Source: CVax Magazine: Cancer Vaccines

CVax Magazine: Cancer Vaccines is a website dedicated to educating the public on the use of vaccines in the treatment of cancer. Vaccine-based cancer treatment will take one of two forms: the develpoment of a vaccine to prevent the development of cancer, such as Gardisil, which protects against most causes of cervical cancer, and the development of a vaccine to treat patients who've previously developed a cancer. This modality will be used much more often than a fully preventative one.

CVax magazine discusses both of these treatment options in details and provides all of the background needed to understand the use of vaccines for cancer treatment.

Labels: mesothelioma

Source: ABC SouthWest

Researches from the University of Western Australia are beginning a study that will examine the impact of asbestos exposure on women. This is the first study to focus exclusively on women and could illuminate previously unknown patterns of malignancy, such as the relationship between ovarian cancer and asbestos exposure.

Labels: asbestos

Source: 7 Eyewitness News

In honor of Motorcycle Saftey Awareness Month, some saftey tips for both motorcycle riders and other drivers and motorists.

Five "Rules of the Road" for motorcyclists:

1. Get Trained and Licensed
2. Wear Protective Gear
3. Ride Unimpaired
4. Ride Within Your Limits
5. Be a Lifelong Learner

Tips for other drivers and motorists:

1. Look Out for Motorcyclists
2. Don't Be Distracted
3. Give Two-Wheelers Some Room
4. Use Your Turn Signals
5. Keep it in the Car
   
   
   

Labels: motorcycles

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is convening a review board that will draft a risk assessment for asbestos fibers and certain environmental groups have protested the inclusion of certain individuals on the EPA's "short list" of those who may be invited to the panel. Some of the people on the list have financial ties to industry groups or individual organizations that could be affected by the conclusions that the board may come up with, so these environmental groups, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, have lodged formal complaints about these candidates. The groups feel that no panel member should have a financial stake in a group or business whose product may fall under the domain of the panel's research. However, a member of the EPA's science advisory board has said that the board will not have a policy or regulatory role and its conclusions will only be used as advice in the development of any regulation.

Labels: asbestos

Source: Wall Street Journal

Raising money for research has always been a fundamental problem in the development of new treatments for any medical condition, whether cancer or AIDS or anything else. With budgets tight and staffing often thin, many researchers scramble to find whatever funding they can. However, this is not the only problem in the development of new treatments.

What does one do if money is available, but no one wants it?

This is exactly the problem that Jeffrey and Marnie Kaufman ran into in 2004 when Marnie was diagnosed with the rare cancer adenoid cystic carcinoma. After her diagnosis, she and her husband met with David Sidranksy, director of head-and-neck-cancer research at John Hopkins University, and he explained to them that many researchers are fearful of starting work rare cancers becuase they may lose funding support in the future. With budgets tight at the publicly-funded cancer centers and grant-giving organizations, certain research just isn't getting done.

With this in mind, the Kaufmans decided to try to and sponsor the research themselves. They quickly raised $700,000 and then hired a panel of experts who worked with them in developing project types they wanted to complete, after which, the Kaufmans themselves went out and hired the reserachers they wanted to work with. Because they were spearheading the project themselves, the process took noticeably quicker to begin – Jeffrey and Marnie contacted the researches, organized the teleconferences and established the scope and guidelines in a fraction of the time that it normally takes to begin a cancer research project.

The Kaufmans are not the only ones who are taking medical research into their own hands. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is doing something very similar. Instead of allocating most of its research funds into projects and ideas that began with other groups or organizations or individuals, they – like the Kaufmans – are identifying the research they want completed and approaching pharmaceutical companies and other organizations to do it.

Labels: mesothelioma

Source: New York Times.

The development of increasingly successful cancer treatments ranks among the most important of the great medical breakthroughs over the last five or ten years. As more and more patients are surviving cancer though, many of these people are also suffering from the significant side effects of these life-saving treatments - side effects that weren't noticed or were simply ignored in previous generations of cancer treatment when saving a patient's life was the only goal in mind. Now that there are over ten million cancer survivors in America, up from the three million in the 1970s, doctors are beginning to treat cancer as any other long-term chronic disease where the actual medical treatment is only one part of a patient's future prognosis. As quality of life issues have become more important aspects of a patient's life, a new medical specialty, known as survivorship, has emerged. The Lance Armstrong Foundation, named after the American cyclist who has successfully battled multiple forms of cancer in his life, is financing many of these life after cancer programs at major hospitals around the country.

