The children of a woman who died of mesothelioma are suing Exxon-Mobil, claiming that their mother died because she was exposed to asbestos dust brought home on the clothes of her father, who worked at the Mobil Oil Refinery (now Exxon-Mobil) in Beaumont, Texas for many years.

The Southeast Texas Record states that the children of Joyce Myers are seeking damages in excess of $1 million as compensation for their mother’s death due to exposure to asbestos. They’ll be facing the oil giant in Judge Gary Sanderson’s district court for the next two to three weeks. Their lawyer will attempt to show that Myer’s father’s exposure to asbestos is at least partially responsible for her death.

The suit states that the people who make up the Mobil Corporation acted with malice during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s by intentionally concealing information revealing the dangers of asbestos exposure. Representatives for the oil company maintain that large companies were not fully aware of the dangers of asbestos until the 1970s.

In all, the suit accuses 68 corporations of mining, manufacturing and distributing asbestos products throughout Jefferson County. Some of the defendants include Viacom, Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse Electric and General Electric.

“Defendants were all negligent in failing to adequately warn of the dangers of asbestos exposure,” the suit says. “Their failure was a proximate cause of plaintiffs’ injuries and damages. Defendants were also negligent in failing to adequately test their products to determine the hazards associated with their products.”

The widow of a Newport News (VA) shipbuilder who died of mesothelioma has been awarded $9.25 million in a Virginia Circuit Court as compensation for her late husband’s death and suffering.

According to a press release issued by the law firm that represented the widow, the verdict was returned against two suppliers to the shipbuilding injury: John Crane, Inc. and Garlock Sealing Technologies. John Crane, Inc. is a multi-national company that once manufactured gaskets and sealants made with asbestos. Garlock Sealing Technologies is a Palmyra, New York company that made the same products. The court ordered Crane to pay 60% of the amount with Garlock responsible for the remainder.

It was believed that the victim, Vaughn Oney, was exposed to asbestos on a daily basis when he worked at the Newport News Naval Shipyard from 1963 to 1973, when he was in his 20s and early 30s. After he left the shipyard, he worked in several other industries until his retirement in 1994. Oney’s lawyer states that he was in good health at the time of his retirement, but began having breathing difficulties and was subsequently diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2004. He died last year.

Oney’s verdict follows by a year another similar verdict for the family of Buddy Jones, a long time Newport News Shipyard worker who also died of the asbestos-caused cancer. His family received an award of $10.4 million.

Because of the large shipbuilding industry in this region of the U.S., many cases of mesothelioma have been reported and several lawsuits are pending against companies such as Crane and Garlock.

A recent report released by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) includes a map and database that identifies 61 areas within the Rocky Mountain region where natural asbestos and fibrous amphibole deposits have been found.

A press release by the USGS reports that “this map is the third in a series aimed at providing a better understanding of the geographic distribution of the geologic environments in which asbestos formed across the nation.”

USGS Director Mark Myers added: “Due to considerable interest in this compilation effort, the first of its kind, the USGS will continue to update information on asbestos localities. The series has already proven to have applications for the public health, geologic, and environmental communities.”

The new map includes the states of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Unlike previously released maps, this new series of maps identifies the specific types of asbestos present in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States.

“Previous regional to national scale maps do not describe the specific types of asbestos reported at many locations (for example chrysotile versus different amphibole asbestos varieties),” the press release noted. “This map identifies different types of asbestos and asbestiform minerals, but does not attempt to distinguish between substances that may or may not pose a risk to human health.”

The occurrence of natural asbestos has become a growing concern due to the potential exposures that may result, caused by human activity that disturbs the rocks, including the building of homes and commercial structures.

Residents who live near the old Hunters Point Shipyard in the San Francisco Bay area are concerned that dust from the construction of a massive new housing development at the site is causing clouds of toxic asbestos dust.

According to an article posted on BeyondChron.com, earlier this week, the regional Board of Supervisors’ Land Use Committee heard emotional testimony about dust and asbestos at the former shipyard, where the Lennar Corporation has begun to excavate rock.

