July 22, 2004 -- Asbestos-related deaths have increased fourfold in the past three decades, according to a new CDC report. There are no early symptoms of asbestosis or other lung diseases, known medically as pneumoconiosis. But in advanced stages, they can cause disability and premature death since there is no effective treatment.

The CDC report -- which documents cases from 1968 to 2000 -- shows an overall decrease in coal miner's and other lung diseases during that time, except for asbestosis. Between 1982 and 2000, death rates from coal workers' lung disease dropped by 36% -- likely due to a decline in the coal mining industry -- and death rates from silicosis and other pneumoconiosis diseases dropped by 70%.

However, death rates from asbestos exposure increased steadily during that period:

Blacks had a 448% increase; whites had a 342% increase.
Most deaths were among people over age 45.
The coastal states -- where asbestos was frequently used in shipbuilding -- had the greatest increases.

Women's lung disease-related death rates were substantially lower than men's, but asbestos-related deaths were still high. "Because asbestosis [death] peaks 40-45 years after initial exposure to asbestos, this upward trend reflects past exposure to asbestos fibers," states the report.

Asbestos was a popular construction material during and after World War II, but use was halted in the late 1980s when the health risks became obvious. Nevertheless, asbestos can be found in some buildings today and is a potential risk, the report states.

In addition to pneumoconiosis, asbestos has been linked to mesothelioma, a difficult-to-treat lung cancer. Symptoms don't usually appear until the cancer is very advanced, and most patients survive only nine to 13 months after diagnosis. But new treatments have recently been approved for mesothelioma and may help prolong survival in these patients.

Lawyers suggest varied ways to handle asbestos cases

Saturday, July 10, 2004
WEST PALM BEACH -- The customized court system that attracts thousands of asbestos lawsuits to Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties is working just fine, lawyers told Palm Beach County Circuit Court judges Friday.

Or it's unfair, irreparably broken and needs to be scrapped. Or it's basically sound, but needs serious tweaking. Chief Judge Edward Fine took notes as a dozen lawyers argued for and against doing away with the court's asbestos division and spreading its 1,500 cases among all judges.

Judge Timothy McCarthy, who presides over all the asbestos cases now, scheduled the hearing after a contentious two-week trial of an Alabama claim that had no connection to Palm Beach County.

After all had their say, McCarthy gave them five days to file written arguments. During the past month, he has dismissed four lawsuits and threatened to dismiss or transfer dozens of others, saying taxpayers shouldn't bear the costs of processing and trying cases if no one involved lives or does business in Palm Beach County and the alleged exposure to asbestos didn't happen here.

Lawyers recruit plaintiffs in other counties and states, but file suit in the three South Florida counties because each has a separate asbestos division and a set of rules, called an omnibus order, for processing the claims.

Plaintiff lawyers like the system because it lets them schedule hundreds of cases for trial at once, which pressures defendant companies to offer settlements to avoid the costs of a trial. Defense lawyers dislike it for the same reason, but most said it needs to be fixed, not scrapped.

"It provides predictability in scheduling," said Gail Silver of West Palm Beach, who represents Steel Grip Inc., a company that manufactured asbestos-containing gloves. "Defense costs would skyrocket if we have to go before 15 different judges."

Susan Cole of Miami, attorney for a dozen corporate defendants, said breaking up the asbestos docket would be worse for the entire court system, as well as the lawyers and litigants. "We travel in packs," Cole said. If asbestos cases were on every judge's docket, she said, "we would be here four days a week, crowding out everybody else."

Attorneys said the system worked fairly well when claims were fewer and represented people who clearly had asbestos-related cancers and lung damage. Some said it has broken down in recent years under thousands of lawsuits by people who have no symptoms and are simply staking out a claim in case they do get sick, or before more defendant companies run out of money.

More than 70 have declared bankruptcy because of asbestos claims, 99 percent of which end in settlements. Suggestions offered Friday to fix the system included:

• Placing claims of people who don't have symptoms -- the "unimpaired" -- on an inactive docket until they show enough signs of illness to qualify as an active case.

• Requiring plaintiffs' lawyers to declare at least 90 days in advance which cases they intend to be tried and to state specifically where the alleged exposure to asbestos occurred and where the plaintiff was treated.

• Dismissing or transferring cases that have no connection to Palm Beach County.

A time for the ready reckoners

Our friend Sisyphus said he knew an old salt who knew an old harbour pilot who could take a vessel up the Derwent in a pea soup fog and drop the hook in the exact place he desired.

All by dead reckoning.

That was in the good old days when the crew chipped rust and often each other and the bosun would likely lay on the rope's end, despite your reckoning he shouldn't be allowed to get anywhere near the end of his tether.

You reckon right that dead reckoning is the science and near-art of moving to a chosen position by using the equation of course, speed, time and distance to be travelled. Or simply: where you'll be and when you will if you go for this long and this fast along this line.

John Schaeffer, the beleaguered founder of the cleaning and security group Tempo Services, lost his chosen position this week when he came to his own reckoning.

Schaeffer has left a trail of jetsam in the form of his beloved art collection and household paraphernalia and prestige real estate, all put on the block as he struggled with crippling personal debt. Now he has stood down from the helm at Tempo, replaced by a former chief financial officer.

Craig Higgins is out to clean up the company's act, vowing to ensure the accounts are correct and transparent. The change of command comes a month after Tempo's auditors forced a restatement of half-year net profit from $1.74 million to just $42,000.

Schaeffer, with a 29 per cent stake in the company, keeps the gig as executive chairman, but is likely to play a less hands-on role.

No more at Moore Park

You remember the fate-tempting confidence that edged on boasting after the meeting of minds and money when Rupert Morlock's News Corp and property developer Lend Lease linked at the old Moore Park showground for the entertainment and retail appendage to Fox's working film studios.

The Bent St retail precinct, original Backlot entertainment area and some office space went into the books at $450 million.

On Wednesday, years after the Backlot had been opened up as an act of encouragement, and despite much effort in talking up the project, Colonial First State's wholesale property arm and its associate, CFS Gandel Retail Trust, bought Morlock out for a touch under $53 million.

The Austerican's global group this week also reported a lesser loss - about $10 million - from its recent $185 million sale of a 40 per cent stake in the Staples Centre, a sports and entertainment complex in Los Angeles.

While caught up in the impending transfer of News Corp's seat of power from Adelaide to Delaware, the mogul's mastery of rapprochement stayed intact.

Ever with an eye cocked to the lucrative markets of People's Republic, News Corp has appointed to its board John Thornton - the professor of global leadership at the elite Tsinghua University of Beijing since 2003, and the former head of global investment bank Goldman Sachs.

