Background: Occupational and environmental airborne asbestos concentrations are too low and variable for lifetime exposures to be estimated reliably, and building workers and occupants may suffer higher exposure when asbestos in older buildings is disturbed or removed. Mesothelioma risks from current asbestos exposures are therefore not … [Read more...]
Diffuse peritoneal mesothelioma: A case series of 62 patients including paraoccupational exposures to chrysotile asbestos
Background Diffuse peritoneal malignant mesothelioma (DPM) is caused by exposure to asbestos. The medical literature has linked DPM primarily to high levels of asbestos exposure, in particular amosite. Controversy persists as to whether chrysotile is capable of causing DPM, especially when exposures are paraoccupational. Methods Sixty-two … [Read more...]
Hand-spinning chrysotile exposure and risk of malignant mesothelioma: A case-control study in Southeastern China
While chrysotile has been commonly used by Chinese textile industry for many years, investigations on the association of chrysotile exposure with risk of mesothelioma in China are scarce. We conducted a case-control study in a county located at Southeastern China, including 46 cases and 230 individually matched controls. A semi-quantitative method … [Read more...]
Data on mesothelioma mortality: a powerful tool for preventing asbestos-related disease
Asbestos is a disaster. It has been responsible for over 200?000 deaths in the USA, for 400,000 deaths in Europe and continues today to cause an estimated 180,000 deaths each year worldwide. Asbestos is a known cause of cancer, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer considers all forms of asbestos—including chrysotile, the form in … [Read more...]
Asbestos, spying and the Canadian connection
This week in Geneva, delegates to a conference of the parties to the Rotterdam Convention are again discussing whether chrysotile asbestos should be put on the list of hazardous substances. One hot topic is sure to be Canada, which until 2012 was a major exporter of chrysotile — the most common form of asbestos — and opposed its inclusion on the … [Read more...]
Asbestos Defendant Georgia Pacific: The Potential Legal “Crime-Fraud” Situation Involving Professor Ken Donaldson And GP In-house Litigation Counsel
According to an investigative article, "Dust storm: 'Crime-fraud' allegations cloud conference", published by Hazards magazine, an Edinburgh University scientist, Professor Ken Donaldson, is at the center of a controversy that has potential "crime-fraud" ramifications for Georgia Pacific (GP) as regards its asbestos litigation. In the July - … [Read more...]
Health organisations call on government to halt chrysotile asbestos exports to developing nations
Quoted from http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Health+organisations+call+govt+halt+asbestos+exports/3220879/story.html Health organisations call on government to halt chrysotile asbestos exports to developing nations By Robert Gibbens, The Gazette June 30, 2010 MONTREAL - Three national health organizations Wednesday added their … [Read more...]
California Jury Awards Asbestos Worker $3.4 Million
It only took a day for a San Francisco jury to find a Canadian company liable for exposing a deceased former Johns-Manville Transite plant worker to asbestos. Richard Worthley Sr., worked in the plant in Waukegan, Ill. from May 1968 to 1984, when it closed. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2004. The defendant in the case, Advocate Mines … [Read more...]
Canadian Medical Association Denounces Government for Promoting Asbestos
The Canadian Medical Association Journal denounced the federal government for its continued efforts to block international controls on asbestos at the UN-sponsored Rotterdam Convention in 2008. A strongly worded editorial said the government “knows what it is doing is shameful and wrong” and compared Ottawa's moral stature in continuing to … [Read more...]
Defending the Indefensible: Book Review
A book, due out in late August 2008 by Jock McCulloch and Geoffrey Tweedale, Defending the Indefensible: The Global Asbestos Industry and Its Fight for Survival discusses the problems of asbestos in the environment, compensating victims, and the continued use of asbestos in the developing world. The book is based on documentary material gained … [Read more...]