The article notes that “Health Department representatives were on hand to assure that, despite an admitted 3-month gap in monitoring, an excess in asbestos levels and Lennar’s non-compliance with dust abatement, the exposure was not toxic and there was no proof that health problems were caused by it.”

Area residents, however, say they’re experiencing a greater incidence of respiratory problems, such as asthma, since the excavation began. A resolution was submitted, urging the Health Department to halt construction on the premises. Supervisor Sophie Maxwell called upon Public Health Director Mitch Katz to address the monitoring situation.

“The residents have legitimate concerns about the safety of the development,” said Katz, “because of health issues that have been true for twenty years.” With a long history of toxic cleanups at the Naval Shipyard and power plants, high rates of cancer and asthma are nothing new to the Bayview-Hunters Point community. “But we don’t feel that the development of this parcel is causing health problems,” said Katz.

Public comment indicated otherwise. Estelene Stamsel, who has lived there for 50 years and had friends who worked in the old Naval Shipyard that died of asbestos exposure, said that dust from Lennar’s excavation site is “flying everywhere and the particles are getting into childrens’ lungs.” Octavio Solorzano, a local high school basketball star, indicated the dust was affecting his stamina. Once an Honors Student, Octavio’s grades have dipped since the construction began, the article notes.

Travelers Insurance, one of the largest property and casualty insurance companies in America, announced earlier this week that they will contribute $449 million to a bankruptcy trust in order to put an end to several years of asbestos-related litigation faced by one of its clients.

An article in Reuters states that the trust will be established as part of a reorganization plan for AC and S Company, a subsidiary of Armstrong World Industries, best known for the production of flooring. AC and S was an insulation installing unit of the company. Faced with 270,000 asbestos claims, AC and S filed bankruptcy several years ago and has been looking to its insurers to help settle the claims.

A statement issued by Travelers said the settlement will resolve “all current and future asbestos-related coverage claims related to AC and S.” The funds will be taken from existing reserves and Travelers does not expect any impact on earnings.

“AC and S has been one of our most significant and longest-standing asbestos exposures,” said Jay Fishman, the Travelers chief executive, in a statement. “Eliminating the uncertainty inherent in this litigation makes this a very good outcome.”

The plan will require bankruptcy court approval before it goes into effect.

Residents of a public housing complex in Henderson, Nevada – a suburb of Las Vegas – claim that the local housing authority has been improperly removing asbestos from several units in the complex.

According to a story on News 3 – Las Vegas, residents at the Hampton Court Public Housing Development report that workers are not handling the removal of asbestos from old units safely. They believe that deadly fibers from the material are being released into the air, exposing residents and anyone else who enters the development. They say they’re also worried that the Clark County Housing Authority is not following proper safety procedures such as requiring workers to wear protective suits during the abatement procedure.

When a news reporter approached a worker outside a unit who was not wearing a suit, he replied: “Hello, we’re working outside, sir.”

The company hired to do the abatement, A&B Environmental, told the media that each apartment has a three-stage decontamination process. Workers remove contaminated suits inside the units, so nobody outside would ever actually see a suit, they added.

The Housing Authority has assured residents that they are following all safety precautions and have told concerned individuals that “it’s impossible to get sick from asbestos in such a short time.”

A&B Environmental, says a county spokesperson, is a licensed abatement company whose methods have been approved by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Sen. Patty Murray, the leader in the fight to ban asbestos, says her bill to outlaw the dangerous mineral will get a reading later this month in the Environment and Public Works Committee. She says this is the first time the bill has reached the markup stage.

According to an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Senator Murray described the bill, which calls for spending $50 million for research and launching a public education campaign, at a conference at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle last week. She noted that Washington has the eighth-highest incidence of asbestos-related diseases of the fifty states.

Specifically, Murray’s bill would establish a new research and treatment network. It also would require stepped-up public education about dangers from asbestos for people working with brakes or remodeling homes, where insulation and other products may be contaminated, the article points out.