The 50-year-old Thornton recently joined an international advisory council formed by China's securities regulator to help bring the nation's sharemarkets into line with global practices.

While News Corp was taking its knocks here and in the US, the paint-maker Wattyl decided it was time to give its North American misadventure the brush.

After 17 years of trying to crack the market, and goaded by the prospect of looming full-year losses, Wattyl sold its remaining US assets. The Lenmar and Coronado group went to an unnamed competitor for less than half of what Wattyl paid in the mid-1990s.

By anybody's reckoning, the company has suffered a straight-sets loss in its bid to find its position in the world, selling the last of the Asia businesses a couple of years ago. Now there is the spectre of the slowing housing market having an impact on Australian and New Zealand operations.

What'll they think of next?

Clearing the pipes

Somebody - but not us - is bound to say that Crane Group is presently plumbing the depths as it seeks to restructure its underperforming businesses.

The $51.4 million cost of renovations and write-downs will hit the full-year results. Some 400 jobs have gone since January and there has been a $28.8 million pre-tax write-down in the carrying value of the JD Edwards technology system.

In the metals division, 80 workers will go. According to AAP, analysts expect scrap metal recycler Sims Group in turn to be hit by a $4-5 million writedown because of its stake in this business.

Crane's Tradelink plumbing supplies business - with its pre-tax profit-to-sales margins of 3.7 per cent, not much more than a third of the 9.4 per cent figure of its main competitor - will see 200 jobs lost and the closure of 13 underperforming branches in the 230-store chain.

Meanwhile, you'd expect the Britisher they call the Plumber to know what an IO is, or how to use the red or blue pipe glue, seeing as he runs a company claiming to lead the world in pipe-fitting technology.

We've knocked this off from London's Daily Telegraph which says Paul "the Plumber" Davidson is feeling pretty pleased following the resignation of the remaining three members on the tribunal assessing the investigation by the Financial Services Authority - Britain's equivalent of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission - into a controversial spread bet.

The quitters were fearful of being accused of "bias".

Davidson even seems to have a handle on what the members of the noble plumbing profession charge for their time.

The Tele says when raising money for his company, he arrived at a presentation and started laying out the company's products on the table.

As he did, it became apparent he was wearing a very expensive watch.

"I have a rule," said one observant banker. "I never invest in a company where the chief executive wears a £10,000 ($26,000) watch."

"It didn't cost £10,000," the Plumber retorted, "It was £30,000."

A dead certainty

There is a darker side to time with a cost far higher.

Such as the decades since 1980 when an estimated 33,000 people died from diseases related to asbestos. And the time to come until 2020 when another 18,000 are expected to follow, a dismal reckoning of the dead and those too soon to be.

This week, James Hardie Industries for the first time admitted that it might be hit with high legal costs through lawsuits following a special commission of inquiry into the charitable trust set up in 2001. The trust was to handle claims over the diseases wrought by the fatal fibres - such as abestosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer.

The shadow of the shortfall in funds hung over the inquiry, with estimates of claims running up to $1.6 billion and under $300 million in reserves.

The drama being played out at the hearing is a local echo of that in other rooms around the world.

Britain's reinsurance group Equitas just a few weeks ago added $780 million to plump up its asbestos reserves to $7.4 billion. Equitas itself was the vehicle chosen to assume the liabilities which had at one time threatened to overwhelm Lloyd's of London. The latest replenishment is the fourth in the past five years as claims rise.

Perhaps as a final note, you'll recall that the budding member for Kingsford Smith, one Peter Garrett, in an earlier life as a rock star sang about the tragic asbestos-mining town of Wittenoom in the 1990 hit Blue Sky Mine.

More than 1000 men, women and children who lived in that Pilbara town during the mining boom have died from asbestos-related diseases.

The discoverer of that prospect - later sold to CSR, and then bought back by him - was the iron ore magnate Lang Hancock. His thoughts on the diseases?

"Some people have to suffer so that the majority can benefit from asbestos."

Asbestos victims fund has lawyers in a lather

By Michael West
July 03, 2004
THE crisis engulfing James Hardie looms as a greater catastrophe for corporate Australia than the $5.5 billion collapse of insurer HIH.

HIH was about power and money. James Hardie is that and more. People are dying, and the reputation of corporate Australia and the lawyers and other professionals who validate the system is at stake. If a mixture of greed and oversight led to the demise of HIH, a darker explanation lies at the heart of James Hardie's predicament with the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation.

While victims of James Hardie's asbestos products succumb to the most agonising of deaths - as the cancer mesothelioma crushes their lungs, invades their nerve endings, creeps through their bodies and slowly suffocates them - the cream of Australia's lawyers, accountants and other "independent experts" have their reputations on the line - Allens Arthur Robinson, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Trowbridge Deloitte, Access Economics, Phillips Fox, to name just a few. The issue of independence and the integrity of leading company directors are under scrutiny.

From this point forward, every time a corporate lawyer, actuary or accountant signs off on their "independent" advice for a large fee, they will think of James Hardie. Yesterday, as Hardie's stock price continued to founder and its corporate credibility turned to ever-finer particles of dust, it was sticking to its forlorn claim that "nothing has changed".

Nonsense. Everything has changed for this blue-chip building products company in recent months, whatever its executives, PR people and lawyers are still brazen enough to contend. A NSW government special commission of inquiry into the MRCF concluded its hearings this week after two months of remarkable evidence and now awaits a report from commissioner David Jackson, which is due in August.

On Wednesday, counsel for the commission John Sheahan handed down his issues paper. It contained damning allegations. James Hardie and its executives, he suggested, should be further investigated as to whether they deliberately devised a scheme to protect Hardie from asbestos victims claims. Exactly what Hardie so stridently denies.

Further, a host of Hardie's top managers, directors and lawyers are to be investigated over possible breaches of a slather of corporate laws and for deceptive and misleading conduct. What Sheahan left out of his report was more telling. The words "this part is the subject of the commissioner's non-publication order of..." pops up again and again. The commission is clearly loath to open up via Sheahan's report, yet grave recommendations and charges may well be in the pipeline.

How did it get to this? Although the dangers of asbestos were known as far back as the 1930s, Hardie continued to manufacture asbestos products until the mid-'80s. While rival manufacturer CSR capitulated to legal and public pressure in the '90s and opted to meet victims' claims as they arose, Hardie pursued a different route.

In early 2001, it hived off its asbestos liabilities into a foundation, the MRCF. Hardie funded the MRCF with $293 million.

