Quoted from http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/the-last-gasp/story-e6frezz0-1226361023603#

Asbestos mesothelioma: The last gasp

• by: Jennifer Sexton
• From: The Sunday Telegraph
• May 20, 2012 12:00AM

Maryanne Gatt’s (left) father John, died only four weeks after being diagnosed with an asbestos related disease and had no time to claim for compensation. Picture: Rohan Kelly Source: The Sunday Telegraph

Asbestos disease is a quick killer, snatching its victims in agony within just weeks of diagnosis. But a cruel NSW legal logjam means unless victims lodge a compensation claim in their dying days, their bereaved families are left with nothing. Jennifer Sexton reports.

When doctors told Maryanne Gatt her father had mesothelioma, she mouthed to her sister, a nurse, across his hospital bed: “What’s that?”

The diagnosis on Christmas Eve in 2010, that John Gatt had contracted the rampant cancer, came just months after a six-week holiday with his wife, Lily, through his birth country of Malta, and then Greece and Italy.

There were few signs on the trip that the cancer was spreading in a thin tissue across the internal organs of this fit 72-year-old. His appetite had waned and he felt a little tired, but had done a lot of walking.

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Quoted from http://highwire.stanford.edu/cgi/medline/pmid;22544543:

HighWire Medline Abstract

Malignant mesothelioma incidence among talc miners and millers in New York State. MM Finkelstein Am J Ind Med, April 27, 2012; .   Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Program in Occupational Health and Environmental Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. murray.finkelstein@utoronto.ca.
BACKGROUND: There is controversy about the potential for dust from the talc mines and mills of New York State to cause mesothelioma. Honda et al. published a study of mortality among New York talc workers and concluded that it was unlikely that the two deaths from mesothelioma were caused by talc ore dust. However, fibers of tremolite and anthophyllite have been found in the lungs of talc workers and Hull concluded that “New York talc exposure is associated with mesothelioma, and deserves further public health attention.” METHODS: Data concerning additional cases of mesothelioma in the cohort have been posted by NIOSH. I used information from the NIOSH website and the Honda report to analyze the incidence of mesothelioma during the years 1990-2007. RESULTS: There were at least five new cases of mesothelioma in the cohort and mesothelioma incidence rates were at least five (1.6-11.7) times the rate in the general population (P?<?0.01). CONCLUSIONS: I conclude that: (1) mesothelioma has been diagnosed among members of the cohort at a rate in excess of that in the general population; (2) fibers of tremolite and anthophyllite have been detected in dust and the lungs of talc workers; and (3) these fibers are known causes of mesothelioma. It is prudent, on the balance of probabilities, to conclude that dusts from New York State talc ores are capable of causing mesothelioma in exposed individuals.

Quoted from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-01/anger-over-asbestos-mines-deadly-legacy/3981878/

Anger over asbestos mine’s deadly legacy

By Matt Peacock

Updated May 01, 2012 09:45:17

More than 2,000 people from Wittenoom have died from asbestos diseases.

Campaigners say they are becoming increasingly angered by the rising toll of mesothelioma deaths from the site of Australia’s biggest industrial disaster.

More than two dozen people are setting out today to walk across the desert from Kalgoorlie to Perth to highlight the urgent need for more research into the deadly asbestos cancer.

Perth is one of the world’s mesothelioma hotspots, mainly because of the now-abandoned blue asbestos mine at Wittenoom in the Pilbara.

More than 2,000 former workers and residents from Wittenoom have died from asbestos diseases and the toll is climbing.

Alarmingly, it is now increasingly the children of Wittenoom who are falling ill.

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Quoted from http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/editorial/to-dishonour-bernie-bantons-legacy-would-be-criminal-20120407-1whz3.html

To dishonour Bernie Banton’s legacy would be criminal

April 8, 2012

EDITORIAL

Bernie Banton … heroically defeated James Hardie. Photo: Andrew Quilty

”I’m thrilled Bernie’s story is being told because asbestos illness is an issue that’s probably never going to be over.”

That chilling forecast was Karen Banton’s reaction to the news a telemovie would be made about her late husband’s fight to win justice for his fellow victims of asbestos disease.

Bernie Banton, who died from mesothelioma in 2007, heroically and with great dignity took on and defeated James Hardie, forcing the corporate giant to pay $4 billion compensation to employees such as Banton who were exposed to the deadly fibres. Ms Banton proudly carries on her husband’s work.

But alarming evidence has emerged that the grand legacy of Bernie Banton is in danger of being betrayed. Asbestos was banned in 2003, but now hundreds of thousands of tonnes of asbestos-contaminated waste is being dumped illegally across NSW, compounding an already massive health problem.

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Quoted from http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2012/04/i-heart-asbestos/

I Heart Asbestos

Why does the town of Asbestos, Quebec want to reopen a mine that’s been giving its residents cancer for a hundred years?

Rebecca Katzman

Laurent Bastien Corbeil
Published on April 2, 2012

In 1949, the town of Asbestos, Quebec was rocked by one of the fiercest labour disputes in the province’s history. Nearly 2000 workers at the Jeffrey Mine – which produced chrysotile, the most common form of asbestos – went on strike to demand higher wages and better working conditions from the Johns Manville Corporation. At the time, “asbestos dust was as omnipresent in the air as the air itself” as the journalists John Grey and Stephanie Nolen put it in the Globe and Mail.    

From the beginning of the strike, the notoriously corrupt government of Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis, the hierarchy of the Catholic church, and the asbestos industry colluded to break the picketing trade union. Violence was widespread – miners blew up a company-owned railroad track with dynamite, and dozens of strikers were severely beaten by police. After four months of bitter conflict, the union caved.

Although the workers lost their fight, they became folk heroes in the process….

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Quoted from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/03/20/asbestos-brake-ban-proposal-ontario.html

Asbestos brake pad ban proposed

By Sarah Bridge, CBC News

Posted: Mar 20, 2012 9:03 PM ET

Last Updated: Mar 21, 2012 11:04 AM ET

Asbestos brake pads that can release deadly fibres during repairs will soon be banned in Ontario, if one member of the provincial parliament has her way.

Guelph MPP Liz Sandals plans to table a bill this week that, if passed, would be the first in Canada to block imports of asbestos brake pads from entering the Canadian market.

Most mechanics contacted by CBC News believed that asbestos was already banned from brake pads years ago. But figures from Statistics Canada show that more than $2.6 million worth of asbestos brake pads entered the country in 2011.

The federal government doesn’t require Canadian border agents to verify whether companies are properly labelling these imports as containing asbestos.

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Quoted from http://johncherrie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/mesothelioma-amongst-former-australian.html

Mesothelioma amongst former Australian asbestos workers

The results from an analysis of malignant mesothelioma deaths amongst former crocidolite workers from Western Australia are published by Geoffrey Berry and colleagues [1]. Over 300 people have already died from mesothelioma and the authors expect a further 60 or 70 to die from this disease by 2020.

Crocidolite (blue asbestos) was mined from 1937 to 1966at Wittenoom, Western Australia. In total about 7,000 people worked at the mine and mill. They were predominantly young, single and male – many were immigrants from Italy. About three quarters of the workers stayed for less than a year, and only 5% worked for more than 5-years.

The number of deaths increased with time since first exposure for the first 35 to 40 years and then declined.

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