With the rise and fall of the asbestos industry in Canada making headlines recently, it’d be easy for some to think that the global asbestos problem could immediately be solved with a ban. It sure seems to make sense: if we stopped mining and manufacturing asbestos, we’d be able to prevent deaths from asbestos-related cancers such as mesothelioma forever. Unfortunately, a ban is only step one [...]
Kevin Morrison of Norwood, Massachusetts, was a young man with a bright future. The 21-year-old graduated from Norwood High School three years ago where he was a star athlete. During his senior year he was captain of both the football and hockey teams. But as Boston.com reports, Kevin’s plans changed in February when he was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma. [...]
Mesothelioma was first recorded by the World Health Organization in 1994, but extensive demographic pictures just recently have emerged about the deadly disease. And to no one’s surprise, the incidence of this asbestos-related cancer has increased and the age-adjusted mortality rate more than doubled during a 15-year study period. According to a recent WHO bulletin, 92,253 deaths from mesothelioma [...]
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued an advisory to the public warning that mothers-to-be who take high doses of an antifungal drug during their first trimester of pregnancy may be increasing their risk of giving birth to a child with a specific set of birth injuries. Diflucan (or fluconazole) is an antifungal drug that is used by [...]
It’s no secret nowadays that those who have spent their lives working in shipyards or factories run an increased risk of eventually developing an illness such as asbestosis or mesothelioma. However, a recent story out of Scotland regarding a profession that is far less commonly associated with asbestos illnesses may be the cause of one man’s mesothelioma death. According [...]
With the new school year getting underway and many parents getting their children settled into new schools across the country, safety precautions are generally a top priority. For families at George Washington University, one of those precautions involves asbestos exposure. According to the GW Hatchet, the University’s newspaper, Rice Hall – which houses offices for some of the [...]
We all know that schools use equipment that is old, dated or even expired on occasion. This can include old textbooks, course materials or even laboratory equipment. Before we knew of the dangers associated with asbestos, many schools used the material in laboratory exercises. Although the use of asbestos in schools has dropped off, school officials in [...]
Industrialized nations have been living with the uses of asbestos – and consequences from that use — for more than a century. But it’s hard to imagine that we’ve been living for nearly 50 years with evidence, studies and research into the dangers of asbestos, and yet, it still continues to be manufactured, used and exported in [...]
Today, the United States processes more than 2,200 metric tons of deadly asbestos materials each year. In our opinion, that’s 2,200 metric tons too many, even though it is a significant drop compared to our usage 50 years ago. Although our country’s widespread usage of asbestos has diminished significantly over the past three decades, the toxic product [...]
Imagine a hammock that more and more people keep piling into without anybody getting out. The weight would quickly become too burdensome to bear and, sagging with a tangle of limbs and torsos, the rope would break. That’s what companies whose livelihoods were once asbestosdependent are like. With billions paid in asbestos settlements each year, the financial strain [...]