However, in the past three years these asbestos liabilities ballooned by more than $1 billion, leaving the MRCF with a funding shortfall of $800 million.

Meanwhile, James Hardie and its lawyers Allens, through a bewilderingly complex series of corporate transactions, shifted the Hardie head office to the Netherlands and then claimed the company had no lingering exposure to the problem. It bamboozled the media and the stock market in the process.

Hardie's stock price rallied towards $8 a couple of months ago as its executives, PRs and investors relations people pushed the story hard that Hardie was legally watertight, immune to any claims that might pierce the corporate veil.

The relationship between James Hardie and Allens goes back 100 years. Many a corporate lawyer has exchanged employment between the two. The two principal Hardie executives involved in Project Green - to separate Hardie from asbestos - were ex-Allens: Peter Shafron and Peter Cameron.

Allens partners David Robb and Roy Williams were also intimately involved.

The inquiry heard that when the plan was hatched to build an unbridgeable gap between the riches of the Hardie empire and its asbestos cancer victims, Allens was central to the task. Another leading firm, Phillips Fox, and its partner Michael Gill, were also engaged.

But who was Allens' client? There were at least three of them - James Hardie & Coy (now known as Amaca), James Hardie Industries Ltd (now known as ABN60) and a new entity, James Hardie Industries NV.

The latter is now the principal company, its head office based in the Netherlands, purportedly for tax reasons.

One of these companies, however, was more of a client than the others. The plan, exposed in the commission of inquiry, was to strip the assets of the main operating company, Amaca, and put them in the holding company, ABN60, then to strip ABN60 and put the assets into another company set up in the Netherlands to receive the funds.

Why the Netherlands? Tax. To pay less tax in Australia, is the official line from Hardie. Another reason given was to align more closely the group's business activities with the locus of its principal shareholding.

At the time of the transfer of assets to the Netherlands, there was no tax advantage accruing. Moreover, the move caused local shareholders to incur a "capital gains tax event". Any pre-CGT stock lost its tax-free status effective October 19, 2001.

For all the damage Hardie's asbestos products will have inflicted on the Australian economy, let alone the human misery, the company pays relatively little tax to the Australian Government. As for the argument of alignment of markets, Hardie's real growth market is in the US, where management has been very successful in expanding in its asbestos replacement product, fibre cement (still, 90 per cent of shareholders are Australian). Sales growth in the Netherlands is a poor joke. A filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission tells the story. To paraphrase, the Netherlands is considered to have laws making the return of assets to a transferee company especially difficult.

Coincidentally, neither is there any civil law treaty in force between Australia and the Netherlands.

After Amaca had been stripped and separated from the Hardie group in 2001, the process was repeated with ABN60's assets being stripped and placed in a Netherlands company, JHINV. A key strategic element of the plan was to ensure that the Amaca separation happened before JHINV became the holding company. That way, even if future victims dropped like flies, nothing could be pinned on JHINV. The deal required that the traditional Hardie companies, which had amassed the wealth of the group over 100 years, be gouged of most of their assets.

Proper and independent legal representation might have protected these companies and left them in a position to meet their present and future creditors. As the commission heard in evidence, their directors (according to Hardie) failed to ask the right questions about funding and asbestos claims estimates. The MRCF, into which Amaca was tipped, failed to ask the right questions, Hardie maintains.

The plan was concocted in the '90s. It was first known as Project Chelsea, later as Project Green. During the '90s, steps were taken to reduce the capital base of the main operating company, Amaca, by means of management fees and special dividends to the holding company. In order to permit this to occur, a major restructuring (played right down to the press and the public) was undertaken. This involved the sale of trade mark and intellectual property rights of Amaca. Hundreds of millions of dollars were drained from the balance sheet.

The next step, which required the co-operation of Allens and other advisers, was the separation of Amaca from the Hardie group in 2001. This saw the devolution of the main operating company of Hardie into a trust which was promoted by Hardie as a beneficent trust whose intention was to deal compassionately with asbestos victims. We now know that the trust was underfunded.

To effect its plan, Hardie needed a plausible basis for funding. It sought the services of top-rated actuarial firm Trowbridge. The Trowbridge report contained several unsustainable assumptions.

For instance, it assumed the average cost to Hardie of a mesothelioma suit was $135,000. Hardie's own records showed the figure to be $255,000 at the time. It assumed Hardie would never have more than 20 per cent of asbestos claims in Australia, although for years it had shared roughly 50 per cent of the claims. It assumed that after another 20 years, people would magically stop getting mesothelioma, although it knew that even in 2001, people were still getting exposed to Hardie asbestos, and the latency period sometimes lasts up to 50 years.

Hardie got the result it wanted from Trowbridge. A blind eye was still turned, even though Allens partner Roy Williams wrote to Hardie setting out the defects in detail. In early 2001, Hardie sought to attach a claim to legal privilege to the Trowbridge report. Allens co-operated. Then Hardie brought aboard a group of "clean-skin" directors to the trust, using the Trowbridge report as evidence that the trust could manage all future claims.

When told by Hardie that the incoming directors would be denied access to Trowbridge for "tactical reasons and control", Allens co-operated. The commission heard that Robb made presentations to the incoming Amaca directors on February 13, 2001, allegedly knowing the directors were not in the picture on liabilities, knowing that Amaca did not have proper and independent legal representation.

Allens drafted all relevant documents for the transaction, including a deed of covenant and indemnity to be executed by Amaca in favour of ABN60. It provided for Amaca to indemnify ABN60 from any asbestos liability. At the eleventh hour, the deed was widened to preclude Amaca from seeking recovery of any of the dividends and management fees that Hardie had stripped.

By this time Allens knew that its client Amaca had no officer who knew of the asset-strips or was in any position to assess them or the prudence of executing the deed of company indemnity. According to evidence before the commission, Allens knew that nobody else was advising Amaca and it knew that the lawyer appointed to represent the personal interests of the directors had no knowledge of the transactions.

Had Amaca had proper independent representation and its directors the requisite information to see to creditors' interests, things might have been different.

The result was that asbestos victims were deprived of their legitimate entitlements to compensation while Hardie executives amassed tens of millions of dollars through their stock and options and bonus packages. Their lawyers reaped high fees.

But it wasn't over yet. The goring of Amaca was to be followed by the stripping of ABN60 two years later - its assets bound for JHINV.

JHINV had been issued shares in exchange for the assets that had been stripped from ABN60 and sent to the Netherlands company. Those shares were partly paid. The balance owing on the shares was a debt owed by JHINV to ABN60. If called on, they were worth $1.9billion.

