To recover, claimants must be seriously ill from exposure to asbestos at a job site where Owens Corning's products were used. The spouses of people killed by exposure can also recover.
TRENTON - W.R. Grace & Co. and the New Jersey attorney general are wrangling over what court will have jurisdiction over the state's civil suit against the Maryland-based construction products and chemical manufacturer.The lawsuit, filed in state Superior Court this past summer, accuses the company of submitting false or misleading information to state regulators about the asbestos-tainted vermiculite it processed over the course of three decades at a fireproofing and insulation plant in Hamilton.
SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Sept. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- The urgent mission to improve treatments for a deadly, asbestos-related cancer will make another step forward, the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation (MARF) announced today, with the Second International Symposium on Malignant Mesothelioma.
Meso is a malignant tumor that aggressively invades the linings of the lungs, abdomen, heart or testicles. The need for research to develop effective treatments was neglected for decades. But in the past few years, exciting progress has begun. MARF, the national nonprofit whose mission is to eradicate meso as a life-ending disease, has organized the Symposium to review this progress, elucidate the latest advances, and strengthen and encourage the entire meso community.
The Symposium will be held in Las Vegas at the Caesars Palace convention center, October 6 through 8. Following the highly successful 2004 format, the program combines highly relevant material for the patient/family and advocacy communities with scientific presentations by leading experts on the latest in meso science and treatment.
The Symposium will open powerfully with presentations on the scope of the mesothelioma tragedy and the continuing threat, by Dr. Stephen Levin from the renowned Mount Sinai Irving Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, author and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Andrew Schneider, and international experts Michael Harbut and Michele Carbone.
Sessions focused specifically for patients and caregivers will cover the clinical aspects of the disease and its treatment, including surgery, chemotherapy, experimental treatments, and pain management. Extended break-out sessions are planned for patients, caregivers and the bereaved, to offer holistic strategies for the emotional, physical and psychological aspects of the disease.
Major scientific topics will include evolving diagnostic, prognostic and staging technologies, including the latest in early detection. Multi-modal management -- surgery, radio and chemotherapy -- will be covered in detail for both pleural and peritoneal meso. Systemic chemotherapy protocols will be reviewed, including an assessment of the Alimta/Cisplatin regimen. Second line and novel treatment approaches will be discussed, along with a thorough overview of meso research projects currently underway. Participating physicians will receive CME credits for these sessions. Patients, family members and other non-medical professionals are also welcome to attend.
U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter is reportedly under pressure to scale back his proposal for a $140 Billion privately financed asbestos fund.
The White House has not explicitly endorsed Specter's proposal, and some Republicans and business interests fear its current provisions would be too costly for the defendant companies and insurers who would finance the fund.
Georgia Supreme Court ruled that family members of employees who are exposed to asbestos in the workplace cannot sue the employer as a result of coming into contact with the employees clothes away from the workplace.
The court concluded that "the holding in Widera is consistent with negligence law in Georgia" and that "an employer does not owe a duty of care to a third-party non-employee who comes into contact with its employee's asbestos-tainted work clothing at locations away from the workplace."
Former Grace executives plead not guilty to charges that they knowingly endangering residents of Libby, Montana, and concealed information about the health affects of its asbestos mining operations.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, six W.R. Grace and Co. executives and their dozen-plus lawyers appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Leif Erickson on Tuesday to plead not guilty to charges that they knowingly concealed information about the deadly health effects of their company's vermiculite mine in Libby.
The defendants are also accused of obstructing the government's cleanup efforts and wire fraud. To date, according to the indictment, approximately 1,200 residents of Libby area have been identified as suffering from some kind of asbestos-related abnormality.
An Op-Ed piece by Alabama veterans in the Decatur Daily voices their support for an asbestos compensation fund. Veterans with asbestos related diseases are presently not able to sue the U.S. Government over their contact with asbestos, nor will that change anytime soon. The alternative is to sue the companies who supplied the government, but veterans say most of those companies are bankrupt or don't exist anymore. However, an asbestos bill may provide veterans relief as they would be able to receive compensation provided by insurers and businesses involved in the asbestos industry.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter is hard at work on a bill that would create a national asbestos victims' compensation fund to solve the crisis. The government wouldn't have to pay a penny under this plan. Businesses and insurance companies will pay into the fund. Truly sick victims with asbestos-related illnesses will get paid quickly, without having to hire a trial lawyer or face the uncertainty in the court system.
Paul Brodeur, a staff writer at the New Yorker, wrote a commentary piece for the LA Times providing us with an insightful look at what he calls The Cruel Saga of Asbestos Disease
In pioneering studies conducted in the 1960s, Selikoff demonstrated the horrific extent of asbestos lung disease in heavily exposed asbestos insulators. He then showed that asbestos disease was also striking less- exposed workers who toiled alongside the insulators in shipyards and on building construction sites. Other scientists found that the wives and children of asbestos workers were dying through exposure to the relatively small amounts of asbestos dust their husbands and fathers were bringing home on their work clothes.
Paul Brodeur has also written four books on asbestos disease:
The Australian reports the James Hardie Industries faces lawsuits in the United States, specifically California, by former employees who handled Asbestos. The bigger story is that James Hardie Industries may have asbestos liability in the United States.
The workers were employed by Californian distributor Industrial Building Materials Inc, which they claim imported and installed Hardie asbestos products. Mr Kazan's firm has won a number of similar cases in the past.
AP reports that Mississippi Supreme Court Justice, George C. Carlson Jr, has ordered plaintiffs in an asbestos injury lawsuit to justify why their cases should be heard in Jones County, Mississippi. This overturns an order by Circuit Judge Billy Joe Landrum where by 115 plaintiffs would be grouped together.
Carlson said the plaintiffs must provide the defendants with information on who each plaintiff sued and why. That information should also include when the plaintiff was exposed and the work site where the exposure occurred.
Reuters reports that Aviva, an insurer, and the government wanted to stop pay-outs for pleural plaques.
Holland slashed the level of compensation to be awarded, ruling that provisional damages should be between 3,500 and 4,000 pounds rather than the previous range of 5,000 to 7,000 and final damages should be between 6,000 and 7,000 pounds compared with the previous range of 12,500 to 20,000.
An AP story describes Libby, Montana in the aftermath of the W.R. Grace indictment.
Posters promise "Door Prizes!!" and "Blood draw to participate in ongoing research!" Companies that sell home oxygen supplies will send reps. Doctors and researchers will be here. There will be consultants to help asbestosis victims apply for public aid. And there will be advice on finding help with the housework when the disease becomes too much.
But the most interesting quote in the AP story comes from Ed Baker, a former city councilman, "He'd go back to work for them today if he was alive. My dad knew in the '60s that his lungs were turning to concrete. Like he always told me, he took his chances and he could have quit at anytime. But they were good jobs."
How many people feel that way in Libby, Montana? Probably not many family members, and 1200 victims who have been identified as suffering from some kind of asbestos-related abnormality.
W.R. Grace and its executives, as far back as the 1970's, attempted to conceal information about the adverse health effects of the company's vermiculite mining operations and distribution of vermiculite in the Libby, Montana community, according to the indictment.
The defendants are also accused of obstructing the government's cleanup efforts and wire fraud.