Citing an unusually high rate of mesothelioma among men in Northeastern Minnesota, a team of researchers from the Minnesota Department of Health is launching two new studies in attempts to determine whether or not taconite mining, popular in that region of the state, is linked to the deadly disease.

Minnesota Public Radio recently reported that the rate of mesothelioma in the northeastern part of the state is “much higher than it should be.”

Four years ago, a similar study noted that the most likely cause of that high incidence was “exposure to commercial asbestos.” Fourteen of the 17 miners who had developed mesothelioma at the time of that study had been exposed to asbestos as well as to taconite dust. Since then, another 35 taconite miners have developed mesothelioma.

“This is strong enough to more definitively look at commercial asbestos exposure and the taconite dust exposure,” says Mary Manning, director of health promotion and chronic disease at the state Health Department.
Manning says the studies will use case controls, which will compare several miners who didn’t get mesothelioma to each of those who did develop the disease. “They’ll try to compare exposure to both taconite dust and asbestos, to see whether taconite could be the likely cause of the disease,” she added.

Dr. Alan Bender is leading the study and will be working with other researchers from the University of Minnesota to compile the data. Scientists from outside the state will be asked to review study plans before they are implemented.

“This is going to be a major effort,” Bender says, “And we’re going to do what we can to answer as many questions as possible right now.”

The family of a New Jersey woman who died of mesothelioma, an asbestos-caused cancer, is suing the company that manufactured the brakes used by the victim’s husband and sons during at-home car repairs.

According to a recent press release by the family’s attorneys, brake work was performed by various members of the woman’s family on the family’s cars, both in the garage and in the driveway of their New Jersey home from the 1960s through the 1980s. During the trial, it will be argued that the brand predominately used for the brake work was asbestos-containing Bendix brakes.

Brake dust containing asbestos can be released into the air when a brake drum or disk is removed from an automobile. Though the dust is often nearly invisible, the small particles can be easily inhaled by those in the vicinity.

The press release notes that “the victim was unknowingly exposed to asbestos as a result of her laundering the dusty clothes and the used rags that were used by her husband and children after they performed the brake work. The victim would shake out the dirty clothes and dusty rags and then launder them. She performed the clean-up and laundry without any realization that she was neither in any danger nor that she was being exposed to asbestos-laden dust.”

Due to a growing number of asbestos lawsuits involving auto mechanics, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released a new brochure entitled “Current Best Practices for Preventing Asbestos Exposure among Brake and Clutch Repair Workers,” which updates and reiterates standard practice for working with asbestos-containing brakes and clutches. The brochure also addresses home mechanics and the precautions necessary to prevent exposure in the home setting.

The hundreds who’ve been sickened in Libby, Montana by the W.R. Grace vermiculite mine are anxiously awaiting the decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determining whether or not previous rulings by another judge can be overturned. Without the reversal of rulings, victims and their families believe the proper prosecuting of Grace and its executives will be impossible.

According to an article in the Missoulian, the Grace trial is scheduled to begin in September but everything will hinge on the three judges and their rulings. The appellate decision is “the most important decision for our future,” activist Gayla Benefield of Libby said Thursday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kris McLean from Montana and Todd Aagaard from the Justice Department told the newspaper that Molloy’s rulings “forbid the government from presenting information drawn from Grace’s own asbestos testing of its vermiculite products.”

Information and results from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s asbestos sampling in Libby will also not be permitted and the results of a government study in which 7,300 people from the Libby area had chest X-rays and medical interviews would be forbidden as well, according to a ruling by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy. The study found more than 1,300 of those tested had lung abnormalities consistent with asbestos-related disease, notes the article.

McLean and Aagaard also noted that victims and their families were angered when Molloy dismissed the most serious charges, multiple counts of “knowing endangerment.” The Clean Air Act states it is “a crime for anyone to release hazardous pollutants into the air while aware those actions will place another person in clear danger of death or serious injury.” Evidence shows that Grace and its executives and managers were long aware of the dangers of asbestos exposure.

The family of a petrochemical worker has filed their third asbestos-exposure suit in a Texas court.

According to the Southeast Texas Record, the family of Carl Larkin first sued a petrochemical plant when he was still alive, alleging that he was suffering from a non-malignant asbestos disease. An out-of-court settlement was reached with the company.