Hardie, again represented by Allens, came before Justice Kim Santow of the Supreme Court of NSW in October 2001. The existence of the partly paid shares was pivotal to the court giving approval for the transfer of ANB60s assets to JHINV. Counsel was instructed to assure the court that the shares would protect the solvency of ABN60 and its ability to meet the legitimate claims of asbestos victims.

Eighteen months later, the same law firm which proffered the assurance to the judge was accused in the commission of assisting in the stripping of the $1.9 billion entitlement of ABN60 for a song. The court was not alerted.

As commissioner Jackson works on his final report, James Hardie executives, directors, lawyers and other advisers will pore over their professional indemnity insurance policies and consider their defences for prospective legal action, which most observers now believe is only a matter of time.

Meanwhile, the cancer victims of asbestos and their families can only hope that decisive action is taken by government to ensure that their common law entitlements to compensation are preserved.

Big Compensation Payout Too Late

July 5th, 2004
Stewart Beckworth, a man who worked on the Morning Peninsula in Victoria, Australia for 40 years, has been diagnosed with Mesothelioma, an asbestos related lung cancer.

As a builder, Mr. Beckworth was exposed to asbestos because all of his construction projects had asbestos cement sheeting. This was till the 1970s. Due to this fact, he has sued the James Hardie Company and won a huge payout in compensation. "I'm angry this happened to me," Mr Beckworth said. "But I'm also angry what it has done to my family."

"I had no idea this dust was deadly" he quotes. Mr. Beckworth was diagnosed with Mesothelioma in January and has been told he has six to twelve months to live.

"I thought what am I going to do. I've got kids crying, I've got my wife crying, I'm a bit upset myself." His solicitor, Peter Gordon who is a partner at Slater and Gordon, said his case was sad, but not unusual. He expects more builders will develop Mesothelioma, but a danger also poses to home renovators.

"Stewart is one of a generation of Australians who have been exposed this way by Hardies but it could be any one of us in the future," Mr. Peter quotes.

Asbestos Found at Zion Park, Chicago

Asbestos-tainted debris has been found in two areas of the Illinois Beach State Park but the state officials confirm the material will be removed by July 2nd, and will not force any beaches to close during the long busy July 4th weekend.

An environmental group however warns that atleast some of the 18 pieces that have been found appear to contain a different type of asbestos that is more dangerous than material previously found in the park near Zion.

Paul Kakuris, president of the Illinois Dunesland Preservation Society quotes "This type of asbestos appears to be more "friable'' -- meaning it readily crumbles into tiny fragments, making it more easily moved or inhaled."

Asbestos-tainted debris has been showing up in the park which is 50 miles north of Chicago, since the 1990s. Authorities say 1 million tons of asbestos has been sealed at the industrial site as part of a federally mandated cleanup.

Asbestos Dust Delays Moving in of Tenants, Norwich City

July 1st, 2004
Homeless families in Norwich City, UK are being delayed from moving into the council's empty homes due to asbestos.

Many council houses are being emptied but new tenants cannot move in right away because of the deadly asbestos dust that contractors are consistently finding.

Council officers have provided two reasons as to why the delay is occuring. "Two things have been problematic and affected void times during the year, these are allocating the homes fast enough and dealing with asbestos where it is found."

The inhalation of Asbestos causes Mesothelioma which can take upto 50 years to develop. Thousands of people have been exposed to Asbestos in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Restrictions on the use of Asbestos were placed in UK in 1983.

The removal of asbestos from the council buildings is not only taking time but costing a lot of money due to the deadly risks associated with asbestos. Learn more about Asbestos.

Some of the people who have died from Asbestos related diseases in Norwich City are employees of the Caley and Mackintosh chocolate factory and Heatrae Sadia (a heating engineer firm).

Man pleads to asbestos charge

07/01/2004
ALBANY - Arthur Hilton, a 64-year-old Castleton man who owns the Hilton Industrial Park in Rensselaer, on Wednesday pleaded guilty to federal charges leveled after he was accused of conspiring to improperly dispose of asbestos, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The federal indictment charged that Hilton violated the Clean Air Act and Superfund Law by knowingly hiring workers to illegally remove asbestos from his buildings at the industrial park, as well as failing to notify the EPA and National Response Center the workers were releasing asbestos into the environment.

Federal authorities say the asbestos was illegally disposed of by dumping it near the New York/Massachusetts border.
Hilton's arrest came during an ongoing EPA investigation into illegal asbestos disposal in the state's central and northern areas.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation and Department of Labor's Asbestos Control Bureau contributed to the investigation.
Hilton's case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig A. Benedict.

Damning report released on James Hardie's compensation fund

Thursday, 1 July , 2004
ELEANOR HALL: Asbestos victims groups are condemning building products company James Hardie today, in response to a damning report about the company's compensation fund for Australians suffering from asbestosis and mesothelioma.

The issues paper released yesterday by a Special commission of Inquiry poses serious questions about the decisions made by James Hardie management and its board in setting up the fund, which is now said to face a potential shortfall of $1.3 billion.

Key among the questions, how James Hardie's shift to the Netherlands in 2001 might have affected the foundation.

Karen Percy has more.

KAREN PERCY: The 26-paged issues paper released by the Special Commission of Inquiry poses hundreds of detailed questions about the events which led to the establishment of the medical research and compensation foundation in February 2001.

Some sections of the paper were banned from publication, but those which have been publicised have attracted a strong response.

The Australian Plaintiff Lawyers Association, which represents the lawyers of asbestos victims, says it's a damning report for James Hardie.

The Association's John Gordon.

JOHN GORDON: Here is a company that made its fortune selling asbestos products to Australians for 60 years. John Reid, the former Chairman said every day an Australian would use a product manufactured by James Hardie, back in the 1970s. He meant asbestos. This company was built by Australians purchasing their products.

Now Australians are dying from their products. The Hardies knew what they were doing, they knew that there were dangers of people using their products in the way that they were meant to and they never told them.

Now, when the consequences of coming home, they've taken off to the Netherlands and the United States. And if that doesn't embarrass some people sitting on the Board, if that doesn't embarrass James Hardie and co, then this is the most disgraceful corporate conduct that Australia will have ever seen.

KAREN PERCY: Until the late 1980s, James Hardie was the largest maker of asbestos products in Australia. These days most of its business is done in the United States and it shifted its corporate headquarters to the Netherlands in 2001.

As part of that restructure, two of the company's asbestos subsidiaries, with assets worth about $300 million, were put under the control of the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation.

