Today, April 1, is Asbestos Awareness Day. On a national level, the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) is working in Washington, D.C., and around the world, to increase awareness and secure a true ban of all asbestos in the United States. Currently, asbestos is allowable in products at 1% or less by weight.

ADAO secured a senate resolution declaring April 1 as Asbestos Awareness Day, and April 1-7 as Abestos Awareness Week. You can visit the ADAO online.

Today also is Asbestos Awareness Day in Montgomery, Alabama, as designated by mayoral proclamation, signed by Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright. The local effort strives to bring the message of asbestos awareness and education to the community and to bring attention to the national effort to ban asbestos.

Asbestos exposure can lead to asbestos-related disease including asbestosis, lung cancer and malignant mesothelioma. Many symptoms of mesothelioma and other asbestos diseases do not appear for 20 or more years, making it difficult to diagnose early. For this reason, the cancer is often diagnosed in late stages, making it too often deadly.

In the U.S. current statistics show 2,000-3,000 people are diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma each year, and 10,000 Americans or more die each year from all asbestos-related disease.

According to a study of U.S. Government Death Data, compiled by the EWG Action fund, Alabama ranks 19th in the U.S. for cases of asbestos related disease (asbestosis) and mesothelioma.

• At least 741 people have been killed by asbestos since 1979 in Alabama.

• 10,881 people have sought justice in Alabama.

• At least 75 shipments (3,624 tons) of vermiculite went from Libby, MT to 4 locations in Alabama between 1948 and 1993.

About the Map

The dots on this map represent individuals who have died from two signature asbestos diseases, mesothelioma and asbestosis, as confirmed by death certificate records. To protect the identity of the victims, the dots on the map have been randomly placed within the county where the death was recorded.

The map includes just a small portion of all asbestos-related mortality that occurred during the time period analyzed. It does not include a single lung cancer death caused by asbestos, although national estimates of lung cancer mortality from asbestos range from 5,000 to 10,000 per year during that time.

The data also grossly underestimate mesothelioma mortality, the signature asbestos-caused cancer. This is in part due to under-diagnosis of the disease, but in greater measure because mesothelioma was not tracked by the federal government as a cause of death until 1999. Prior to that, scientists estimated mesothelioma mortality by assuming cancers of certain sites (for example, the pleura) were mesothelioma. This resulted in dramatic underestimates of the true mortality rates. When the government began tracking mesothelioma as a cause of death, mortality more than doubled, from 935 in 1998, to 2343 in 1999.

The map also does not include asbestos mortality from gastrointestinal (GI) cancer. The link between asbestos and GI cancer is contested by industry and its insurance companies, but OSHA and the World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer all have concluded that asbestos does cause some types of GI cancer (OSHA 1994, WHO 1989). The best national estimates are about 1,200 asbestos-caused gastrointestinal cancers per year.

If the data presented above are corrected to include lung and gastrointestinal cancer and more accurate estimates of mesothelioma incidence, nationwide, the total mortality from asbestos from 1979 through 2001 would be about 230,000 people.

For more information about Asbestos in Alabama, visit the EWG report online.

• Treating Mesothelioma
• New Research
• Research at UAB

(more…)

If you are reading this blog, chances are good that you are already familiar with Mesothelioma, and may actually have been diagnosed with this cancer yourself. But part of the mission of this blog is to raise awareness, so let me start by offering some general information and some resources.

There are links on this page to a number of web sites that provide medical information and information about asbestos, exposure to which is the leading cause of Mesothelioma. Check back regularly, as I will be adding to that list of links in addition to posting new information here.

Here is a good general definition, from the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) Medical Center, which has a Mesothelioma Clinic at its Comprehensive Cancer Center :

Q: What is mesothelioma and who is at risk?

A: Mesothelioma is an aggressive form of cancer in which cells of the mesothelium (the membrane that covers and protects most of the internal organs) become abnormal, form tumors, and grow without control or order. The disease usually affects the surface of the lung or less commonly the lining of the abdomen. It is relatively uncommon, with 2,500-3,000 new cases diagnosed in the United States each year. The major risk factor is working with asbestos, but the disease has been reported in some individuals without any known exposure to it. An experimental drug, Pemetrexed®, has shown promise in treating advanced mesothelioma. The UAB Mesothelioma Clinic and Comprehensive Cancer Center offer clinical trials for treating the disease. Early referral for the best treatment is important after diagnosis.

UAB is a research and teaching hospital, and is currently conducting a number of studies on the treatment of mesothelioma.

In 2005, UAB’s Spring/Summer magazine published information about ongoing studies being conducted by Katri Selander, M.D., Ph.D., a Cancer Center Associate Scientist, and Pierre Triozzi, M.D., about the effects of bisphosphonates on cancer cells.

Bisphosphonates are drugs that are commonly used to treat and prevent osteoporosis. They also are used to treat metastatic breast and prostate cancers.

The UAB article reported that Drs. Selander and Triozzi “have examined the effects of bisphosphonates on cancer cell cultures and in animal models, and have found that the drugs kill mesothelioma cells in both.”

Further results of these studies were reported in the May 1, 2006 issue of Clinical Cancer Research, Vol. 12, 2862-2868; and in the European Journal of Pharmacology, Volume 559, Issue 1, dated March 15, 2007.

Key points of the article in Clinical Cancer Research said that “the diagnositc use of radioactive bisphosphonates has revealed the accumlation of bisphosphonates in mesothelioma” and said that results of the studies “support further study of bisphosphonates in the management of mesothelioma.”

The European Journal of Pharmacology report states that “Pre-clinical studies indicate that bisphosphonates also ihibit the growth of various cancer cells in vitro” and “in … mouse AB-12 mesothelioma cells.”

For more information, visit UAB’s Comprehensive Cancer Center online at www3.ccc.uab.edu or click on the link in my list.