Articles Posted in Asbestos Exposure

We have read and researched a great deal about individuals who were diagnosed with mesothelioma years after they were exposed during their employment in a Navy shipyard or an auto mechanic shop or in roofing.

What our Boston mesothelioma lawyers know is less common is how asbestos may affect those living, working or attending school near those locations.

Now, British researchers studying an “epidemic” of mesothelioma in two Italian cities indicates that the impact is major.

In both communities, Bari and Monferrato, there were asbestos cement factories. This was the one link they had. However, huge numbers of those who were being diagnosed with the terminal cancer had never worked in those facilities. Why were they getting sick?

Researchers took tissue samples from a number of those patients, and also interviewed them in face-to-face interviews. They took note of their residential and occupational history, and then matched up the physical samples with the anecdotal evidence obtained from the interviews.

What they found was this: Being exposed to the fibers in their neighborhoods put them at grave risk for mesothelioma. In fact, the researchers weren’t able to tell much of a difference between the tissue samples taken from workers as opposed to non-workers.

This brings us back to the notion that no exposure to this compound is harmless.

The factory in Casale Monferrato was the first and largest cement factory in Italy. It opened in 1907 and was operational through 1986. More than 1,500 workers at a time toiled at the factory, handling pipes, corrugated sheets and pressure pipes that were made using mixtures of asbestos.

The factory was on the outskirts of the town, which had about 40,000 residents during the 1980s. The warehouse where all of the products were stored before shipping was on the other side of town, which meant the asbestos-laden products were regularly shipped back and forth across town every day, their cancerous fibers spilling throughout the air and into the lungs of the residents.

In 1984, however, the company shut down after a measurement of asbestos fiber concentration indicated extremely high levels.

The other factory, in Bari, was operational from 1934 to 1989. It employed about 500 people at any given time, and similarly produced pipes and sheets made from asbestos mixes.

In Monferrato, of the 454 reported cases of mesothelioma as of 2008, about 370 of those never worked at the factory. In Bari, of 78 new cases of mesothelioma identified between 2000 and 2009, about 25 had never worked at the plant.

What this shows us is that a larger number of people may be at risk for mesothelioma, and may not even realize it. Those who have worked in industries where the disease has been prevalent – albeit decades later – there is more awareness. Those who weren’t employed in those industries and may have had no clue they were even at risk for exposure may be less likely to receive a proper diagnosis at the first sign of illness. Doctors have indicated that the sooner a mesothelioma patient is diagnosed and treated, the longer their expected lifespan will be.
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There is a widespread misconception that we don’t use asbestos in the U.S. anymore because we know how dangerous it is.

We know that exposure can be fatal. We know that hundreds of companies have been made to pay billions due to litigation proving they knowingly exposed employees and consumers to the material because it was cheaper than to protect them from it.

And yet, our Boston mesothelioma lawyers know that not only do we continue to use asbestos in this country, the U.S. Geological Survey now reports that our consumption of asbestos increased by a whopping 13 percent from 2010 to 2011.

Asbestos has never been outlawed in the U.S., despite repeated efforts, although it has not been mined here since 2002. For the most part, any asbestos that is used is imported.

In 2010, about 1,040 metric tons of the organic mineral was imported into the U.S. Compare that to 2011, when there 1,180 metric tons were imported.

It’s a relatively small amount when compared to the rest of the world’s production (2.04 million metric tons in 2010 and 2.03 million metric tons in 2011), but note that world demand has gone largely unchanged, while the U.S. demand has risen sharply.

Researchers indicated that the increase of the product most likely went to “stocks for future use,” as it was unlikely the market had expanded much in a single year.

Of the industries using the materials, the USGS broke down the consumption by industry:

• Roofing – 41 percent;
• Diaphgrams for the chloralkali industry – 28 percent;
• Coating and compounds – 2 percent;
• Plastics – less than 1 percent;
• Other – 29 percent.