Mary S. McCabe, director of the survivorship program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, says, "It's no longer sufficient to say, 'Well, you survived'...We need to maximize their recovery and quality of life."

Labels: mesothelioma

Source: CCH Internet Research NetWork

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has fined Parkway Village Equities Corp, located in Queens, NY, $117,000 for allegedly violating nine separate health and safety standards relating to employee protection for asbestos exposure. OSHA began an inspection of the facility on November 1st, 2006 after receiving a complaint regarding worker safety conditions. They found that Parkway employees who were regularly required to work in tight spaces with known or likely asbestos contamination were not furnished with the appropriate protective gear. The results of this investigation are the basis for the current set of citations.

OSHA has fined Parkway for four "willful citations" of health and safety standards, which carry $112,000 in fines, and for five "serious citations", which added an additional $5000 in fines.

The four willful citations were:

• Parkway did not monitor the employees' exposure levels;
• they did not inform employees of the presence, location and quantities of asbestos;
• they did not institute a training program; and,
• they did not label asbestos-containing material.

The five serious citations were:

• Parkway did not provide appropriate hand, face and eye protection;
• there were respirator safety deficiencies;
• there was a lack of quick-drenching eyewashes;
• there was no hazard communication program; and
• Parkway did not properly label and dispose of asbestos-contaminated material.

Labels: asbestos

Source: Alfacell Corporation

Dr. Michele Carbone, one of the world's leading mesothelioma researchers, has discovered that Alfacell Corporation's ONCONASE has great potential as a chemopreventative agent for mesothelioma. ONCONASE triggers apoptosis, the natural death of cells, in cancer cells and has been shown to block the pathway that causes asbestos carcinogenesis. Dr. Carbone's initial research has shown that ONCONASE may be used as a chemopreventative agent for people who are at-risk for developing mesothelioma or it could be used to reduce the doses of cytotoxic agents in those who've already developed the disease. Dr. Carbone hopes to start clinical trials on this topic soon.

"The potential of ONCONASE as an early first-line preventative treatment for mesothelioma is an exciting development that we plan to investigate through clinical trials," said Dr. Carbone. "With approximately more than 25 million asbestos exposure cases reported worldwide, we believe that ONCONASE might play a greater role in the treatment protocols for a much larger population than was originally envisioned for this dismal disease."

Labels: asbestos, mesothelioma

Source: InsuranceNewsNet

The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) has released its latest report on the patient profile of asbestos victims. Contrary to what many people's view are on asbestos exposure, ADAO reported that the average victim is aged 50, which is younger than what has been previously been reported, is a woman, also contrary to the expectation of men as the primary victim class, and, perhaps most disconcerting, that nearly forty percent had exposure that was environmentally-based and not work-related. Dr. Robert Taub, Milstein Professor of Clinical Medicine and Director of the Columbia University Mesothelioma Center in New York City, reported that the average age of peritoneal mesothelioma patients at his clinic is 51.7 and that less than fifty percent had immediately recognizable asbestos exposure.

These results from ADAO show that the patient profile for asbestos-related disease is changing. They note that in 1986 the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported that the median age was nearly 70 and another study estimated that eighty percent of patients were men. According to ADAO, studies estimate that as many as 100,000 victims in the United States alone will die of an asbestos-related disease over the next ten years.

Labels: asbestos, mesothelioma

Source: National Underwriter

In a ruling made public on Wednesday, May 9th, 2007, The New York Supreme Court held that aggregate limits in insurance policies do not apply to all possible claims arising during business operations. The ruling, which upheld the claims against CNA of thousands of individuals seeking coverage for asbestos-related personal injuries, is considered to have broken legal ground by establishing that operational claims are not subject to the aggregate limits clauses regarding a products hazard. August J. Matteis Jr., lead trial counsel for the claimants, argued that "their claims were not barred by the aggregate limits in the policies because claims that arise out of exposure to asbestos during the installation process are considered 'operations' claims—therefore not subject to aggregate limits."

The ruling is considered a victory for policyholders as it expands the domain of coverage that insurers are responsible for fulfilling.

