Asbestos News Roundup: 10.25.12 – Neighborhood Asbestos

October 25th, 2012. By LucyC

A roundup of recent asbestos-related news and information that you should be aware of. An ongoing list of reported asbestos hot spots in the US from the Asbestos News Roundup archive appears on our asbestos map.

Asbestos Exposure in the Community

You don’t have to work with asbestos containing products to suffer its effects. It is also possible to suffer asbestos exposure by living in a community or area located near an asbestos mine or a company that manufactures asbestos or products containing asbestos. Many older buildings may also contain asbestos insulation, including schools.

Once commonly used for insulation and pipe wraps, asbestos causes lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis when its fibers are crumbled or pulverized. The Environmental Protection Agency has determined there is no safe level of exposure to the airborne fibers.

One example of community exposure include the World Trade Center site after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and areas prone to damage from natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. But it doesn’t take a disaster for asbestos exposure to occur locally in your community—our Asbestos Hot Spot Map shows locations across the US in which asbestos has been an issue and, in many instances, asbestos abatement has been needed.

Most recently, three men were sentenced to federal prison time for violations of the EPA Clean Air Act. The charges included their having sent asbestos fibers into the air due to uncontrolled asbestos removal, for over a year. The construction site was across the street from a daycare center and residential housing.

Asbestos Law

Three men have been sentenced to time in federal prison for polluting an East Chattanooga community with asbestos during the demolition of an old textile mill. Don Fillers, David Wood and James Mathis, all from Chattanooga, were convicted on charges of conspiracy and violations of the Clean Air Act. The men are due to report to prison on November 16.

Chief U.S. District Judge Curtis Collier sentenced Fillers to four years in federal prison, Wood to 20 months and Mathis to 18 months for their part in spreading asbestos over a demolition site where the Standard-Coosa-Thatcher plant once stood.

Additionally, Fillers was fined $30,000 for his company, Watkins Street Project, and $20,000 personally. The judge also ordered $28,000 be paid in restitution to the Environmental Protection Agency, Chattanooga Department of Public Works and Chattanooga-Hamilton County Air Pollution Control Bureau.

Fillers, who owned the property owner, his employee, work site foreman Wood, and the demolition contractor Mathis, were all charged in a 10-count indictment with conspiracy to defraud the United States, Clean Air Act violations, false statements, obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting.

The demolition of the abandoned plant generated asbestos-containing dust which subsequently spread through the air between 17th Street between Watkins and Dodds avenues, across the street from residential housing and near a day care center. These violations of the Clean Air Act took place between August 2004 and December 2005.

“These sentences send a strong message that criminal violations of environmental laws designed to protect human health from exposure to hazardous substances, such as asbestos, will not be tolerated,” US Attorney William Killian said in a news release. (Chattanoogatimesfreepress.com)

Asbestos Medical Breakthrough

A breakthrough in the detection of possible asbestos-related disease, including asbestos mesothelioma has been made, with researchers at the laboratory of New York University Langone Medical Center reporting they have found that fibulin-3—a new protein biomarker present in blood—can reliably predict the presence, or absence, of mesothelioma cancer cells.

This discovery could lead to the development of a screening tool for people concerned they may be at risk for asbestos disease, due to exposure to the lethal carcinogen. The findings were published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“It’s a first step, but a very promising step,” thoracic oncologist Harvey Pass, M.D. Pass, New York University Langone Medical Center, told Reuters Health. “We’re enthused that this marker eventually will help the mesothelioma community.”

The search for a screening tool for asbestos-related disease has been underway for years. The difficulties of diagnosing asbestos diseases such as mesothelioma are significant, particularly in light of the fact that it takes decades for the disease to manifest, by which time the prognosis is typically fatal, because the cancer has spread throughout the body.

Additionally, the symptoms of mesothelioma symptoms frequently mirror those of less serious illnesses, which means it can take up to six-months for doctors to rule out other illnesses, and confirm the presence of asbestos mesothelioma.

“The problem now is that patients present with late-stage, bulky disease where we have very few options,” Pass told Reuters Health. “With an earlier presentation, you have a surgical option and better treatment results, and they have better responses to chemotherapy. You can convert this to a disease that you can chronically treat.”

The biomarker is remarkably accurate, with the researchers reporting a 96.7 percent success rate in accurately determining the presence or absence of mesothelioma when looking at blood and pleural fluid of patients. Dr. Pass and fellow researchers also found that fibulin-3 levels fell dramatically after reductive surgery and increased as the disease progressed.

An estimated 3,000 Americans are diagnosed with asbestos disease annually. This research has the potential to make those diagnoses possible earlier, thereby enabling earlier treatment. (www.curetoday.com)

Tags: Asbestos, Asbestos Exposure, asbestos lawsuit, Asbestos Mesothelioma

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