In addition to importing asbestos, the U.S. is also responsible for a small amount of exporting the material as well. As it is no longer actively mined, the material likely came from existing stock. Exports are down a few metric tons from 2010 to 2011, but the value of the material actually rose. In fact, the U.S. exported and re-exported nearly $30 million worth of asbestos in 2011. The leading destination for those products? The United Kingdom, followed by Korea, Mexico and Canada, respectively. This, despite the fact that the U.K. actually banned use of the substance back in 1999. The USGS figured that those asbestos shipments may have been re-exported elsewhere, though we don’t have track of where it ultimately went.

The USGS estimates that asbestos imports and exports involving the U.S. are likely to decline over the next several years, as more and more companies replaces asbestos-containing products with those that are safer use.

The astonishing thing is why that hasn’t been done already.

We know that asbestos was named as a carcinogen way back in 1977 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. We also know that more than 10,000 Americans die every single year as a result of years-ago exposure to asbestos.

Nothing has changed. Asbestos is still lethal. And it’s still legal.
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The reality shows featuring resourceful, do-it-yourself personalities have become quite popular over the years, particularly on the Home Gardening Network Television and the DIY Network.

However, an Australian widow is making an appeal to these show producers: Don’t gloss over the dangers of asbestos in renovation projects.

Boston mesothelioma lawyers know that as is the case in Australia, a great number of older homes and structures were built using materials that contained asbestos, an organic fiber that when disturbed and airborne, can cause a rare and deadly cancer to develop.

The fact that most of these older buildings contain the material usually isn’t a concern. The problem is when those fibers become airborne.

The same properties that made the material so attractive for manufacturers (it was heat resistant and slow to decay) have also been found to cause fatal side effects in humans, such as asbestsosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. Sadly, the manifestations of these cancers can take years to be realized, meaning its often decades after exposure before someone realizes they are sick.

That was the case for Farid Moghaddas, who succumbed to mesothelioma in 2007 at the age of 49. The Australian reportedly worked at an auto manufacturing plant in Melbourne during the 1980s, which is where he was exposed to the asbestos.

According to the Port Phillip Leader, his widow, who quit her job during her husband’s last few years to care for him, received a $500,000 settlement following his death.

However, that does little, she says, to stem the pain of losing him so senselessly.

That’s why she has turned to shows like Rehab Addict and Rescue Renovation – and their Australian counterparts – urging them to educate their viewers about the dangers of asbestos exposure.

In Massachusetts, per the rules of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, all commercial, institutional and residential buildings are subject to asbestos regulations as spelled out in 310 CMR 7.15. What that means is that if the owners or operators or contractors are planning a renovation or demolition, it is incumbent upon them to determine whether asbestos is present BEFORE they can start work.

If asbestos is found, it has to be properly disposed of by a licensed contractor, per DEP regulations.

Some of the household areas that might commonly contain asbestos include:

• floor tiles;
• mastics;
• vinyl sheet flooring;
• heating system insulation;
• joint compound;
• wallboard;
• siding and roofing products;
• decorative plasters.

Recently, the West Australian Mesothelioma Registry conducted research which identified three general waves of asbestos sufferers in that country:

First there were the miners, who actually worked to extract the mineral from its natural location.

Then, there were the workers who frequently came in contact with the material through the course of their work. These would include carpenters or auto workers or shipyard employees, etc.

Now, the registry said it is seeing an increasing number of people who have been exposed through DIY projects.

It’s important if you are starting a renovation project and aren’t sure whether your renovation may involve the disturbance of asbestos (which is likely if your home was built prior to the 1970s) that you contact the state DEP to determine how to proceed.
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We recently wrote in our Boston Mesothelioma Lawyers Blog about universities in Boston that had been slapped with large fines as a result of improper removal of asbestos and other violations.

Now, Texas State University has come under fire for asbestos found in one of its dorms.

University officials say they are working to remove the deadly material, and though they contend it never posed a risk to students, some who resided at the dorm in previous years say they were frequently sick during their time there.

