Archive for July, 2008

A New Jersey man with mesothelioma has filed an asbestos-related lawsuit in Madison County, Illinois. The lawsuit claims that he was diagnosed with mesothelioma in April 2008, and that his disease was wrongfully caused.

The lawsuit was filed on July 17 in Madison County Circuit Court, and in it John Scarduzio claims that during the course of his employment as a plant manager and materials processor between 1949 and 2000, he was exposed to asbestos. In addition, he claims he may have been exposed while carrying out home and automotive repairs.

Scarduzio names a total of 75 defendant companies in the lawsuit, including Bondex International, CBS, Chrysler, Federal-Mogul Asbestos Personal Trust, Ford Motor Company, General Electric, General Motors, Goodyear, Honeywell International, Ingersoll-Rand, International Paper, John Crane, MetLife, Philips Electronics and Trane US.

According to the lawsuit filed by Scarduzio, his “exposure and inhalation, ingestion or absorption of the asbestos fibers was completely foreseeable and could or should have been anticipated by the defendants.”

Scarduzio claims that the named defendants either knew or should have known that the asbestos in their products could have a serious and potentially lethal effect on people who were exposed.

In addition, the lawsuit claims that the defendants continued to use asbestos in their products even though adequate substitutes for asbestos were available, and also that the companies failed to provide warnings about asbestos exposure, or any instructions on how to work safely with asbestos to prevent exposure from occurring.

As a result, Scarduzio alleges, he continued to work with and around asbestos without knowledge of the dangers he was exposed to, and without taking any safety precautions which could have prevented exposure.

Due to the alleged negligence of the named defendants, Scarduzio claims he was exposed to deadly asbestos fibers, and developed the asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma as a direct result of that exposure.

Scarduzio is seeking damages to help pay for medical expenses, as well as compensation for physical and mental pain and suffering, lost income, and lost earning capacity. In addition the lawsuit is seeking punitive damages to punish the defendants for “willful, wanton, intentional and reckless” behavior.

Phoenix, Arizona - The Tempe Union High School District in Phoenix has announced it will retest all of its campuses for asbestos. Apparently, administrators can’t locate documents containing details about the removal of asbestos-containing materials, and so schools can’t verify where asbestos is located in their buildings.

District director of plant operations Bob Anderson says the inspection and testing is more of a precaution, and should cost less than $10,000 for the entire school district.

The testing was prompted by an incident which occurred back in May, when asbestos was found at Corona del Sol High School.

Parents who noticed workers dressed in protective clothing made inquiries about the situation, and Bob Anderson subsequently discovered that certain documents relating to the removal of asbestos at Corona, Marcos de Niza, McClintock, and Tempe high schools were missing.

All schools are required by federal law to adhere to Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA) guidelines, which require schools to create and maintain asbestos management plans. The plans must include details of the location of any asbestos, as well as all measures taken to prevent exposure risks.

In addition, schools must be inspected every three years, and asbestos management plans must be available for public review by staff and parents.

After AHERA was passed in 1986, the Tempe Union High School District completed all the required paperwork, but the district could not afford testing for all schools.

According to Bob Anderson, schools which could not be tested were assumed to contain asbestos. The schools were tested in 1993 and again in 1996, and management plans were completed and submitted to the EPA as required.

Parents became concerned that the 1993 documents were missing and not available for public review, and in response the school district agreed to have all Tempe Union schools retested.

Some schools in the district were built after 1986 and thus don’t have to be tested regularly, however Anderson says all district schools will be tested to ensure public concerns are alleviated and make sure all of its schools are safe for students and staff.

The school district has recently spent several months testing and improving air quality at its schools in response to concerns about mold problems. Most of the work, carried out during the summer break, has now been completed.

Charleston, West Virginia - Four families have filed asbestos-related lawsuits, claiming that a family member has suffered from an asbestos-related disease as a result of working with or around asbestos-containing products. In total, the four lawsuits name 124 different defendants.

The lawsuits were filed in Kanawha Circuit Court in West Virginia by the attorneys of the plaintiffs. Each of the four suits involves a man who has developed an asbestos-related disease as a result of past exposure to asbestos, and in two of the cases the men who developed the diseases have already died.

