What involvement will I need to have in my mesothelioma case?

Video: Joseph P. Whyte, Esq. of Goldenberg Heller & Antognoli, P.C. explains what involvement the client will need to have in their mesothelioma case. Continue reading →

All you really have to do is answer some questions that we’ll have for you about your background or your loved one’s background whether that’s hobbies such as automotive repair or home remodeling work that may have exposed you to asbestos or what you did on the job. Once we learn what you did and where you did it, we can really take that information and compare it against the database we built up over the years. So we take the the onus off of you; you just have to tell us what you know and we can use that information to make it easy on you and get the responsible parties involved in the lawsuit.

Cancer Vaccine Shows Promise Against Mesothelioma

New research shows that a new and unique approach to cancer immunotherapy may improve survival in patients with mesothelioma and ovarian cancer. Immunotherapy is used to stimulate the body’s immune system against cancer. For example, according to the Merck Manual Home Health Handbook, vaccines comprised of antigens derived from tumor cells can boost the body’s production of antibodies or immune cells (T lymphocytes). Extracts of weakened tuberculosis bacteria (which are known to boost the immune system) have been successful when introduced into the bladder to prevent bladder tumors. Continue reading →

Very high magnification micrograph of a malignant epithelioid mesothelioma
Malignant epithelioid mesothelioma

New research shows that a new and unique approach to cancer immunotherapy may improve survival in patients with mesothelioma and ovarian cancer. Immunotherapy is used to stimulate the body’s immune system against cancer. For example, according to the Merck Manual Home Health Handbook, vaccines comprised of antigens derived from tumor cells can boost the body’s production of antibodies or immune cells (T lymphocytes). Extracts of weakened tuberculosis bacteria (which are known to boost the immune system) have been successful when introduced into the bladder to prevent bladder tumors.

Now, a team of researchers with the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center report that “a protein engineered to combine a molecule targeting a tumor-cell-surface antigen with another protein that stimulates several immune functions, slowed tumor growth and prolonged survival in animal models of both tumors.” The team, which includes senior author of the report and Director of the MGH Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center Dr. Mark Poznansky, created a vaccine that stimulates a patient’s own dendritic cells, rather than utilizing the standard approach that requires “extracting a patient’s own immune cells, priming them with tumor antigens and returning them to the patient,” says Poznansky. Dr. Poznansky adds that the latter process is considered complicated and costly, and offers a poor prognosis.

The body’s dendritic cells are antigen presenting cells that, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), mediate several physiologic components of immunogenicity (the ability to produce an immune response) such as the acquisition of antigens in tissues, the migration to lymphoid organs, and the identification and activation of antigen-specific T cells.

According to the study, the MGH team’s approach begins with the engineered protein, which in this case fuses an antibody fragment targeting a protein called mesothelin — expressed on the surface of such tumors as mesothelioma, ovarian cancer and pancreatic cancer — to a protein from the tuberculosis bacteria that stimulates the activity of dendritic and other immune cells. In this system, the dendritic cells are activated and targeted against tumor cells while remaining inside the patient’s body.

The team concluded that the mesothelin-targeted fusion protein attaches to mesothelin on mesothelioma (or ovarian cancer) cells, then activates dendritic cells, and enhances the cells’ processing and presentation of several different tumor antigens, inducing a number of T-cell-based immune responses.

In animal studies including both types of tumors, treatment with the fusion protein slowed tumor growth and extended survival significantly. The team concluded that this is likely the result of the activity of cytotoxic CD8 T cells. Cytotoxic CD8 T cells monitor all the cells of the human body. They are equipped to destroy any others that express foreign antigen fragments in their class I molecules.

The MGH team notes that, like other types of immunotherapy, this innovative cancer vaccine is nontoxic, it may offer a better survival rate than other vaccines, it’s a lower cost approach to treating cancer, and it even has the potential to lower the risk of cancer recurrence. Researchers also believe that in the future this approach could ultimately be used to target any type of cancer.

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Mesothelioma Survivor Stories

Around 2,000-3,000 new mesothelioma cases are diagnosed in the U.S. each year. Of these cases, around 70 to 80 percent of the patients have been heavily exposed to asbestos and the vast majority of cases are in men over the age of 65. In fact, it is estimated that men are anywhere from 4 to 5 times more likely to develop mesothelioma than women. According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), this is likely because men are more likely to have worked in jobs with heavy exposure to asbestos. Continue reading →

Around 2,000-3,000 new mesothelioma cases are diagnosed in the U.S. each year. Of these cases, around 70 to 80 percent of the patients have been heavily exposed to asbestos and the vast majority of cases are in men over the age of 65. In fact, it is estimated that men are anywhere from 4 to 5 times more likely to develop mesothelioma than women. According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), this is likely because men are more likely to have worked in jobs with heavy exposure to asbestos.

With statistics like these, people are often baffled when they hear that a woman or anyone in their 30s has been diagnosed with mesothelioma. Unfortunately, even though this condition is rarely found in women and the young, it can happen and it is usually the result of second-hand exposure. Such was the case for a Minnesota woman who discovered she had the disease at the age of 36.

Just three months after giving birth to her daughter, Heather Von St. James was diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma, rare form of cancer that affects the lining of the lung and chest wall (pleura). Pleural mesothelioma may also spread into the pericardium (the sheet of tissue covering the heart), which is very close to the pleura. Naturally, the diagnosis stunned the Roseville, Minnesota mom who didn’t know much about asbestos or mesothelioma. Soon, however, Von St. James discovered where she had been exposed to asbestos and it wasn’t in the workplace.