James Hardie says the Foundation had sufficient funds back then and denies that the shift to Holland was to escape any further liability. Now the Special Commission of Inquiry is wanting to know very specific information about the restructure and the establishment of the foundation.

Victims are also demanding answers, says John Gordon from the Plaintiff Lawyers Association.

JOHN GORDON: The things that happened just leave people breathtaken as to the audacity and the dealing that went on behind closed doors and the little that was explained to incoming directors and issues like this.

Now, if there's an innocent explanation for all of that… and the failure to advise the Supreme Court of New South Wales that there had been discussions that the shares that could secure further funds, could have been cancelled… all of those sorts of things.

There may have been innocent explanations for all of them, but it doesn't seem that way. It seems this was all an attempt to get Hardies off shore and away from its asbestos liabilities, caring little whether the victims of asbestos disease were going to be compensated into the future.

KAREN PERCY: The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union has been actively involved in this inquiry.

Spokesman Paul Bastian.

PAUL BASTIAN: Number one, the Corporations Law must be changed, because this is no more than what we saw in the Waterfront with the Patricks exercise, about robbing workers of their rightful entitlements.

Number two, the State Government has a role to play to ensure that that takes place and three, every aspect of what we do must be making sure that the money is put back into the fund, that was taken overseas, is repatriated back to Australia into the fund so that those victims that are entitled to rightful compensation get it.

KAREN PERCY: Victims and workers groups have already indicated that much of the information that's come to light during the past four months of hearings could be used in lawsuits against James Hardie.

And the AMWU says it won't just be going after the company.

PAUL BASTION: Shareholders at James Hardie can't run a three monkey's strategy – hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil. They have an obligation, a direct obligation, into the actions of their board, to ensure that only are the board of directors acting legally, but that they also act morally, in terms of their moral obligations to the community and the citizens that live within… where they work.

And we're going to hold the shareholders to account for this. They will not be able to hide behind the board.

KAREN PERCY: The World Today asked for an interview with James Hardie Chief Executive, Peter McDonald, this morning.

Our request was refused. The parties will have an opportunity to respond to the issues paper in early August. Commissioner David Jackson is expected to hand down his findings in September.

ELEANOR HALL: Karen Percy with that report.

Everything to live for

01 July 2004
A rare cancer ended the life of Palmerston North triathlete Simon Britten when he had everything to live for. Peter Lampp relates one of the sadder stories of Manawatu sport.

It was a warm Saturday in Sydney and Simon Britten and his father, Barry, were happily riding the waves at Manly Beach, indulging in their typical body-surfing races.

It was two days before Simon was booked for an operation at Sydney's Strathfield Private Hospital. They had a great time. Afterwards Simon went for a run and told his father it would be his last run on two lungs. Then he wrote a long email to his friends.

Simon was only 22 and loved life. He loved people. He'd been a junior captain for the Palmerston North Surf Life Saving Club at Himatangi Beach, was intelligent and a dab hand at playing the saxophone.

Life was panning out nicely before him: he had a Massey University business studies degree and spoke fluent Japanese after completing an advanced diploma course at the International Pacific College.

In Japan, where he taught English, he'd just been promoted to manager, one of the youngest for his company.

At Palmerston North Boys' High School, Simon was a champion swimmer and crosscountry runner, so was tailormade for multisport. That promise had been realised and he was aiming to race with the best as a triathlete.

Five weeks earlier, Simon had been diagnosed with a rare lung condition, so rare it usually occurs in older men, such as builders who have been exposed to asbestos. His parents thought he might have picked it up while competing in Mexico for the New Zealand age-group triathlon team in Cancun in 2002. Then there was a suspicion he might have had tuberculosis.

After Cancun, he came home and trained harder but began getting sore rib cartilages. He had physiotherapy and x-rays revealed nothing to worry about.

Simon continued training in New Plymouth with coach Graham Park and won an under-23 triathlon in Noumea in April last year. But the pains persisted on and off.

After finishing third in his age-group at the nationals early last year, he was picked to represent New Zealand at the worlds in Queenstown. But he couldn't because he had to stop training.

In May, he left to teach English in Hiroshima, Japan, kept racing, had a second placing, but still the pains kept coming. Finding it hard to sleep, he was hospitalised for two weeks and an x-ray showed what appeared to be only half of a lung on the right side. There was fluid in the pleural cavity between the lungs and ribs. It was thought to be an infection, so 1.5 litres of fluid was drained off and Simon was treated with antibiotics.

But the pains came back. The hospital couldn't diagnose the illness so he returned to New Zealand in January this year.

A biopsy at Wakefield Hospital in Wellington showed nothing, but a follow-up operation revealed malignant mesothelioma.

The pleural lining around the lung becomes like a cobweb and the disease can spread into the pericardium (the heart lining) and diaphragm like a flat tumour.

The effects are similar to emphysema. It astounded pathologists because it was so rare in a young person.

"It was incredibly unusual, very, very rare in a young person. If you are exposed to asbestos, it doesn't usually show up for 20 to 30 years until you're about 60 and then it's too late," Barry said.

"We were then faced with, 'what the hell do we do?' Look at it on the internet and it's one of the nastiest cancers you can get."

The only way to halt the mesothelioma was radical surgery to remove the lung, the pleura surrounding it, the pericardium and the diaphragm on that side. Three ribs also had to be removed.

Barry says that once Simon discovered he had cancer, the books by Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, who overcame testicular cancer, motivated him.

Simon's philosophy was - "if Lance can do it, I can do it".

At the New Zealand Ironman in Taupo in March, Auckland a New Zealand coach Jack Rolston, who once worked for Nike, gave Simon a signed, yellow Armstrong jersey to provide inspiration.

"Simon thought it was absolutely fantastic," Barry says. The Lance Armstrong Foundation has a Ride of Hope race every year and Simon intended being part of it when he recovered.

Barry says Simon came back from Wellington after his first operation and went for a bike ride over the arduous Saddle Road and Pahiatua Track route; his last one was just before the floods hit Manawatu in February.

"He was incredibly positive the whole way." he says.

"He had everybody convinced he would beat all the odds," mother Gwenda recalls. "He said he would try and be the first one to do an ironman on one lung."

The operation was performed by Professor Brian McCaughan at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He's one of the few surgeons worldwide who specialise in mesothelioma. He had performed many operations relating to mesothelioma, but apparently just one on a person of Simon's youth.

"But he felt because of Simon's age and fitness he should come through it okay,"

Barry says.

"Simon came through the four-hour operation and when we spoke to him in intensive care, at about 5am, he had been fine for the previous 12 hours."