Asbestos-related diseases such as asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma cancer continue to increase in incidence as people who were exposed to asbestos decades ago begin to realize the devastating legacy of the substance.

In most cases of asbestos exposure which occurred last century, those exposed had no idea they were putting themselves at risk of developing chronic lung diseases or deadly asbestos cancers.

The first suit was filed by Doris Bowen of Barboursville, on behalf of the estate of Lemuel Bowen. Lemuel Brown developed asbestosis and lung cancer, and worked in Huntington as a welder at the American Car Foundry.

Also of Barboursville is Virginia Harris, who filed on behalf of the estate of Jack Harris. Harris has developed asbestosis and lung cancer, and worked for several years for IBEW Local 317 as an electrician.

The third suit was filed by Walter Socha, of Martins Ferry, Ohio. Socha worked at Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel as a laborer and pipefitter, and has developed asbestosis and lung cancer.

The fourth suit was filed by John F. Stoll and Betty J. Stoll, who currently reside in Wintersville, Ohio. John Stoll worked Weirton Steel in Weirton, West Virginia as a crane operator, electrician, and laborer. He has developed asbestosis and mesothelioma.

The lawsuits state that each of the plaintiffs was exposed to asbestos in products which were manufactured, supplied, or sold by one or more of the various named defendants. The suits also allege that the defendants failed to provide warnings about the dangers of asbestos and of their asbestos-containing products, and failed to provide information about safety procedures to reduce or prevent exposure to asbestos.

Each of the plaintiffs is seeking punitive as well as compensatory damages. Virginia Harris and Doris Bowen have filed wrongful death suits.

July 28, 2008 – The Delaware Bankruptcy Court overseeing the W.R. Grace & Company case has set a bar date for claims related to Zonolite attic insulation to be filed in the W.R Grace case.

In order to preserve their case against the company, anyone who wishes to make a claim relating to Zonolite attic insulation must file that claim on or before the bar date, which has been set at October 31, 2008.

For the purpose of the bar date, Zonolite claims are property-related claims. These may include the costs of asbestos abatement, and any reduction in property value or other economic loss which results from the presence of W.R. Grace-manufactured Zonolite in a home.

Zonolite is a type of loose-fill, non-roll vermiculite insulation produced and sold by W.R. Grace & Co. The company mined the vermiculite from a mine located in Libby, Montana. The mine, the vermiculite, and all the insulation sold under the brand name Zonolite is contaminated with tremolite, winchite, and richterite asbestos.

The contamination of the Libby mine is so severe that the entire town has been declared an EPA Superfund site for almost a decade, with approximately $120 million spent on cleanup. More than 200 residents of Libby have died of asbestos-induced diseases such as asbestosis and mesothelioma. Additionally, more than 1,000 have been diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases as a consequence of working in or living near the mine. At the end of this year, the criminal trial against W.R. Grace and several of its top executives will finally get under way.

The consequences of the production and use of contaminated vermiculite are even more far-reaching than appears at first glance. Many more people than those residing in Libby may eventually be affected, as Zonolite is present in millions of American homes, up to an estimated 35 million to be exact.

Zonolite was sold from the 1920s up until the 1980s under several brand names, including Attic Fill, Attic Plus, Cashway Attic Insulation, Econofil, House Fill, Wickes Attic Insulation, Zonolite Insulating Fill, Sears Micro Fill, Quiselle Insulating Fill, Mica Pellets Attic Insulation, Unifil, and Ward’s Mineral Fill.

Zonolite insulation may appear as a glittery granular substance. Granules may be silvery, gold, or brown in color, and their color may have darkened after being present in an attic for several years. Even homes with newer insulation may still contain Zonolite, as the substance may be found underneath newer rolled insulation. People are advised not to go near or touch this product. Those who suspect Zonolite insulation may be present in their home should seek the advice of a professional abatement contractor, as exposure to this toxic material can result in deadly diseases such as lung cancer, mesothelioma, and asbestosis.

July 28, 2008 – A surprising new option for cancer treatment may one day be useful in managing cancers of all types, including mesothelioma. The new treatment is vitamin D, which scientists have discovered can prevent cancer cells from growing.