Von St. James grew up in South Dakota as the daughter of a construction worker. In a news story featured on ABC 5 Eyewitness News, KSTP (Minneapolis/St. Paul) Von St. James says she used to wear her father’s coat when he came home from work because, she says, “it felt good to me and it was something I loved to do.” Her father often worked on demolition and clean up jobs which left his clothes, shoes, and car covered in gray, crusty asbestos dust. It was this second-hand asbestos dust that gave Von St. James cancer.

In her mid-30s, Von St. James felt a weight that she described as “a truck parked”on her chest. She couldn’t breathe. After being diagnosed with mesothelioma, Von St. James underwent an extrapleural pneumonectomy to remove her left lung. Today, Von St. James is an eight-year mesothelioma survivor and she shares her story to help raise awareness about the disease and the dangers of asbestos.

Asbestos Today

Although asbestos is heavily regulated in the U.S. and banned in 44 countries, the manufacture, importation, processing and distribution of the following products is still legal:

  • Automatic transmission components
  • Brake blocks
  • Cement corrugated sheet
  • Cement flat sheet
  • Cement pipe
  • Cement shingle
  • Clothing
  • Clutch facings
  • Disk brake pads
  • Drum brake linings
  • Friction materials
  • Gaskets
  • Millboard
  • Non-roofing coatings
  • Pipeline wrap
  • Roof coatings
  • Roofing felt
  • Vinyl floor tile

For more information about asbestos regulations in the U.S., visit the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at 2.epa.gov/asbestos/us-federal-bans-asbestos.

Sources

ABC 5 Eyewitness News, KSTP-Minneapolis/St. Paul
American Cancer Society
American Lung Association
Asbestos Cement Products Manufacturers Association (ACPMA), New Delhi
Cancer Research UK
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
University of California San Francisco, Department of Thoracic Surgery

Avalanche of Asbestos Lawsuits Aimed at Georgia-Pacific

Like many manufacturers of building materials and chemicals, Georgia-Pacific was a top supplier to the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II. The products being supplied contained asbestos, which was precisely what the military ordered thanks to the amazing heat-resistant properties the mineral exhibited. Because of the widespread use of asbestos-containing products (ACMs) in the… Continue reading →

Like many manufacturers of building materials and chemicals, Georgia-Pacific was a top supplier to the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II. The products being supplied contained asbestos, which was precisely what the military ordered thanks to the amazing heat-resistant properties the mineral exhibited. Because of the widespread use of asbestos-containing products (ACMs) in the armed forces, thousands of members of the military, and others that worked in military construction and shipbuilding, were exposed to asbestos. This was before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared war on asbestos-containing products and the companies that used it in manufacturing.

Today, asbestos is no longer revered for its heat-resistant properties. Instead, the mineral is feared because it is the only known cause of an aggressive form of cancer – mesothelioma.

As such, asbestos is banned in roughly 55 countries and partially banned in the U.S., making the manufacture and distribution of ACMs difficult. Most companies have stopped using the mineral altogether, including Georgia-Pacific (GP).

Unfortunately, by the time GP ceased using asbestos, it was already too late. GP’s joint compound – a putty-like building material which contained the cancer-causing mineral – hasn’t been used in more than 30 years, but it is still at the center of an estimated 60,000 asbestos legal claims against the company.

Joint Compound Banned, Irreversible Damage Surfaces Decades Later

In 1978, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) banned Georgia-Pacific’s joint compound, which was marketed under the name “Ready-Mix,” along with all other asbestos-containing joint compounds. Georgia-Pacific stated that it fully supported the ban, but says it ceased using asbestos in its product in 1977, and promptly switched to a safer substitute. However, before the switch, GP’s products contained between 2% and 7% chrysotile (white) asbestos. It is now known that there is no safe level of asbestos exposure – of any type.

It wasn’t until the new millennium that former construction workers, members of the military, and others began coming forward after exhibiting symptoms of asbestos exposure, such as fatigue, shortness of breath, tightening in the chest, persistent cough, and blood (coughed up from the lungs). Thousands of these workers, with the help of doctors, legal teams, and family and friends, traced their asbestos exposure back to Ready-Mix and other similar products.

Georgia-Pacific Launches Research Program as Liability Soars

Around 2005, as cases of asbestos-related diseases began to mount, Georgia-Pacific launched a “secret” $6 million research program to help defend itself against the legal claims by construction workers, former members of the military, and others. In 2006, the company hired a toxicologist to oversee animal testing, along with two consulting firms – Exponent and Environ – in order to “gauge the accuracy of decades-old studies, like those done by Mt. Sinai, showing high fiber counts associated with the sanding and sweeping of joint compound.”

Exponent was paid $3.3 million and Environ $1.5 million by Georgia-Pacific. Ultimately, after serious speculation about “fraud” and “junk science” and rulings against the company and its research by a New York appeals court, the findings were never used as a defense by Georgia-Pacific. In April 2005, Georgia-Pacific was taken private after being acquired by Koch Industries for $21 billion. There are no reports on how many of the 60,000 cases against Georgia-Pacific are still pending, but the total amount of liability is estimated at $1 billion.

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