But the next morning there was a complication. It was rare, but possible in such an operation. The remaining lung's lining got "soggy", the blood wasn't being oxygenated and Simon was put on a respirator, unconscious from then on. A day later it was turned off.

The family was devastated, but appreciated Simon would have had no quality of life after the complications.

"We were shocked; we couldn't believe it," Gwenda says.

"With hindsight, while he was so positive about everything, he was in pain."

The Britten family (including older brother Mark) understandably finds it all hard to rationalise. Simon's bedroom is untouched, with all his gear and memorabilia laid out.

All are baffled as to why he developed such a rare condition. They suspect he knew when he came through the operation that life wouldn't be the same. Most people survive 11 months and it is understood some younger patients have lasted 10 years.

After he died, friends in Japan staged a memorial service for him, floating paper lanterns, a New Zealand flag and a rugby ball down the river in Hiroshima. The family is going there in August. And they intend giving the jersey back - it might inspire someone else.

Simon's death stunned close friends like international paddler Anne Cairns and New Zealand hockey player Melody Rowe.

"I was really surprised to hear he had cancer," says Rowe. "It was diagnosed in February and a month later he wasn't with us. I don't think anyone was expecting it.

"He was very energetic, very bubbly, always positive and extremely enthusiastic about his sport."

Jamie How, now a Central Districts cricketer, attended Boys' High and Massey University with Simon over about eight years. They were in many classes together and shared a passion for sporting challenges.

"The thing that really struck me about Simon was his unflappable cheerfulness and his ability to smile at a challenge and attack it head on. I often saw him, when I was driving home from Massey, bouncing along Fitzherbert Avenue on one of his runs, smiling and waving; whether it was sunny or hailing, his expression didn't change," How says.

"Simon taught us a lot in the way of how life should be lived. He has left a lot of friends and we all miss him."

Simon Britten's last email sent to his many friends and family on March 19, before his operation in Sydney: Kia ora everyone!

Just thought it was about time I gave ya all an update on what's been happening.

As most of you know we decided that the best option was to travel to Sydney to seek some advice/help from a well renowned surgeon and specialist in mesothelioma...Had a PET scan on Thursday morning which was a bit of a new experience in terms of all the zaps I had already. This time I was actually quite capable of zapping them, after I was injected with a whole lot of radioactive sugars! Apparently the scan is quite a new-age sort of thing and combines a CT and PT scan and at five million bucks a pop, you'd be hoping it was quite new age! I had to fast for five hours beforehand and then sit completely still for about two hours in total after I was injected with this radioactive matter mentioned earlier...Anyway, turns out the scan was well worth its cost for them and me!

Have just been to see Prof McCaughan this morning and discussed what is going to happen. While we didn't see the results of this exciting little scan, it did apparently show the Prof that the cancer was on the one lung and hadn't spread too far. So, the next step is to get rid of it, which involves just a little surgery... Admittedly, there is a reasonable period of recovery and rehab. too. But give me a bit of time and I'll be ready to swim, bike or run or do each after the other, no probs!

Plus, there's a couple of little beaches here, Bondi and Manly (not sure if ya heard of them?!) that should be frequented by myself and any others who wish to join me! Might just have to tell everyone that the scar was from a battle I had with a great white.

So that is the guts of it. I'm heading in to hospital here in Sydney on Monday with the operation going ahead on Tuesday morning. The nurses say ya spend a couple of days in intensive care and it is gonna be a little bit painful but I can feed myself my own drugs and who knows, for you druggies out there, I'll be tripping for free!

Apparently I'll be in hospital for 7-10 days and then it might be a few weeks before I head back to the big smoke of Palmy. Although it just depends on the situation over here, and whether I get tickets to the Manly Sea Eagles-Warriors game in a few weeks!

So all in all, good news. I'm quite happy things are underway and I know what's all involved. The Prof is pretty sure that we will get rid of things for good and now it's just a case of getting on and getting through it.

One thing I must say is a big thanks to all of you. Mum and Dad (who have been awesome dealing with this too) are also very appreciative of everyone's support... Everyone hears the big C word and thinks of the worst. But really through a bit of education and understanding it is not quite as scary as it all sounds, and things here are quite positive. The key is to just go through all the info, make the most educated decision and that is what we've done. As all the cheese balls out there say, pain is temporary, glory is forever, blah blah, so yeah, give us six months and things should be pretty sorted.

Thanks once again and I'll be in touch.
Cheers.
Simon

Toxin leaks are setting off new wave of lawsuits

Just as it has seeped into private wells and water supplies across the country, the gasoline additive MTBE is beginning to saturate the courts system.

Hundreds of lawsuits alleging contamination from methyl tertiary butyl ether -- the toxin recently detected in the drinking water of some private wells in Harford County's Fallston area -- have erupted nationwide in recent years. Many more are expected, as water contamination lawsuits are considered by many lawyers to be an expanding area of major litigation.

Wednesday, a Fallston-area couple filed a lawsuit in Harford County Circuit Court, claiming a nearby Exxon station contaminated their well water. The complaint seeks medical monitoring and unspecified damages from Exxon Mobil Corp.

Lawyer Marshall N. Perkins said the firm would likely seek class-action status to cover other Fallston-area residents whose wells have been tainted. A corporate spokeswoman declined comment on the suit, but stressed that Exxon Mobil is working with government officials to determine the extent and sources of the problem, and is helping residents.

Last weekend, the Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos, which specializes in class-action and complex litigation -- and has succeeded in major asbestos and tobacco cases -- took out a newspaper advertisement that invited residents from the Fallston area to contact them.

"We have been contacted, we have been retained, by people in the area," said Mary Koch, a lawyer at the Baltimore firm. She said a "fair number" of homeowners responded quickly.

And at least two Baltimore law firms are con sidering representing water suppliers and municipalities in Maryland, working with attorneys from other states who have succeeded in settlements in MTBE cases.

"We have identified potential trouble spots all over the state," said Nicole Schultheis, one of the Baltimore attorneys. "We have established relationships with a couple of water suppliers, none of which are willing to come forward at this time."

Lawsuits alleging MTBE contamination have been filed from California to Florida, some on behalf of individuals and others on behalf of public water suppliers and governments.

The stakes are high.

A contamination case brought by Santa Monica, Calif., recently resulted in a settlement expected to top $300 million in value, including a filtration system, said Scott Summy, one of the lawyers representing the city. A settlement in a case brought by South Lake Tahoe, Calif., topped $60 million.

Though other lawyers doubt MTBE is a lawsuit gold mine, Summy thinks the additive has the potential to rival asbestos in terms of the magnitude of cases it generates.