One man who is currently receiving vitamin D treatment is David Rose, who for 40 years had a three-pack-a-day cigarette habit. To make matters worse, he also spent 18 months working with asbestos. Rose explains, “I got down in the pit with a broom and swept all this stuff up to the end and shoveled it out with a shovel. I lived in a cloud of asbestos for a year and a half.”

David Rose eventually developed lung cancer as a result of his high-risk lifestyle. However, doctors detected the cancer early, and were able to remove it completely. In order to prevent the cancer from returning, David Rose is currently receiving a new experimental treatment that involves high doses of vitamin D.

Rose is part of a study where patients are being given high doses of vitamin D, which has shown positive results in treating and preventing several types of cancer throughout the past decade.

Dr. Alex Adjei of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute says, “Vitamin D can actually kill cancer cells grown in the lab, as well as in animal models, and it can prevent cells from dividing, growing, and spreading.”

Dr. Mary Ellen Reid says, “With an agent that’s shown as much activity as vitamin D, that, in this population, we have an opportunity to slow the progression of lung cancer and maybe reverse it.”

This is extremely important for lung cancer patients. In most cases, patients receive a diagnosis when the cancer has already advanced into the late stages of development and treatment options have become limited.

The same problem occurs in patients with mesothelioma, an asbestos-related cancer that commonly develops in the lining of the lungs. Mesothelioma is an aggressive form of cancer, which is very difficult to treat effectively.

Although it’s too early to know whether this experimental treatment may be useful in treating or preventing asbestos-related cancers, there is the possibility that vitamin D may one day be part of a mesothelioma treatment regimen if its potential benefits are further explored.

Says toxins seeping into Raritan River putting public health in danger.

The Edison Wetlands Association urged a federal judge yesterday to grant an injunction against Basell USA forcing the chemical company to clean up toxins seeping into the Raritan River about 100 yards from a local boat slip and fishing spot.

“This is like a cancer on the lower Raritan River,” Robert Spie gel, EWA executive director said yesterday, while holding scraps of deteriorating tar he found along the shoreline in front of Basell, a plant formerly owned by Akzo Nobel Chemical Inc. at the foot of Meadow Road in Edison.

Both Akzo and Basell are named as defendants in the lawsuit the EWA filed in January. Spiegel said dangerous levels of toxins — including the carcinogen benzene — were found more than a year ago. The company dug wells on the site to stop the seepage, but the latest tests show the pollution continues, Spiegel said.

U.S. District Court Judge Faith Hochberg set a hearing for Aug. 18.

Jack McGuire, an attorney for the chemical company, issued a statement noting that over the past year, the company has been working with the state Department of Environmental Protection on many of the issues raised in the court documents. McGuire said his clients will “continue to work with the DEP to make sure the environment is protected.”

Richard Chapin, an environmental engineer who works for the Wetlands group, said trenches should be dug to cut off the seepage and then all the toxic debris must be removed from the area.

When the river is at low tide, Chapin said the seepage, which has a slimy sheen, is seen coming out at various points along the shore. There has been a chemical plant operating on the site for 100 years, he said. Chapin believes the seepage might be from lagoons that once contained the chemical waste. While the material in the lagoons was supposed to have been solidified and removed, Chapin argued it’s probably the source of the pollution.

Attorneys representing Basell in the lawsuit could not be reached for comment yesterday.

EWA officials said they fear that the public’s health is being jeopardized. Signs should be posted immediately warning the public of the dangers, Judith Weinstock, an at torney for the EWA wrote in the legal brief seeking the injunction.

The toxins were found 100 yards from the Edison boat basin, the township’s only public access to the river and one of only a few points to reach the lower Raritan, according to Greg Remaud, conservation director for the NY/NJ Baykeepers, an environmental group that works to protect the entire harbor. He charged the chemi cal company is using a “strategy of delay” to keep from taking necessary steps to rid the waterway of the toxins.

Spiegel said once the seepage was found, the company should have considered it an emergency situation requiring immediate action.