Labels: asbestos

Source: CancerMonthly.com

In an interview with CancerMonthly.com, Dr. David Sugarbaker, a thoracic surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA, stated that the goal of every surgery for pleural mesothelioma should be a macroscopic complete resection (MCR), where all tumor tissue visible to the human eye is removed. According to Dr. Sugarbaker, if all of the visible tumor tissue can be removed, post-surgical drug treatment will have less tumor cells to eradicate, which should increase the likelihood of longer survival times.

Because mesothelioma can attack the pleural areas in multiple ways, different surgical techniques will be required for different malignancy types. If the tumors are limited to the surface of the lung then a pleurectomy, which is the surgical removal of tumors confined to the surface of the lung, can often achieve MCR. For those patients with a more invasive malignancy, where tumors have grown into the fissures of the lungs and other areas, an extrapleural pneumonectomy, where the affected lung, the covering of the heart, and the diaphragm are removed, may be required.

In all cases, Dr. Sugarbaker maintained, the needs of the mesothelioma patient — and not the services offered by the surgeon — should dictate the surgical methods utilized.

Labels: mesothelioma

Belluck & Fox Partner Joseph W. Belluck has been appointed to another term of the Binghamton University Harpur Law Council Steering Committee. The Law Council provides legal programs and services to Binghamton University alumni and pre-law students.

Mr. Belluck is a 1989 graduate of Binghamton University.

Labels: Firm

Source: World Health Organization

The World Health Organization is calling on governments to enact meaningful reform to workplace safety laws and to increase the measures used to protect workers from work-related injury or death. At least 200,000 people die every year from work-caused cancers and millions more are regularly exposed to carcinogenic agents that can dramatically shorten their life expectancy. Mesothelioma, lung cancer and leukemia are just three examples of work-related cancers that can be prevented with the passage and enforcement of meaningful reform.

Specific WHO recommendations include:

• Stop the use of asbestos;
• Introduce benzene-free organic solvents and technologies that convert the carcinogenic chromium into a non-carcinogenic form;
• Ban tobacco use at the workplace; and
• Provide protective clothes for people working in the sun.

The majority of workplace-related deaths currently occur in the developed world, but developing nations represent a new horizon of workplace health epidemics. The WHO's policy recommendations are made to governments in both the developed and the developing world in order to protect workers everywhere.

Labels: asbestos, LungCancer, mesothelioma

Source: CancerMonthly.Com

Research into the treatment of mesothelioma is taking place on many fronts. While the typical treatment regimen is still a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, new avenues of therapy are being researched and many hold great promise for the future. Some of these cutting-edge therapies target the molecular pathways by which the disease grows and spreads itself throughout the body. Therapies based on anti-angiogenesis drugs target the signaling pathways involved with the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein or the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) protein and attempt to disrupt the processes by which tumors develop. Other signaling pathways being studied for the treatment of mesothelioma include the Wnt pathway, which is thought to play an important role in activating mesothelioma stem cells, as well as the P53, pRB, BCL-2 pathways. Along with the development of targeted anti-cancer agents, work in genomics also promises to revolutionize cancer treatment. By looking at how the body works at its most basic level, scientists hope to develop therapies based on the interaction of drug agents with an individual's genetics.

Labels: mesothelioma

Source: New York Times

Research into the cognitive functions of people who've undergone high-dose chemotherapy has shown that a small number of survivors show some long-term neurological effects from the treatment. The phenomena, now known as "chemo brain", had been anecdotally noted by a number of patients but oncologists were historically dismissive of claims regarding long-term neurological effects of the chemo. However, recent research on this subject estimates that as many as fifteen percent of patients, many of them women, do show symptoms of chemo brain. The cognitive effects are rarely life-threatening, but they do impact the daily lives of these survivors and often take the form of short-term memory loss, proneness to confusion and an inability, or at least a slower ability, to choose among a set of dichotomous options.

The majority of patients who've undergone chemotherapy do show limited, short-term signs of neurological impairment, such as memory loss and poor concentration, but most get over these effects and return to one hundred percent cognitive ability within a few months. It is not yet understood why survivors with chemo brain do not regain full neurological ability and the answer to this question is still years away. However, the identification of chemo brain as a real condition has been an important development in the lives of all survivors, as it has provided some legitimacy to the effects that each struggles with in the wake of their chemotherapy.

Labels: cancer, general