Articles Posted in Mesothelioma Diagnosis

A recent case out of Australia highlights the prevalence of asbestos worldwide in years past. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a 42-year-old man was recently awarded $2 million after developing mesothelioma by playing in asbestos dust at an orphanage there.

In the early 1970s, when researchers were studying asbestos after concerns about its effects on people’s health, this man would play in what he probably thought was dirt at a miniature railway at the orphanage. But officials found that it was pounds of asbestos that had been dumped there as other children worked on building the railway while a company would dump truckloads of the asbestos at the site.

The article went on to say that boys would take clumps of the asbestos and toss them into fires to watch them explode. Asbestos “pops” when heated and that’s what factories would do to process it and turn it into insulation and for use on brake pads, piping and other commonly used products. The company was warned that it wasn’t “wise” to dump the asbestos at the school, but it didn’t listen.

It is a terrifying prospect to think that children could have been rolling around in asbestos, causing significant damage. Asbestos exposure in Massachusetts may not be quite as obvious these days, but it can still happen. Massachusetts mesothelioma lawyers have spoken with many clients who lived in older homes or apartments and developed mesothelioma just the same as those who worked or played in it.

That’s the scary thing about asbestos — it only takes a little exposure for it to make a big impact on a person’s life. Even a one-time exposure can lead to a diagnosis of mesothelioma.

Asbestos can be ingested through the air when the mineral is broken and gets airborne. In most cases, the asbestos can take years to develop and the person has no symptoms to suggest they have been exposed.

But after years — and many cases suggest as long as 30 to 40 years — the person begins feeling some of the symptoms of mesothelioma, such as heavy coughing, chest pain and fluid build-up. While some would attribute these symptoms to old age or years of smoking, it could really be the asbestos forming tumors and causing problems.

In the case in Australia, the man had been exposed in the early 1970s, when he was probably only 3 or 4 years old. It took several decades before he learned what was causing his health problems.

It may take several doctor visits over a period of months before the right doctor diagnoses mesothelioma. And once that happens, research has shown, the individual typically lives only for about 12 months. Mesothelioma is strange because it’s both a slow-moving illness and also quick to kill. There is no cure and it is fatal 100 percent of the time.
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A Mississippi judge is in hot water after the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that he shouldn’t have presided over an asbestos trial where the victim was awarded $322 million, the largest single-plaintiff asbestos award ever, Thomson Reuters reports.

The judge had a conflict of interest that should have prevented him from hearing the trial against Union Carbide Corp. earlier this year. Now it’s likely the huge jury award will vanish and a new trial be scheduled.

It’s been well documented that exposure to asbestos in Massachusetts can lead to a diagnosis of mesothelioma. And as our Boston mesothelioma lawyers have said time and time again on this blog, a mesothelioma diagnosis typically means a person lives another 12 months, on average.

While this is a slow-moving illness — it can take years or decades before a person who is affected spots the cancer– it moves quickly to death once a person does get diagnosed. Typical symptoms include heavy coughing, fluid build-up and chest pain. These can all be symptoms of old age, which is often why it goes undiagnosed for so long.

Many workers in old mines, factories and buildings were exposed to asbestos 30 and 40 years ago when their companies knew the dangers and did nothing to stop it. The problems with asbestos began being uncovered as early as the 1960s and 1970s, when people began falling ill.

As researchers found, once asbestos got into a person’s body, it attacks the lining of major organs. Tumors form and the cancer spreads, leaving the person unable to fend off its progress.

Many victims didn’t know that their job entailed putting their lives at risk. When companies didn’t tell their employees that their products contained asbestos or that they knew there were risks to working with it, that is unlawful.

Many buildings contained asbestos as an insulator, helpful in its fire resistant properties and cost. Piping, floor and ceiling tiles, brake pads and other commonly used products contained asbestos until recent decades. It has never been officially banned in the United States.

Union Carbide is a chemical production company that has been around since the early 1900s. Their products range from household uses to automotive, oil and textile uses.

In a lawsuit out of Mississippi, they were on the hook for $322 million after plaintiff Thomas Brown sued and won. He was allegedly exposed to asbestos after Union Carbide sold asbestos to Montello Inc. to use in drilling. In April, the jury agreed and awarded the large verdict.

But in an appeal, the company argued that the judge shouldn’t have been on the trial at all. His father was a plaintiff in an asbestos case against Union Carbide and he had made rulings that could end up benefiting his father’s pending claims.

During the trial, the company said, he made biased remarks against the company and its co-defendant, Chevron Phillips Chemical.

The state’s high court agreed and ordered the judge to recuse himself from the trial, noting its doubts that the judge could be impartial. Union Carbide now expects the verdict to be thrown out and a new trial held.
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As the Mesothelioma Lawyers Blog reported in August, a Massachusetts developer was recently fined $100,000 for not removing asbestos as state and federal officials had ordered.