"I think it is becoming that size of an issue, sure. More and more people are beginning to realize the prospects of being contaminated," said Summy, who is representing more than 150 cities, water suppliers and the like in MTBE cases.

MTBE has been added to gasoline since the late 1970s to help it burn more efficiently. But it became widely used after the passage of amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990.

MTBE dissolves readily in water. Going with the flow, it has seeped into water supplies around the country.

At low levels, it taints water with a turpentine-like taste and odor.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies MTBE as a "potential human carcinogen at high doses" based on tests in which laboratory rats and mice inhaled it. There is little scientific evidence of health effects in humans, but officials say they do not think it poses a risk when consumed at the low levels generally found in drink ing water, though studies are under way. Nevertheless, at least 17 states, including California and New York, have banned it.

How big MTBE litigation will be across the country remains to be seen. Its future depends partly on a major federal energy bill before Congress. Last year, the bill failed because it included a provision, sought by oil companies and MTBE manufacturers, to shield them from some substantial legal claims.

It would have barred product liability suits against them dating to Sept. 5, 2003.

The current energy bill, with the same provision, is stalled in the Senate.

Last year, word that that industry-backed provision would be added to the energy bill led to a stampede to courthouses.

The result is that many mammoth cases are in early stages and nobody knows how many more are the wings.

Deep-pockets

Lawsuits against the likes of Exxon Mobil and Lyondell Chemical Co. are attractive to plaintiff's lawyers because they dangle the prospect of a return from deep-pocketed corporate giants for the law firms that can afford an up-front investment.

"Because it is a large corporation, you figure they have money," said Lisa Fairfax, who teaches business law at the University of Maryland School of Law.

Many lawyers consider MTBE lawsuits on behalf of large water suppliers potentially more lucrative than representation of pockets of homeowners.

A consortium of three law firms from Massachusetts, New York and Texas is among those with the highest profile in MTBE cases. The attorneys are embroiled in about 62 lawsuits representing hundreds of cities, towns, the state of New Hampshire and other water providers that contend the oil companies and MTBE makers contaminated drinking water supplies.

"Why should the cleanup for that MTBE be the responsibility for their taxpayers?" said Richard Sandman, one of the Massachusetts-based lawyers.

Summy, who is part of the consortium, has taken on water contamination cases exclusively since he was involved in the country's first MTBE trial -- in North Carolina in 1997.

Many factors

He and others attribute the flurry of suits to several factors.

For one thing, MTBE is widely used -- and everyone uses water. For another, MTBE lawsuits can relate to two kinds of claims -- reduced home values due to fouled property, which is easier to prove, and health concerns, which are harder to prove.

Others say that while MTBE has the potential to create a flood of lawsuits, it lacks the scope of the tobacco and asbestos litigation. Those two products have long been linked to serious disease.

"There are not hundreds of billions of dollars at the end of this rainbow," said Tom McGarity, a University of Texas environmental law professor and president of the Rockville-based Center for Progressive Regulation.

Estimates of cleanup costs nationwide differ. Plaintiff's lawyers say $29 billion. The companies, says MTBE industry spokesman Frank V. Maisano, peg it under $1 billion.

The industry argues that it should not be penalized for using MTBE because Congress knew it would be used to comply with the amended Clean Air Act. No other additive was available in sufficient quantity, industry officials contend -- another point of dispute.

Also, industry officials say that if a gasoline storage tank leaked, the MTBE manufacturers, such as Lyondell Chemical Co., are not at fault.

With legal fees and administrative costs, "litigation is a very poor way to effect cleanup," said Bob Slaughter, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.

The lawsuits are complex, costly to investigate and prepare, as well as protracted, noted William N. Butler, a Towson lawyer who was the lead counsel about 20 years ago in a Baltimore County case in which 14 households alleged gasoline pollution by two oil companies.

The case was three years in the making before it settled confidentially on the second day of trial, Butler said.

The law firm put thousands of hours and dollars into investigations, experts, tracing the plume of contamination, identifying the source, figuring out how long the gasoline was in the ground, examining health issues, detailing property values and more -- the same kind of investigation Angelos' firm is doing in Harford County.

Said Butler: "Peter Angelos has a very large law firm. Peter Angelos has ... a fair amount of money. He has had a great deal of success in asbestos cases and other matters."

INSULT PLUS INJURY

July 1, 2004
Three weeks ago a man in a giant armored bulldozer reduced the Grand County Newspapers office in Granby to a pile of rubble.

Tuesday, all set to go into another building, a piece of drywall about the size of a table threatened to stop the presses again.

According to publisher Patrick Brower, the drywall had asbestos on it and the building had to be evacuated. Two of the company's three publications arrived late on Wednesday.

Emerging Mesothelioma Treatments

New approach to treating mesothelioma cancer based on using light to kill cancer cells; more mesothelioma treatment options to follow.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) July 14, 2004 -- Because mesothelioma is a newly publicized disease, many doctors may have a hard time diagnosing and treating it. Depending on the stage of the disease, the most common treatments are surgical removal of the affected tissues, chemotherapy, or radiation. There is some concern that research into mesothelioma will be minimal, because it is projected to be a short-lived disease in terms of new cases after the next 30 years. However, new research is consistently providing physicians with alternate forms of therapy, and there are many intense studies into control and cure of the disease, so those diagnosed with mesothelioma do have many options and a lot of hope.

Photodynamic therapy is a new approach to treating mesothelioma cancer and is based on using light to kill the cancer cells. In photodynamic therapy, a drug is first administered intravenously that targets and renders the cancerous cells more sensitive in a number of days. The drug is easily eliminated by normal cells, ensuring that they will not be harmed when light therapy is given. After the cells have been given the proper time of exposure to the drug, a special frequency of light laser beams are directed towards the mesothelioma cancer with the intent to eradicate it from the body without having to use more invasive methods. Although there are occasional cases of eye sensitivity and nausea and/or vomiting, the main side effect of photodynamic therapy is skin sensitivity after the procedure is completed.

More information on photodynamic therapy can be found on new Web site, Mesothelioma Help ( http://www.mesohelp.net ) The Web site contains several informative articles, including a primer on emerging treatments for mesothelioma.

The Web site was a joint product of Orbis Marketing and Jimandi Corp. Said editor Jimmy Atkinson, "We wanted to make a site that can actually help those coping with mesothelioma, rather than just another 'A-OK #1 Spam' site. This is a hard thing to face, and it's sad to see ambulance-chasers dominating this field. We aim to change that with Mesothelioma Help."

