Wednesday, October 7, 2009

New York County Pays Fine for Illegal Asbestos Removal

Cayuha Country New York legislators agreed to pay a $10,000 fine in order to resolve illegal removal of asbestos at a county building last year. The fine was issued by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and could have been much higher had they not reached an agreement.

The fine stems from the removal of asbestos from the county’s Board of Elections building in March 2006. Despite the payment, the county still faces at least one more pending violation and a class action lawsuit by people who claim they were exposed to asbestos.

What started as a simple replacement project for asbestos used on a boiler turned into a scandal when it was revealed the asbestos was handled improperly when it was removed. When it was discovered, the building was temporarily closed and the county was investigated by federal prosecutors (though no charges are expected). Earlier this year the contractor in charge of the work pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act.

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Cancer Replacing Heart Disease as World's Leading Killer

The leading killer in the United States and across the globe is currently heart disease however, according to the World Health Organization, that is about to change. Cancer is quickly replacing heart disease as the world's number one killer due to various worldwide factors.

The number of patients diagnosed annually with cancer is expected to continually rise over the next decades. In 2008 the number of new cancer cases is expected to reach 12 million with deaths attributed to the disease in the amount of 7 million.

The world's population is continually growing and with that growth comes an increase in the number of new cancer cases. Smoking has become more popular in many developing countries and the populations of India and China now hold over 40% of the world's smokers. The United States, in contrast, has experienced a decrease in smoking over the past decade and less than 20% of America's adults smoke cigarettes. This fact has caused a decrease in the number of U.S. cancer cases. Improved cancer screening methods and better treatments have also helped reduce America's cancer rates.

Many cancer organizations gathered recently to draw attention to the global threat of the disease. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (a part of WHO) released a report that details the current statistics.

According to the report, "The global cancer burden doubled in the last thirty years of the twentieth century, and it is estimated that this will double again between 2000 and 2020, and nearly triple by 2030."

The report outlined additional issues regarding worldwide cancer care including the fact that narcotics are illegal in some African countries even for use during cancer treatment. Many of those same countries have very limited budgets for health care and communicable diseases spread rapidly.

As the Westernized world has seen a decrease in cancer, poorer countries have seen a huge increase. In fact, today more people die from cancer than from TB, malaria and HIV combined. The recent gathering of cancer organizations hopes to spotlight this fact and get assistance from the U.S. government.

Dr. Boyle said, "The rapid increase in the global cancer burden represents a real challenge for health systems worldwide. However, there is a clear message of hope: although cancer is a devastating disease, it is largely preventable. We know that preventive measures such as tobacco control, reduction of alcohol consumption increased physical activity, vaccination for Hepatitis B and Human Papillomavirus (HPV), and screening and awareness could have a great impact on reducing the global cancer burden."

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Bondex on Trial for Asbestos Again

In Illinois last week, a Sangamon County jury decided against St. Louis, Missouri-based Bondex International, manufacturer of textured paints, finishes and joint compounds, and for former Springfield postal worker/handyman William Willis.

The settlement is the result of an asbestos exposure trial which called into question the liability inherent in asbestos-containing products manufactured by Bondex, Minnesota-based CertainTeed Corp., and Atlanta-based paper and building products manufacturer Georgia-Pacific Corp.

Willis, 69, currently lives in Arkansas, but spent most of his life in the Springfield area and worked as a U.S. Postal Service employee on the night shift from 1966 to 1992. In addition to his scheduled work, Willis was also employed as a truck driver, bus driver, and in home construction and repair from about 1960 to about 1980.

It was as a home repair specialist that Willis came into contact with CertainTeed's asbestos-containing pipe, and pipe joint compounds made variously by Bondex, Georgia-Pacific and other firms - all of whom reportedly phased out the use of asbestos in their products in 1977.

Willis, who said he developed incurable pleural mesothelioma as a result of working with the asbestos-containing compounds, noted in his suit that - to the best of his knowledge - none of the products contained warnings about their asbestos content, or if they did the warnings were not explicit.

Asbestos was widely used in insulative products, floor and ceiling tiles, and mastics or sealants, through most of the last century, until health officials began to recognize the dangers. In 1989, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limited the use of asbestos in American-made products to one percent by weight (or volume).

Unfortunately, mesothelioma is a legacy disease which lies dormant for decades before causing enough symptoms to allow doctors to readily diagnose it. By that time, the prognosis is almost always poor because so many tissues and vital organs have been affected. Most patients suffering from pleural mesothelioma of long standing are given between a year and 18 months to live. Ten percent survive up to five years.