Unfortunately, the students may not have much of a case if they try to take the university to court because scientific research conducted so far has indicated that asbestos fibers are dangerous when airborne. The simple presence of asbestos in a building – which is quite common in structures built prior to the 1980s – is not necessarily going to make you sick.

Usually, the problem is when asbestos is not properly removed, causing the fibers of the heat-resistant material to become airborne. Once they are inhaled in the lungs, they can create scarring and causing lung cancer, asbestosis and mesothelioma, which is a cancer that attacks the body’s internal organs.

A person’s chances of getting mesothelioma depend a great deal on how much exposure they endured, coupled with how long that exposure lasted. That’s why most typically, mesothelioma patients are individuals who worked closely with asbestos-laden materials. For example, someone who worked in a Navy shipyard where the material was ever-present or as an auto mechanic with parts that were made with asbestos. Day in and day out, they were exposed.

The latency period for asbestos is 10 to 40 years, sometimes longer. That’s how long it takes after exposure for the disease to manifest.

Still, the students’ claims can’t be entirely dismissed. One young woman who resided at the hall where asbestos removal work is now ongoing says that she immediately became ill once she moved in. She was diagnosed with bronchitis for the first time in her life, and was even prescribed an inhaler to cope with breathing problems. Once she moved into another residence off-campus, she told the student newspaper, her health problems disappeared.

School officials say they first began testing buildings on campus for the material, and having discovered a high quantity of it in several structures, it has been incrementally working to remove it. Mostly, they say it has been found in vinyl floor tile and sheet flooring in the buildings.

Given that these materials could have deteriorated over time, it’s possible that some of the substance did become airborne, posing a serious risk to students who lived there. That much was even admitted by school officials.

Still, there have been no formal claims of illness as of yet.

The university has instructed all dorm residents not to disturb the ceiling, floor tiles or walls in any of the halls, rooms, common areas or pipes , as an added precautionary measure.
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Technology that was developed in order to sniff out bombs at airports also apparently has the ability to detect certain types of cancer – namely, mesothelioma.

Our Boston mesothelioma lawyers are encouraged that the advances in medicine are focusing on this fatal disease, hopefully moving us ever-closer toward a possible cure.

As of now, the asbestos-causing disease is fatal, though it typically lies dormant in one’s system for decades before symptoms are apparent. While there are treatments that may prolong life to some extent, there is no cure and most patients die in a matter of months.

That’s the reason this particular advance is so important. If we could work toward diagnosing this disease sooner, the odds for a longer-term survival could assuredly be improved.

The study, conducted by the University of South Wales and published in the European Respiratory Journal indicates that the CyraNose 3200, which was created for the purposes of bomb detection, also locates developing cancers, such as mesothelioma.

This a hand-held device that’s already widely used in airports, and it is able to root out explosives by searching for the presence of chemicals.

Interestingly, researchers were able to successfully link this same technology to a type of breathalyzer test. It works by detecting certain chemicals that are reportedly produced by the illness and present in a person’s system.

This is quite remarkable breakthrough, considering the difficulty doctors have in diagnosing the disease before symptoms are present.

It worked like this: The machine is equipped with 32 different chemical sensors. Scientists used it to check the breath of patients suspected of having mesothelioma and then also with a control group whom it was known did not suffer from the disease.

The experiment revealed that the device was accurate in diagnosing the cancer in nearly 90 percent of the cases.

Some doctors have said this is the least invasive form of mesothelioma diagnosis that is currently available. Other methods involve biopsies or other painful procedures.

Creating a diagnostic approach that allows for simple breath testing means it will be ideal for older people, those who are infirm and even those who are in intensive care. Additionally, you can do the test multiple times with little to no impact on the patient.

Once this technology becomes more mainstream, it may encourage more people to get tested earlier – possibly allowing them to catch it early and ultimately live longer.