Lawrence Hajna, a state DEP spokesman, said Basell has been working to remedy the problem, which appears to be made worse during periods of heavy rain. He said a new plan was developed to eliminate the seepage, involving re grading the area to remove soot and debris. He said the state is also reviewing a permit to work along the shoreline to eliminate the pollution.

Schenectady, New York – July 25, 2008 –The Thomas O’Brien Academy of Science and Technology, an elementary school in the Albany School District, has been forced to close for the upcoming school year due to asbestos-related problems. The school will require considerable asbestos remediation before it can open again.

The school’s 500 students, in prekindergarten to grade six, will be relocated to other schools while the Academy is closed, said school district spokesperson Ron Lesko. According to Lesko, students will be relocated to the former Philip Schuyler Elementary School while the asbestos remediation is completed.

Work began on the Academy and its ‘parent’ school, Giffen Elementary School, when the school year ended in June 2008, as part of a general improvement project. The Academy was shut down, and a small asbestos remediation project was begun.

However, when the crews began their work, they discovered there was more asbestos located at the Academy than previously thought. According to Lesko, asbestos was found in places where it was thought to have been removed in the late 1980s.

Asbestos is an increasingly prevalent problem in schools across the country. The substance was once heavily used in construction materials of many different types, but due to its toxicity, the asbestos is now becoming a serious problem, particularly as these buildings age and the asbestos they contain becomes more exposed and begins degrading. Asbestos contamination in schools is especially disconcerting, as children are more susceptible to developing asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma.

Federal law requires that all schools adhere to Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA) guidelines, which require schools to create and maintain asbestos management plans. The plans must include details of the location of any asbestos, as well as all measures taken to prevent exposure risks.

In addition, schools must be inspected every three years, and asbestos management plans must be available for public review by staff and parents.

After the discovery of the extra asbestos at the Thomas O’Brien Academy, air samples were taken in school buildings, but showed there were no elevated asbestos levels present. However, Lesko says that removing the asbestos is important to ensure students and staff are not put at risk of exposure, and also to alleviate public concerns.

The school estimates it will reopen for the 2009-2010 school year, and will meet with parents this week to discuss the temporary closure.

July 25, 2008 – Further insight into why the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to alter asbestos regulations has been attained after meetings with public officials and a scientific panel. The public meetings took place on July 21 and 22 in Washington D.C., where many authorities on asbestos and asbestos-related disease spoke out on the proposed changes.

The scientific panel denounced the EPA’s plans to change the way it measures the cancer-causing risks of asbestos, claiming the changes will dilute the regulation of the toxic mineral. Currently, only six types of asbestos are regulated by the government, and the new regulations would alter how the toxicity of those six types is defined.

Though the EPA claims the changes will improve current methods of assessing asbestos risks at Superfund sites, public health officials, scientists, and medical professionals warn these changes will water down asbestos regulations and place workers and the public at risk.

Apparently, pressure to have federal agencies dilute the regulation of hazardous substances comes from the Bush White House. Members of Congress are presently in the process of asking why the Labor Department sent plans to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that change how workers are protected from chemical hazards. Oddly enough, many government physicians and scientists who are usually intimately involved in such matters say they haven’t even seen the proposal.

According to employees at EPA headquarters, the hurry to change asbestos regulations is spawned in part by OMB’s motive to please the mining, chemical, construction, and automotive industries that are dealing with asbestos-related lawsuits. Yet again, politics are being put before public health and safety. This comes to no surprise, as the Bush administration has consistently sided with the industry’s position concerning asbestos issues. Bush even openly fought for almost four years for asbestos tort reform to put an end to workers’ rights to sue employers.

A total of 20 experts were appointed to the Scientific Advisory Board’s asbestos panel, who heard testimony and statements from more than two dozen witnesses at the public meetings earlier this week. Many witnesses spoke out against the validity of industry-financed studies cited in the EPA proposal.

Despite the fact that these studies are proven to have no scientific credibility, the EPA is submitting the fallacious studies as evidence for the proposed changes. These erroneous studies claim chrysotile asbestos, the most commonly used type of asbestos, is not dangerous and does not cause mesothelioma cancer.

The bogus studies go against decades worth of scientifically solid and credible studies that have long established chrysotile asbestos as a serious carcinogen, which has been proven to cause asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma.