The settlement was reduced for prior settlements made with Willis, and his pretrial request for punitive damages was denied. The cost is levied solely at Bondex. CertainTeed and Georgia-Pacific were not ruled to be negligent, even though Bondex lawyers argued that, after decades, Willis could not be sure which manufacturer's products he had commonly used and what the labels might have said.

This is the same defense Bondex and Georgia-Pacific used in a similar trial in 2006, when they defended themselves in a Madison County courtroom by calling in metacognition and metamemory specialist Charles Weaver III, Ph.D, of Baylor University, who argued for the plaintiffs that people can't generally remember the brand name of a product used four decades previously, let alone what the product's warning label said.

The 2006 case revolved around 84-year-old Anita O'Connell, whose son Michael argued that Anita's asbestos-related disease resulted from her washing both her husband's and son's work clothes during 1966 to 1970 when the two men worked at the elder O'Connell's firm, Burbank, Illinois-based Bel-Aire Plastering.

According to Michael, the firm used joint compounds made by both Bondex and Georgia-Pacific, though he admits he also saw other manufacturer's products as well. His case was eventually damaged by the fact that, while drywall workers use joint compounds to seal and finish sheetrock wall edges, plasterers do not.

The lawyers in the most recent case also stated that Bondex's pipe compound never contained enough asbestos to cause harm, though in fact OSHA, the CDC, and the American Cancer Society agree there is no minimum, safe level of asbestos exposure; a day or a lifetime can trigger mesothelioma.

Sources: USCourts.gov, Madison Record, Harris Martin website, Jefferson County website.

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MESOTHELIOMA TREATMENT OPTIONS

The treatment program for mesothelioma depends on many factors, including: the stage of the cancer, where the cancer is, how far the cancer has spread, how the cancer cells look under the microscope and the patient’s age and desires.

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Mesothelioma Risk Considered Extremely Low As Asbestos Found in Australian School Playgrounds

Students in the Australian state of Queensland have been exposed to dangerous levels of asbestos, according to a government report. The asbestos debris has appeared in playgrounds and athletic fields near schools in and around the city of Brisbane. Investigators from the Queensland state government have reported that topsoil that contained asbestos may have been used in as "fill" in some of the playground sites.

In previous years, old school buildings would be demolished and covered with topsoil. Many of those buildings from the early part of the last century contained asbestos as fireproofing and insulation material. As the schools have continued to add playing fields and other improvements, much of that contaminated topsoil has surfaced.

The report, which is due to be published sometime this month, shows that some of the highest concentrations of the toxic material have been found in playgrounds, in sandpits and in many of the oval-shaped fields students use to play Australian Rules Football. Reports continue to surface about children playing with the hazardous material that they find in the fields. In one instance, an elementary school student allegedly took home a sizable piece of asbestos to show to his parents.

State education officials have suspended classes at six elementary schools in the Brisbane area as the investigation progresses. Workers at five of those six sites have verified asbestos findings on the school grounds. Principals at schools in the area state that they have taken steps to insure the children's safety. Two schools have restricted outdoor activities after environmental workers found asbestos on their playgrounds and football ovals, while another school replaced the material in its sandpit when officials learned of asbestos found there.

In Australia, schools are required to keep maintenance logs, including the presence of potentially toxic substances such as asbestos, for every school term. However, officials later found out that these records were either disorganized or not updated at all. At one school, the maintenance record had not been updated in more than ten years.

Queensland Minister of Education Geoff Wilson has stated that he has appointed a special independent investigator, John Gaskin, to look into the prevalence of asbestos on school grounds. Mr. Gaskin is the former president of the Master Builders Association of Australia, the leading business association for the construction industry. Mr. Wilson has said that Mr. Gaskin's experience in the construction field will be invaluable in the course researching this issue.

Another leading expert in the field of asbestos abatement and remediation in Australia is Mark Rentoul. Mr. Rentoul is the manager of Asbestos Auditors, a company that carries out asbestos inspections on private and public structures and creates plans to deal with asbestos removal projects. Mr. Rentoul told the Australian Associated Press that maintenance records at the schools should have been more organized and that independent auditors should have carried out the annual inspections.

William Kwiecien, an asbestos specialist at the Queensland University of Technology, said that children exposed to asbestos in playground settings were at "extremely" low risk to develop mesothelioma, asbestosis, or any other lung diseases associated with long-term exposure to asbestos. Since most of the asbestos found in the playgrounds was still in a solid form, the danger of developing any lung disorders was minimal unless the fibers came loose and became airborne.

Sources: Sydney Morning Herald, News.com.au

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