldwide and continue to produce promising results and new mesothelioma treatment options for patients. The results from this study showed so much potential that researchers "Believe that RP [radical pleurectomy] as a surgical strategy allows patients to capitalize on all the aspects that a multimodality treatment approach has to offer without compromising the surgical oncological result and thus we believe RP is a cornerstone of the promising long-term results achieved in our pilot study. The observed and theoretical benefits of this trimodality treatment approach warrant confirmation in larger multi-center prospective controlled studies."

Additional information on mesothelioma can be found through the Mesothelioma Center.

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Mesothelioma Cancer Cures Itself

A 61-year-old Australian woman, who was exposed to asbestos as a machinist and when washing her son's work clothes while he produced asbestos gaskets, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in September, 2002. Mesothelioma is a cancer of the lining of the lungs caused by exposure to asbestos.

While waiting for chemotherapy and an experimental treatment, the cancer began to regress and the woman felt well enough pass on the treatments altogether. The doctor found that by December the cancer had decreased in size, and within two years, a CT scan showed that the mesothelioma had virtually disappeared.

Six years later, the woman remains cancer-free. While it is rare for cancer to disappear on its own, there are similar documented cases for other types of cancer.

Roger Allen, PhD, a Thoracic and Sleep Physician at Wesley Medical Centre in Brisbane, Australia suggests that patients and their doctors should view this as promising news with the potential for researchers to find ways to capture the ability of the immune system to fight off the disease and to find a cure.

Asbestos legal malpractice trial continued to February

A Madison County trial involving an asbestos plaintiff's legal malpractice claim has been continued.

Circuit Judge Barbara Crowder heard motions in the suit Friday. She ordered the trial continued until February 2010.

Crowder also took a motion for partial summary judgment filed by defendant Hopkins Goldenberg P.C. under advisement. The firm Hopkins Goldenberg no longer exists.

Attorney John Hopkins has a law practice in Edwardsville.

Attorney Mark Goldenberg is partner at Goldenberg, Heller, Antognoli & Rowland in Edwardsville.

Plaintiff Judy Buckles' legal malpractice complaint stems from a case she filed over her deceased husband's mesothelioma.

Buckles settled it for $750,000. She contends her lawyers did not secure an adequate settlement.

Buckles had sued other attorneys involved in that litigation along with the Goldenberg firm. Those defendants have since been dismissed.

Buckles' suit against her attorneys was originally filed in 2001. It was refiled three years ago.

In Hopkins Goldenberg's motion for partial summary judgment, the firm cited the testimony of Buckles' family and other evidence that she had found the settlement of her asbestos-related case satisfactory.

Buckles is represented by Roy Dripps.

Hopkins Goldenberg is represented by John Papa.

The Madison County case number 06-L-588.

Asbestos abatement technician steals copper pipe from job site

According to police officials in Dayton, Ohio, a local man who was supposed to remove asbestos from the old Dunbar High School was in fact perpetrating a scheme to defraud the school and steal valuable copper piping from the walls of the building.

James Gillispie, age 37, has now been charged with the theft of hundreds of pounds of copper from the old school. According to Dayton police, Gillispie made off with more than 200 pounds of copper from the school. In addition, he threatened his co-workers, stating that if they did not sell the scrap copper harvested from the school building, they would lose their jobs.

Removing asbestos is a very important job, as exposure to even a small amount of the deadly fibrous material is considered unsafe. Inhaling or ingesting asbestos fibers has been conclusively linked to the development of mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer. The disease typically lies dormant for up to fifty years before an individual begins to suffer from mesothelioma symptoms.

The cancer, which affects thousands of new patients worldwide each year, has no known cure. However, palliative treatment methods like chemotherapy can help some patients fend off the cancer. Sadly, most mesothelioma patients succumb to the cancer within two years of being diagnosed.

According to police, Gillispie sold the copper on multiple occasions, totaling at least nine separate incidents. It has not yet been reported if Gillispie's copper harvesting scheme exposed him or his men to asbestos that may have been in the walls or ceilings of the aging school building.

Asbestos removal in our country's schools is a hot-button issue, as it is often delayed due to lack of funding within a school district's budget. Asbestos abatement is expensive in and of itself, but the replacement of asbestos-containing materials within a school building can also be quite costly.

.The American Public Health Association (APHA) recently voiced its concern on asbestos

The American Public Health Association (APHA) recently voiced its concern on asbestos and asked Congress to pass legislation that would ultimately place a complete ban on the manufacture, sale, export and import of asbestos-containing products in the United States.

Celeste Monforton, Chair of APHA's Occupational Health and Safety section, said, "With this new policy, APHA is joining the World Federation of Public Health Associations and other international organizations calling for a global ban on asbestos mining, and manufacturing, and the dangerous practice of exporting asbestos containing products."

Asbestos-related diseases such as lung cancer, asbestosis and malignant mesothelioma claim the lives of more than 10,000 Americans each year. Until a ban is placed on the use of asbestos in products, Americans will remain at risk of being exposed to the toxic mineral.

In the past, those most susceptible to asbestos exposure worked in the shipyard, construction, power plant, chemical plant or automotive industry. Once exposed, either through inhaling or ingesting asbestos fibers, the onset of symptoms can take as long as 20 years for asbestosis. For mesothelioma, symptoms may not arise until 50 years after the initial exposure occurred.

Linda Reinstein, Executive Director and Co-founder of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, commented on APHA's legislation stating, "APHA set a precedent with strong language aimed at preventing asbestos exposure to eliminate deadly diseases. Ambler, Pennsylvania, now a superfund site, is still plagued from asbestos piles left behind from the once profitable asbestos businesses. We can't let history repeat itself. It is time to ban asbestos and fund educational and research programs. APHA renews our optimism that a federal asbestos ban is eminent."

According to their Web site, the American Public Health Association is the oldest, largest and most diverse organization of public health professionals in the world and has been working to improve public health since 1872. The Association aims to protect all Americans and their communities from preventable, serious health threats and strives to assure community-based health promotion and disease prevention activities.