Larkin passed away in June 2005 after developing asbestos-caused mesothelioma and, in the last month, widow Bessie Mae Larkin and her children have filed two additional suits. The first, filed on May 7th for a “different malignant asbestos disease” named A.O. Smith Corp. and 42 other corporations for distributing asbestos-containing products throughout Jefferson County.

“No amount of due diligence would have allowed decedent to recover for his malignant asbestos-related injury when his original suit for non-malignant asbestos-related disease was brought,” the first suit said.

Just less than a month later, the family has filed a third suit against defendant Chevron U.S.A., Inc., where Larkin worked as an operator and safety inspector.

“He used, and was exposed to, toxic materials including asbestos dust and fibers,” the suit states. “As a result of such exposure, Carl Larkin developed an asbestos related disease, specifically lung cancer, for which he died a painful and terrible death on June 11, 2005.”

A federal prosecutor told jurors in a San Diego U.S. District Court earlier this week that San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) had a “culture of corporate arrogance” that encouraged workers to disregard safety standards when removing asbestos from a Lemon Grove site.

According to an article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, SDG&E, two employees and a contractor are named in a five-count criminal indictment alleging that they violated safety standards while removing asbestos from nine miles of pipe at a storage station near the Lemon Grove-San Diego boundary.

The workers – Jacqueline McHugh, a supervisor in the environmental department; David Williamson, an environmental specialist; and Kyle Rheubottom, project superintendent for contractor IT Corporation, face the possibility of a $250,000 fine for each charge and imprisonment of up to 5 years. SDG&E could be fined as much as $2.5 million.

Melania Pierson, assistant U.S. attorney, told the jury that the workers totally ignored the fact that the asbestos on the pipes was “friable” or easy to crumble. Such damaged asbestos allows for fibers to be released into the air, causing potential health problems for those who inhale the dust.

They used a machine that scraped chunks of coating containing asbestos off the pipes, she said, instead of a more costly machine designed for removing asbestos more safely.

“It’s about time and money and personal recognition,” Pierson said. “But mostly it’s about the money.”

According to an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, lawyers for the U.S. government told an appellate court panel in Seattle earlier this week that unless several lower-court decisions are overturned, it will be” impossible to properly prosecute W.R. Grace & Co. on charges of concealing for years the dangers of asbestos from a vermiculite mine near Libby, Montana.”

Last year, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy chose to ban the government’s use of a number of essential documents as well as testimony from several expert witnesses in the case against the company and seven of its top executives.
On Monday, federal lawyers asked the three senior judges of the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn Molloy’s rulings. The government stressed that since the mid-1970s, Grace and its managers “knew, yet deliberately concealed, the devastating health effect that would result from exposure to asbestos.”
Grace mined asbestos-contaminated vermiculite in the small town of Libby for more than 30 years. To date, thousands in the town have been sickened and hundreds have already died from asbestos-related diseases, including the cancer mesothelioma. The material was also shipped to more than 200 processing centers throughout the United States and was made into lawn and garden products and insulation. Some estimate as many as 15 million to 35 million homes and businesses contain this asbestos-contaminated insulation.

Many Libby residents and other advocates for asbestos victims were angered because Molloy “accepted Grace’s contention that the government has misidentified the specific type of asbestos in its vermiculite.” The ore contained tremolite, which is regulated by the EPA, but also winchite and richterite, which are considered hazardous under the Clean Air Act.

“It doesn’t matter what they call it. Cemeteries and hospitals throughout the Northwest are filled with people fallen by the asbestos from Grace’s vermiculite,” said Dr. Brad Black, medical director for Libby’s Center for Asbestos Related Disease. “The number of deaths from exposure to whatever is in that ore that I continue to hear about from around the country every week just stuns me, and damn it, I’ve been doing this for years.”

The aboriginal town of Baryulgil faces devastation from fatal cancers and lung diseases, says a new study which predicts that virtually every local family will be touched.

An article in The Australian notes that a report ordered by James Hardie Corporation, the company responsible for the exposure, predicts that more than 10 percent of the New South Wales north coast community of Baryulgil will contract asbestos disease, on top of the 10 percent who have already died or become ill. But lawyers representing Baryulgil residents point out that recent medical tests performed on miners and other area residents show a far greater number of individuals have already displayed evidence of asbestos disease.

