Quoted from http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3311661

‘It was a death sentence’ — Ex-Falls resident advocate for mesothelioma awareness after husband’s death

By Alison Langley Niagara Falls Review

Posted 12 hours ago

Bud Fisher was dumbfounded.

He was at a loss for words when a doctor told him he had mesothelioma, an aggressive form of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos fibres.

As a teacher, he had spent his career working with students, not chemicals.

Surely, the doctor was wrong.

“It was like we were on an episode of House,” said his wife, Pamela, recalling their mutual disbelief at the diagnosis.

The doctor, however, was certain.

The couple, still doubting the dire diagnosis, went back in time, searching for answers.

Bud and Pamela were high school sweethearts. They were both students at Stamford Vocational Institute in Niagara Falls. They began dating in 1965 after Pamela invited the handsome young man to accompany her on a hay ride.

In 1967, Bud was a university student and had spent the summer wrapping hot pipes at a local chemical plant.

What he didn’t know at the time was that the material used to cover the pipes was asbestos.

Bud carried on with his life — all the while the asbestos was festering inside his body.

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Quoted from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/opinion/the-story-of-a-dead-sailor-his-widow-and-a-bunch-of-boneheaded-politicians.html

The Story of a Dead Sailor, His Widow and a Bunch of Boneheaded Politicians

By SERGE SCHMEMANN

Publilised: September 2, 2011

Robert Keyserlingk died in December 2009 of mesothelioma, a cancer usually caused by exposure to asbestos. Mr. Keyserlingk, a neighbor and good friend on the Canadian mountain lake where we spend our summers, had been a history professor and a wonderful gardener. Forty years earlier, he was a cadet in the Canadian Navy, in an era when the plumbing and wiring in naval vessels were routinely coated with asbestos.

In the 2 1/2 years he struggled with his disease, he and his wife, Michaela, a textile conservator, became involved in the political campaign against the continued mining of asbestos, specifically chrysotile, or white asbestos, in Canada, and its export to the third world.

This summer, to Mrs. Keyserlingk’s surprise and in a rather peculiar way, her continuing campaign was thrust into the limelight. The Conservative Party, which is currently governing Canada and has steadfastly supported asbestos mining, sent her a sharp notice demanding that she cease using the party’s logo on the modest Web site for her campaign. It threatened “further action” if she did not comply.

Mrs. Keyserlingk had put the Conservative logo on her site and on ads for it, with a red “Danger” sign and the legend, “Canada is the only Western country that exports deadly asbestos!”

The Conservative salvo at a 72-year-old widow of a man she called a “true-blue” Conservative quickly spread through blogs, newspapers and television. People from across Canada, including physicians and politicians, began sending letters of support — and checks, all of which she returned.

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Quoted from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/health-facts-and-arguments/asbestos-killed-my-father-now-my-mother-is-sick/article2112055/

Asbestos killed my father. Now my mother is sick

Heidi von Palleske

From Thursday’s Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Jul. 27, 2011 6:02PM EDT

When I was a child, I went to a Christmas party at the factory where my dad worked. There was a Santa and presents. My siblings and I went along with the other children on a tour of the factory.

I didn’t care about the machinery or how it worked. I only marvelled at the fairy dust in the air and how it seemed to sparkle when the light hit it. To me, it was magical, not something that would be a carrier of death.

Death has its own sound. It is the rattle of my mother’s lungs as she struggles for air. The purring sound she makes when the breath finally finds its way in. The rasp of her voice as she speaks.

My 79-year-old mother is dying. She’s dying just as my father did four years ago. There is no way to slow the process. No hope for a cure. There is no relief. Once mesothelioma is discovered, it is already too late.

We have only just recovered from my father’s death at 79. My daughter still cries over him. On her birthday, she releases a balloon into the air, telling her Opa how old she is and how she misses him. She used to make me bake him a cake on his birthdays and she always left him a piece by the window. The first year she cried and cried when she discovered it was uneaten.

My daughter is not good with change. She doesn’t find any comfort in the thought of death releasing her grandmother from pain. Death frightens her. She has not developed the faith in the afterlife that, thankfully, my mother has.

I cannot lie to my girl. I tell her that her grandmother is sick. That she will not be here much longer. My daughter asks, “Why?” And so I tell her about my father’s work in an asbestos factory and how he carried fibres home on his clothes and his skin and how Grandma breathed them in when she washed his overalls in the tub.

What I don’t tell her is that asbestos is an airborne substance and that, as my mother shook the clothes before she washed them, the asbestos was carried in the air throughout my childhood home. I don’t tell her that I used to run into my dad’s arms when he came home and that his embrace carried with it an element of disease.

But 11-year-olds are clever these days. Although many of my friends didn’t make the logical leap, it is only a matter of minutes before she asks, “Mom, does that mean you could get it too?”

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Quoted from http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/259312/Hidden-danger-from-asbestos-threatens-1-8m

HIDDEN DANGER FROM ASBESTOS THREATENS 1.8M

 

Mick Knighton died of mesothelioma 10 years ago aged just 60

Sunday July 17,2011

By Hilary Douglas

MORE than 1.8 million people are exposed to deadly asbestos every year, with one dying from asbestos-related cancer every four hours.

The shocking figures from the UK Health and Safety Executive reveal at least 5,000 deaths from mesothelioma a year are expected by 2015, although some experts say the figure could be far higher.

Almost every building erected before 1999 will have asbestos used in its construction, so even seemingly harmless DIY projects might have deadly consequences.

Chris Knighton, whose husband Mick died of mesothelioma 10 years ago aged just 60, now runs a research fund in his memory.

Mick came into contact with asbestos while in the Navy. “The helmet he was first issued with as a gunner and the gauntlets given to him were all made of asbestos,” explained Chris, 65, who has raised £1million for the Mick Knighton Mesothelioma Research Fund .

“When the Navy realised all the ships were riddled with asbestos, they had them refitted, but the crews helped rip out the piping and bits which were to be removed.

“They didn’t wear the proper ­protective clothing, they just got on with the job and many, many of them in effect condemned themselves to death in the process.

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