New York officials topped that recently, charging a businessman federally with exposing workers to asbestos, the Democrat & Chronicle in Rochester reports.

There’s a reason we have laws in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, by the federal government and on a state-by-state basis. It’s important that people not be exposed to asbestos in Boston and elsewhere.

Boston mesothelioma lawyers have seen rouge contractors and builders attempt to break the law and try to get away with using asbestos or not removing it as they should in order to cut corners and save dollars. And there have been a number of high-profile cases in which contractors or asbestos removal companies used immigrants and low-wage workers to remove asbestos without the necessary safety precautions.

It’s not as if this is anything new. When asbestos was largely an unknown at the turn of the 19th century, companies used it because it was inexpensive and provided good qualities for buildings. But as research continued into asbestos and its health effects, businessmen became acutely aware of what asbestos was doing to their employees and customers. Yet in too many cases they ignored or downplayed the risks.

They chose to cut corners and leave the asbestos in their buildings and in their products, despite what it was doing to harm others. Not much has changed.

In Rochester, New York, a businessman was convicted of violating the federal Clean Air Act when he didn’t protect employees during an asbestos removal project. He was sentenced to six years in prison and has to pay $300,000 in restitution to the victims.

The company’s employees were injured and put in danger during a project to remove asbestos at a nearby hospital. According to the news report, the asbestos was falling on workers “like snow” while they were unprotected and put at risk. Witnesses testified the workers were put in a bad situation while the leaders did nothing to protect them.

This is yet another classic case of poor oversight in an asbestos case. Many of those workers may not feel the effects of the asbestos that rained down “like snow” on them as they worked. They may feel healthy for years, with that one construction job put far behind them and out of their minds.

But in a few decades, these workers may end up feeling the symptoms that tie them to a mesothelioma diagnosis. So it’s important they monitor their health closely. Anyone who has worked on construction projects involving old buildings must heed to this warning that mesothelioma is a possibility in cases where asbestos is in the air. And even if they don’t 100 percent know that asbestos is in a building, it’s possible that it is, so it is critical the worker protect their health and be safe.
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For several months, Boston Mesothelioma Lawyers have documented the more than two dozen asbestos processing plants that manufactured and distributed products that routinely used asbestos-laced vermiculite.

Vermiculite is a naturally occurring mineral that was used for insulation and other products for decades in the United States.

But what companies and employers realized after some time is that exposure to asbestos in Boston and throughout the country can lead to serious and fatal illnesses. Sadly, many of these companies and even the U.S. military realized this was the case and continued using asbestos in their products, even after knowing the ill-effects.

And that put workers in danger. And many of these workers today are suffering from illnesses, such as mesothelioma, because of their employers’ mistakes. This requires the aid of an experienced Boston Mesothelioma Lawyer, who can fight for help in paying for medical bills and the suffering that has taken place because of at-risk work conditions.

As Boston Mesothelioma Lawyers have documented the processing plants, they have also hit on the source of the vermiculite — Libby, Montana. In this Northwestern town, nearly all the population had a connection to the mine. If was the lifeblood of the town.

According to books and articles written on the town, a fine dusting covered the town as it mined and produced about 70 to 80 percent of the country’s vermiculite in the time it operated from 1919 to 1990. People had it on their skin, in their cars and in their homes. They would breathe it in on a regular basis, not knowing the potential dangers.

The asbestos-tainted vermiculite was shipped to plants from Massachusetts to Tampa to Los Angeles and was used to make many commonly used products, such as brake pads, piping, floor and ceiling tiles and insulation for houses and offices.

As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has cited, millions of tons of the product were sent across the country on rail cars and sent to stores and into Americans’ homes. While the United States has never officially banned asbestos, for decades officials have known how dangerous this product is.

Few companies currently use asbestos in the United States, but poor third-world countries have continued using it. Canada and Russia export hundreds of thousands of tons of the mineral to developing countries to this day.

And in Libby, the country’s main source of vermiculite for years, hundreds of people have died and thousands have fallen ill in recent years due to exposure. In recent years, the federal government has allocated more than $100 million to helping pay for medical bills and cleanup efforts, even though the mine has been closed for 20 years. That was even after the federal government unsuccessfully prosecuted the head officials of the company that ran the mine.

Libby is in tough shape and there are many people throughout New England and other parts of the country who are in similar positions. Because mesothelioma can take years and sometimes decades to be diagnosed, many people today are feeling the effects of asbestos exposure that happened 30 and 40 years ago. The U.S. Navy was a large user of asbestos on ships and shipyards because it is fire-resistant. Many veterans are suffering today for acts in the past.