Judy Clauson, a 44-year-old Aberdeen (WA) mother who suffers an asbestos-linked case of mesothelioma, told a Murray news conference she is very angry that “something as dangerous as asbestos is still legal in this country.”

More than 40 countries have banned the use of asbestos. Many people mistakenly believe that the material is also banned in the U.S. Though warnings about its use and misuse have been issued since the mid-1970s, asbestos has never officially been banned in this country.

Travelers Insurance, one of the largest property and casualty insurance companies in America, announced earlier this week that they will contribute $449 million to a bankruptcy trust in order to put an end to several years of asbestos-related litigation faced by one of its clients.

An article in Reuters states that the trust will be established as part of a reorganization plan for AC and S Company, a subsidiary of Armstrong World Industries, best known for the production of flooring. AC and S was an insulation installing unit of the company. Faced with 270,000 asbestos claims, AC and S filed bankruptcy several years ago and has been looking to its insurers to help settle the claims.

A statement issued by Travelers said the settlement will resolve “all current and future asbestos-related coverage claims related to AC and S.” The funds will be taken from existing reserves and Travelers does not expect any impact on earnings.

“AC and S has been one of our most significant and longest-standing asbestos exposures,” said Jay Fishman, the Travelers chief executive, in a statement. “Eliminating the uncertainty inherent in this litigation makes this a very good outcome.”

The plan will require bankruptcy court approval before it goes into effect.

Alstom Corporation of Hornell, NY, a major worldwide player in equipment and services for power generation and rail transport, reports that trace amounts of asbestos were found in their plant during the refurbishing of rail cars.

The Hornell Evening Tribune reports that the company announced the finding late last week and were addressing the issue. “Alstom Environmental Health and Safety staff has identified dust found in a vehicle being refurbished contained trace amounts of asbestos in a duct not typically opened during the refurbishment process for that vehicle,” said a prepared statement issued by the company. “The production line has been stopped while an expert assessment is carried out and appropriate personnel, safety and abatement precautions are put in place. The line is expected to resume production shortly.”

A spokesman for Alstom said the stoppage only affected one production line and proclaimed the find as “no big deal” for the company. “The statement speaks for itself,” said Chuck Wochele, Alstom’s vice president for business development North America.

Alstom’s Hornell facility, which employs 1,300, recently underwent a $7 million upgrade. They currently have contracts to build 400 new cars for New York City Transit, remanufacture 238 cars for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, and build 184 new cars and remanufacture 364 cars for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

A report presented at the recent 2007 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) announced that the chemotherapy combination consisting of Alimta (pemetrexed) plus a platinum compound (Platinol® [cisplatin] or Paraplatin® [carboplatin]) has been confirmed as “an active therapeutic regimen in the treatment of patients with previously untreated malignant pleural mesothelioma.”

Those presenting the report cited the Phase III study of the drug, which involved 448 patients from 19 countries and was the largest study of mesothelioma patients to date. The study, which compared the use of Alimta and Platinol to the use of Platinol alone, concluded that the combination of drugs “significantly improved survival, response rate, and median time to progression.”

Following the success of the Phase III trial, the drug was released on an expanded access program. The program, which involved 745 patients and combined Alimta with either Platinol or Paraplatin, produced the following results, which were reported at the ASCO meeting:

• At one year, survival was approximately 64% for both treatment groups.
• The median time to cancer progression was approximately seven months for both treatment groups.
• Overall, partial response rates were 26.3% for patients treated with Alimta/Platinol and 21.6% for those treated with Alimta/Paraplatin.
• Partial responses plus stable disease occurred in 77.7% of patients receiving Alimta/Platinol and 75.8% of those receiving Alimta/Paraplatin.
• Severe thrombocytopenia, anemia, neutropenia and leucopenia occurred more frequently among patients treated with Alimta/Paraplatin than those treated with Alimta/Platinol.