Another similar device was tested in Italy last year. Researchers there worked with a group of about 40 people. A third had pleural mesothelioma, another third had some form of asbestos-related disease and the last third had no known asbestos-related cancers. The test was able to product with 80 percent accuracy which individuals had which disease – and which were cancer-free.
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The owners of a Lynnfield asbestos removal company have pleaded guilty to a number of Massachusetts Clean Air Act and Solid Waste Act violations, as well as evasion of unemployment insurance and filing false statements with the Environmental Department of Protection.

Our Boston mesothelioma lawyers understand that even given all that, only one will serve 30 days in jail, followed by three years of probation, while the other will serve only the three years of probation, without the jail time.

During the course of their probation, they will not be allowed to work in the business of environmental remediation. In other words, they won’t be in charge of asbestos clean-up anytime soon. We hope they’ll find another permanent occupation.

Still, it seems a light sentence for a pair that put so many people at risk, though we realize that enforcing the act at all is a good step, given the fact that so many violators have apparently gotten off scot-free.

This case began to come to light back in September 2010. That’s when the Massachusetts Environmental Strike Force (overseen by the state attorney general and the state DEP) were tipped off that owners of AEI Environmental were reportedly illegally storing garbage bags of asbestos at a local self-storage facility. Investigators looking into the complaint found hundreds of bags of asbestos stuffed into a storage unit at the facility – all of it from work that the company had performed.

Apparently, the company had used the storage facility to essentially dump asbestos they had removed from properties in Marblehead, Beverly and Lynn, including schools and other public buildings.

Additionally, they did not notify the DEP that they would be doing the removal work or that they were storing the fatal compound at the site.

As you are probably aware, asbestos is the primary source of mesothelioma cancer, which is terminal. However, area residents may not know for decades whether they have been exposed to the material, as the disease lays dormant for decades.

Because it’s so deadly, particularly when its airborne, asbestos has to be removed according to very strict parameters. Those include the requirement that the removal contractor be licensed and that the company notify the DEP when removal is taking place. In this case, the two were convicted of not being licensed and of convincing other contracting companies to file the notice – indicating that they would be the responsible party.

Of course, this last piece seems to indicate major problems with the entire asbestos abatement system.

The fact that the owners of this company were also found in violation of labor laws by failing to have unemployment insurance for its workers is no surprise: They didn’t appear to keep anyone else’s welfare in mind except their own.
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Boston mesothelioma lawyers know that the dollar cost of asbestos abatement in this country has been enormous.

But it’s a task that one mining city in Montana felt it couldn’t afford not to do.

The Associated Press reports that in Libby, which for his has been grappling with mesothelioma, a deadly cancer caused by exposure to airborne asbestos.

The rates of illness for this small town are startling. With a population of 3,000, an estimated 1,700 have been diagnosed with mesothelioma. That’s a rate of roughly 57 percent. That also doesn’t include those who have died, which is estimated to be around 400, or about 13 percent of the population.

Fatal asbestos dust from the local mining company, WR. Grace and Co. reportedly covered the town at one point. The company reportedly closed the mine about 20 years ago, but in the years since, there has been a flood of mesothelioma diagnoses.

Twelve years ago, the city embarked on a massive clean-up effort. It’s still not done, even after spending nearly $450 million from the federal government. That’s only the first phase, with federal regulators from the Department of Environmental Protection saying that some of that asbestos remains at that site.

Still, a city park where the plant once stood recently hosted a wedding and there are blues festivals scheduled throughout August.

The removal work will have to continue.

For 30 years, the site of the Grace plant reportedly stockpiled vermiculite from the nearby mine before it was shuttled by rail for use across the country in attic insulation. Vermiculite, by the way, is a natural mineral that sometimes contains asbestos. The vermiculite that came out of this particular mine did contain the deadly fibers.

In addition to insulation, vermiculite has been used for brake linings, moulded shapes, fireproofing, roofing and even pillows.