Lawyers who defend corporations involved in asbestos lawsuits explain passage of the new asbestos risk assessment methods would greatly affect asbestos litigation, making it much easier to argue that the asbestos used by these companies was and is not hazardous.

Counting down its final months in power, the Bush administration has little time to push the reform through the system, which needs no stamp of approval from the scientific panel that denounced the EPA’s plans. It seems the asbestos scandal, which is considered one of the biggest cover-ups in U.S. history, is reluctantly far from over.

By Michelle Whitmer

July 24, 2008 - Known to cause a rare form of cancer called mesothelioma, asbestos was recently found during the development of a new housing project. The area of the site was known as North Miamii’s Pioneer Gardens, located in Denver, Colorado, and was expected to house 136 units for low-income families.

However, when the contractor began digging, it was discovered that workers previously hired to clear the site had mistakenly caused an asbestos leak. The leak was coming from broken asbestos-containing pipes located underground, but was never documented. The workers at the time simply covered up the leak with piles of dirt without following the steps of proper notification required of such hazards.

Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that was often used for its insulating properties and fireproofing capabilities. It was fitted in nearly all construction projects before the 1990s, including commercial, domestic, and industrial buildings. When damaged or disturbed, asbestos releases toxic fibers that have the potential to float in the air for weeks at a time and cause serious illnesses such as lung cancer, mesothelioma, and asbestosis.

Due to extreme latency periods, it can take anywhere from 15 to 50 years for some of these illnesses to develop. While this may seem like a blessing to some, it is actually a curse, because the long latency period makes it difficult for doctors to decide on treatment options. By the time a person with malignant mesothelioma begins to show symptoms, they might be in their elderly years and already living with a disease in its latest stages of development.

Local officials are worried for individuals living near the site who may have been exposed to the deadly substance. Because of the increased risk, they are urging everyone nearby to contact a medical professional as soon as possible.

The asbestos contamination has also increased the total cost of the housing project by five times the original estimated amount. This has contractors wondering exactly how affordable the housing development will be, and will likely affect the families who were interested in living there.

By Jensen Whitmer

Gliese Bergeron once worked as a pipe fitter. As a result of his work, he was exposed to asbestos and inhaled asbestos fibers. He developed an asbestos-related disease, sued, and received financial compensation. Now he says he’s developed a second asbestos-related disease and has filed a second lawsuit, hoping to receive additional compensation.

Bergeron’s lawsuit was filed by his attorney on July 17 in Jefferson County District Court and names a total of nineteen defendants, including the A.O. Smith Corp, the CBS Corporation, and Zurn Industries.

According to the petition, the A.O. Smith Corp and the eighteen other defendant companies knowingly and maliciously produced and sold asbestos-containing products.

While the suit does not say where and when Bergeron worked as a pipe-fitter and was exposed to asbestos, is does say that his work as a pipe-fitter and maintenance planner “caused him to suffer from…industrial dust diseases caused by breathing the asbestos-containing products.”

In addition the suit claims that the defendant companies were negligent due to their failure to test their asbestos-containing products before releasing them on the market, and also for failing to warn consumers of the dangers of working with and around asbestos without adequate protection from exposure.

Specifically, the complaint says that American Optical Corp and the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Corporation (3M) are at fault for their production of defective masks that did not provide protection against asbestos inhalation.

Bergeron has already sued and been compensated for having developed an asbestos-related disease, but the suit says that he “seeks damages against defendants not released in the previous actions pursuant to Pustejovsky v. Rapid-American Corp.”

The Pustejovsky v. Rapid-American Corp decision referred to in the complaint was an opinion granted by the Texas Supreme Court in 2000. In this the court decided that a person who successfully sues for compensation for the development of an asbestos-related disease may sue a second time if he subsequently develops another disease.

This decision overturned a long history of cases which had decided victims could only sue once for asbestos-related injuries, even if they developed a second asbestos-related disease at a later date. This can occur when, for example, a person first develops asbestosis and then later is diagnosed with mesothelioma.

Gliese Bergeron is suing for exemplary damages as well as compensation for mental and physical pain and suffering, physical impairment, lost income, lost earning capacity, and medical expenses.