If you may have been at risk to exposure, it is important you get medically checked out and consult with a Boston Mesothelioma Lawyer today.
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Philadelphia researchers have found a link between mesothelioma and genetics, a study published online recently suggest, Philly.com reports.

The study’s researchers hope that as more time and effort is put into studying mesothelioma that drugs can be developed that can lead to a cure for this currently incurable rare form of cancer. All the leading studies have shown that exposure to asbestos in New England and throughout the country is the main link to mesothelioma.

And while the study suggests that genetics may be a factor, it doesn’t suggest that asbestos exposure isn’t at play. If anything, it’s possible that some people may be predisposed to being more prone to getting mesothelioma, but it can’t be said at this point that genetics alone is the cause. Boston Mesothelioma Lawyers have seen long-time factory workers contract this cancer, as well as military veterans and those who worked with commonly used products like brake pads, insulation and floor and ceiling tiles.

The symptoms — heavy coughing, fluid and chest pain — seem just like old-age signs in some cases and may delay diagnosis.

Researchers at the Fox Chase Center Center in Philadelphia studied two extended families where they found mesothelioma “common.” After studying the families, 11 with the lung disease had mutations in a gene called BAP1 that is supposed to help suppress tumors.

Researchers hope their studying will lead to the development of new drugs and at least help increase the survival rate of those diagnosed. Patients with mesothelioma live for about 12 months after diagnosis. But those who are able to catch the cancer early before a tumor has spread to other parts of the body can live for up to five years.

Among the family members studied, several also had uveal melanoma, an eye tumor and one of them also had mesothelioma. After studying about two dozen other mesothelioma patients who had no familial link to the cancer, two others had the rare eye cancer as well. Members of the two families also had other forms of cancer, such as in the kidneys and breasts.

I think everyone would like to see more help for those who suffer from mesothelioma in New England and throughout the nation. It’s obvious that asbestos is dangerous and it’s also obvious that companies knew of its effects on workers and still continued to use it to insulate and to make products that every American would use.

Sadly, that’s why many Americans today are suffering the health consequences. It was the greed and profit-seeking nature of companies decades ago that continued to use asbestos despite knowing the risks. And now it’s their dedicated workers who are paying with their lives.

It’s certainly possible that some people are more apt to cancer, as some families have few people die of cancer, whereas in other families, it strikes everyone in one form or another. But the widely believed and trusted research shows that asbestos exposure is the trigger and cause of mesothelioma.
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The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention has highlighted more than two dozen factories throughout the country that processed vermiculite that was tainted with asbestos.

The plants ceased in 1990 or earlier after it was discovered that the vermiculite, a natural mineral, was contaminated with asbestos, which can lead to life-threatening illnesses, including mesothelioma in Boston and throughout New England. Boston Mesothelioma Attorneys know that many people were unknowingly exposed to asbestos either through work at factories or older buildings. And it’s that exposure that can lead to a diagnosis of mesothelioma and other asbestos-related illnesses.

Entire towns could have been exposed to asbestos as the tainted vermiculite was shipped from 1920 to 1990 throughout the country. Asbestos was a popular insulator because of its fire-resistant abilities and so it was used in the building of houses as well as in the manufacturing of other products, such as brake pads, cement, generators and all other sorts of commonly purchased goods.

Exposure to asbestos can go largely unnoticed for years and sometimes decades. Research has shown that these microscopic flakes can be inhaled and travel through the blood stream until they rest on major organs, including the lungs, heart or liver. They can stay for up to 30 or 40 years undetected before a person has the symptoms common of mesothelioma, such as coughing, fluid build up and chest pain. Once a person is diagnosed with mesothelioma, they have, on average, a year to live.

There is no cure to this form of cancer and the effects can be devastating to a family. A life can be cut short because a former employer denied to improve upon the safety of their workers by allowing a building to be tainted with asbestos, despite knowing the problems of the material.

In our latest blog in a series about sites detailed by the CDC, Boston Mesothelioma Lawyers hit the west coast, with three plants that processed tainted vermiculite in California.

Mesothelioma in Santa Ana: This W.R. Grace & Company plant in Southern California processed vermiculite from a mine in Libby from 1972 to 1993.
During that time, workers at the plant processed more than 400,000 tons of vermiculite and in 1990, when the plant was still operating, about 35,000 people lived within a mile of the plant.

Asbestos in Los Angeles: This plant processed vermiculite from 1950 to 1977, processing more than 120,000 tons of the natural mineral. It’s unclear for what purpose the vermiculite was processed at this plant.

Mesothelioma Diagnosis in Newark: This W.R. Grace plant operated from 1966 to 1993 and workers, those who lived with them or lived near the plant may have been exposed to asbestos.

In the 27 years the plant operated, it processed about 300,000 tons of vermiculite from the mine in Libby. This plant is located about 30 miles south of San Francisco in a mixed commercial, industrial and residential use area.
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