In Libby, the town’s baseball and football fields were located right next to the Grace plant. The people who today are wrestling with the fatal disease talk about how they used to play in the piles of raw vermiculite when they were just children.

The epidemic is so bad there that the town is under the first of its kind public health emergency declaration, which was issued in 2009 by the EPA. The deaths are likely to continue for a number of decades.

Almost 1 million cubic yards of contaminated material and soil have been so far removed from the town. The next phase of removal is expected to be completed sometime over the next five years.

The fact is, there is no safe level of exposure, and residents understand that even those homes that have been cleaned once will likely have to be cleaned again, as there are still traces of the fibers.

Some have lobbed major criticism of the process, saying some clean-up officials seem to just be throwing money at the issue, without an idea of the real scope. Others have wondered if the town should simply be abandoned altogether.

Traces of the material have been found a number of times even when conducting seemingly mundane projects, such as installing a communication line through a park or renovating home projects.

In fact, there are still six major targets pending for contamination clean-up, and those include: the actual mine, the residential homes, commercial buildings and public properties, a rail line, a mill site, a neighboring town that has seen similar issues and the area’s state highways.

All of this would suggest that even for the celebrations, the clean-up is far from over.
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A Massachusetts asbestos case has been gaining attention, as a business owner accused of illegally – and dangerously – storing the deadly compound seeks to have her statements stricken from court.

Our Boston mesothelioma lawyers believe the truth should come out. If this woman and her company were jeopardizing public safety to save a few bucks, they should absolutely be held accountable.

According to the Salem News, the 52-year-old ran an asbestos abatement company. This is a company that builders, contractors, homeowners and property mangers might call to come in and properly remove asbestos from old structures. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has specific guidelines under Massachusetts 310 CMR 4.00. This is the code that stipulates the required notification and work practices for asbestos handling, removal, storage and disposal in order to minimize or avoid releasing fibers into the air, and thereby causing a hazard to workers and the public at-large.

In this case, investigators learned that this particular asbestos abatement company (which we won’t name here, because as of yet, they haven’t been convicted) wasn’t properly storing the asbestos it was hired to remove from schools, hotels and libraries. Rather than following state regulations regarding disposal, officials with the DEP say the business was instead storing asbestos in bags in a self-storage unit.

And we’re not talking a few bags. We’re talking hundreds of trash bags, packed into two self-storage containers.

One official was quoted as saying that the business owners knew that they weren’t properly disposing of the asbestos, but chose to illegally stash it anyway because they couldn’t afford to do it the right way.

When the 52-year-old business owner arrived at the storage locker, in the midst of a search being carried out by state environmental officials, she reportedly began going on about how customers weren’t paying, there had been a lapse in asbestos removal certificates and that a number of contracts had dropped her services.

It’s those statements that are at the heart of the issue before a court right now. The business owner and her attorney are imploring a judge to suppress those statements from the trial because she was reportedly upset that investigators were going through her property. Apparently, some of the items in that storage unit belonged to her late mother. They were alongside the asbestos.

Her lawyer has argued the emotional distress of that ordeal prevented her from making a rational decision.

Additionally, her lawyers argue she should have been read her Miranda rights. While she was not immediately under arrest for the asbestos violation, she was reportedly not free to go because she had an active warrant out for her arrest for prior driving offenses.

Prosecutors, however, argued that she in fact was free to leave – just not in her vehicle, as she had a suspended driver’s license. Plus, they contended it was more likely she was upset that investigators were looking into her illegal asbestos storage rather than them looking through her mother’s belongings. If they were so important, the state argued, why would they be stuffed alongside the deadly compound?

There is no indication from the media reports thus far that anyone suffered a dangerous exposure to the asbestos. Of course, it may be years before anyone truly knows, as the latency period for mesothelioma cancer is typically decades.

The bottom line is that when you don’t follow the removal guidelines, there is the potential for someone to become exposed and become ill.

The judge has yet to make his ruling. The trial is slated to take place sometime in the next few months.
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