An asbestos scandal has long surrounded Baryulgil, where mining took place from 1942 until 1979. A 1984 federal parliamentary report demonstrated that Hardie dodged health regulations and was still exposing its workers to unlawful levels of asbestos when it sold the mine in 1976, despite the fact that the company was aware of the dangers of exposure.

The parliamentary inquiry heard evidence from a former mine manager who reported that the dust levels at the plant were so high that “when you walked in it was impossible to see anywhere”. He estimated that adequate dust control would have cost between $70,000 and $80,000, but noted that Hardie did not regard it as “a worthwhile expenditure.”

Hardie initially excluded the people of Baryulgil from its $1.5billion asbestos compensation package, a move that angered advocates for asbestos victims worldwide. However, the company reconsidered after The Australian newspaper revealed that the aboriginal community would be the only Australians excluded.

According to the report, 28 claimants from Baryulgil have filed and settled lawsuits against Hardie’s former asbestos mining subsidiaries thus far. Lawyers for the aboriginal community, however, say they plan to file dozens more suits on behalf of the 100+ individuals who show signs of asbestos-related diseases.

Most Baryulgil men who were of working age during the mining years were employed in some way or another at the Hardie mine. However, the mining company also deposited tailings on local roads and other locations including the school playground, exposing the entire community to asbestos.

The Associated Press reports that a New Jersey construction and engineering firm has been ordered by a Southern California jury to pay more than $5 million in an asbestos exposure case.

Foster Wheeler Corporation will pay the settlement to the survivors of Richard Walmach, a career naval machinist who died last year after developing mesothelioma due to prolonged exposure to asbestos. The company has supplied steam generators, boilers, and other power equipment to the U.S. Navy for many years.

According to the article, the firm has faced 20 other asbestos-related suits and been found liable for $100 million in general damages, but this was the first time it was ordered to pay punitive damages, said lead plaintiff’s attorney Sean P. Tracey. In this suit, $2 million of the $5.2 million dollar award is for punitive damages. An attorney for Foster Wheeler said a motion was pending before the judge challenging jurisdiction to award punitive damages.

The trial took place in Los Angeles, the article notes, because several of the 21 defendants were located there. However, every one of the companies except for Foster Wheeler reached confidential, out-of-court settlements before the start of the trial.

Walmach was employed at two bases on the West Coast – the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington State and the Long Beach Naval Shipyard in Southern California. While working at the yards, it was Walmach’s job to remove asbestos-packed insulation from Foster Wheeler boilers, often using a jackhammer.

A group of Japanese researchers have announced that they’ve invented what they claim is the world’s first device to smash asbestos into harmless pieces.

According to an article in Japan Today and several other Japanese newspapers, the airtight device was developed by an “academic and industrial alliance” and measures 3.8 by 3.8 by 4 meters (12.5 by 12.5 by 13 feet). The device contains 100 iron balls each 10 centimeters (about 4 inches) across and weighing 4 kilograms (about 9 pounds) each.

According to the announcement, when asbestos is put into the container, the iron balls spin around at high speed and smash the acicular crystals of the material into de-crystallized pieces.

The research group, made up of members of the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advance Materials at Tohoku University, the Radical Planet Research Institute and Sumitomo Heavy Industries Techno-Fort Co., says the process is simpler and less costly than currently used methods.

There was no word as to whether the new method will be tested in Japan or in any other countries with asbestos concerns.

The Geneva-based United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO), which groups employers, trade unions and governments from 180 countries and promotes better conditions for workers, is struggling with an asbestos problem at its world headquarters, notes a French Associated Press article. Ironically, the organization has long campaigned as to the dangers of asbestos exposure.

Though the asbestos needs to be cleared from the building, the article notes that the ILO has been “unable to tackle the problem so far,” according to organization officials.

A spokesman told the press that asbestos is currently found inside the walls of the building and that there has been a task force in place since 2005 to monitor the issue. “We do know that it’s not dangerous for health,” at the moment, said spokeswoman Corinne Perthuis.

The article notes that during a recent ILO conference, senior international union representative Marc Blondel called for an increase in the 2.5 million dollars allocated for renovation work on the building by member states, which he believes to be insufficient. Blondel stressed that the building had to be adapted to labor standards.

“The building, which contains asbestos, will have to be broken up,” the former French trade union leader said.

Switzerland banned the use of asbestos in 1989, though – technically – the buildings of the U.N. are considered diplomatic territory and are not governed by Swiss law.