Orbis Marketing is a privately held company based in Los Angeles, California. For more information, please visit http://www.orbismarketing.com . Visit Jimandi Corp at http://www.dotmarketer.com . Visit Mesothelioma Help at http://www.mesohelp.net.

Asbestos court bid by dying woman

July 9, 2004
A DYING woman is set to take her case to court for exposure to asbestos during her school days.

Law firm Slater and Gordon is handling the case for the woman, who now lives in Melbourne. Solicitor Andrew Higgins, who specialises in asbestos cases, says the woman is an example of how innocently people can be exposed to the deadly substance. Last month Slater and Gordon advertised in Tasmanian newspapers for anyone who had been at Devonport High between 1964 and 1968. "We are looking for people who can assist with our inquiries about that time," Mr Higgins said.

He said the claim was the woman was exposed to asbestos as a student, which had led to her contracting mesothelioma as an adult. "The insidious thing about asbestos is you can be working in mines or mills or just be a school student, and you can get an asbestos-related disease," he said. "This is an example of how innocently people can be exposed because there is no safe level of exposure." The law firm's investigations centre on the time an assembly hall at Devonport High was destroyed by fire and subsequent rebuilding.

The case is expected to be before the courts in Tasmania soon because of the woman's limited life expectancy. Mr Higgins said there was always a precedent value in such cases but individuals had to be able to prove their claims. "Just because there is one case doesn't mean others will follow," he said. The law firm has been involved in a number of cases in Tasmania, both in Hobart and the North-West, including people exposed in heavy industry in the area.

Vaccine scandal revives cancer fear

19:00 07 July 04
Many millions more people than previously thought might have been given polio vaccine contaminated with a monkey virus linked to cancer.

It has been known since 1960 that early doses of polio vaccine were widely contaminated with simian virus 40, or SV40, which infects macaque monkeys. Tens of millions of people in the US and an unknown number in other countries, including the UK, Australia and the former Soviet Union, may have been exposed prior to 1963.

The contamination occurred because the kidney cells the vaccine virus was grown in came from monkeys infected with SV40. Health officials say the problem was eliminated after 1963.

Now Michele Carbone of Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago has announced results that suggest the Soviet polio vaccine was contaminated after 1963, possibly until the early 1980s. "Is there infectious virus? The short answer is, yes," Carbone told the Vaccine Cell Substrate Conference 2004 in Rockville, Maryland, last week.

The vaccine was almost certainly used throughout the Soviet bloc and probably exported to China, Japan and several countries in Africa. That means hundreds of millions could have been exposed to SV40 after 1963.

Rare cancers

The consequences of exposure to the virus (which is not related to HIV in any way) are unclear. There is evidence is that some of the people given contaminated vaccines were infected by SV40, and that such infections might lead to the development of certain rare types of cancer many years down the line. But the link with cancer has neither been proved, nor shown to be false.

"There are two scenarios," says Philip Minor of the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control in the UK. "One is that it doesn't matter. The other is that it does."

Minor found three samples of the Soviet oral polio vaccine from the late 1960s in the NIBSC's freezers, the only samples known to survive from this time. In 1999, he found they tested positive for SV40, whereas British samples from this period did not. "But we did not draw any broad conclusions," Minor says.

Now Carbone has carried out further tests. He has confirmed the presence of SV40 in the Soviet vaccine samples using three separate tests. In two of the samples, he also showed that the SV40 remained infectious. In the third sample, there was no infectious poliovirus either, an indication that the sample of the live vaccine may have degraded.

Lung cancer link

Yet the production process was supposed to ensure that if any SV40 was present, it would be neutralised. When Carbone tested the Soviet neutralisation method, which relied on magnesium chloride, he found it was only 95 per cent effective. Because of this, he believes the Soviet vaccine could have remained contaminated until the early 1980s. In 1981, the Soviet Union switched to a polio vaccine seed provided by the World Health Organization that was free from any SV40 contamination.

Carbone, the first to publish evidence of a link between SV40 and the deadly lung cancer mesothelioma (New Scientist print edition, 21 May 1994), will not discuss his results further until they have been published.

Officials from the US Food and Drug Administration who attended the conference also declined to comment, as the FDA is a defendant in lawsuits alleging that the SV40-contaminated polio vaccine used in the US has caused cancer cases.

Hilary Koprowski of Jefferson University in Philadelphia, who created one of the first polio vaccines, says he is not surprised that the magnesium chloride preparation did not work. "Nothing inactivates something 100 per cent," he said. "I would believe there were still remnants [of SV40] left."

Fresh kidneys

The contamination of the Soviet vaccine highlights the need for safer methods of growing viruses for vaccines, Koprowski says, something he is trying to tackle by using plant cells. The US stopped using fresh monkey kidneys for polio vaccine in 2000. But the vaccine is still made in this way in several other countries.

"I would say that it suggests that [old] vaccines made in different countries should be examined for possible contamination," says Janet Butel of Baylor University College of Medicine in Houston, a leading SV40 expert.

"In any epidemiological studies where they're comparing exposed versus non-exposed, if in fact there was any contaminated vaccine used after 1963, the control group wouldn't be a control group."

Konstantin Chumakov of the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, says that Carbone's findings leave many unanswered questions. For example, he said it is not clear from the labelling of the samples found at the NIBSC exactly when they were used in the Soviet Union or for how long.

Chumakov, whose father was director of the Soviet Institute of Poliomyelitis Research during the time of the contamination, says he was told that at one point the Soviet Union was supplying more than 100 countries with its vaccine.

He travelled to Moscow in April 2004 to try to learn more about the production and testing of the Soviet vaccine. But he found no more vaccine samples from that era, and very little surviving documentation about specific batches and why they might have been contaminated. "It's hard to explain how it happened," he says, "but it obviously did."

Debbie Bookchin

Big payout too late
Norrie Ross

05jul04
WORKING in clouds of asbestos dust came back to haunt former builder Stewart Beckworth decades later.

Mr Beckworth, 63, who has asbestos-related lung cancer, has just won a large compensation payout from the James Hardie company but it provides little comfort for the father of nine. Mr Beckworth, of Mt Martha, knows mesothelioma will kill him but he is more worried about other problems confronting his devastated family.

His wife Ginny, 61, has much more than her husband's illness to cope with. She has a heartbreaking wait hoping for the green light to donate one of her kidneys to accountant son Nathan. Nathan Beckworth, 34, was born with cystic fibrosis and had a heart-lung transplant 14 years ago. He is one of the longest survivors of the operation but he suffered another blow when stricken with kidney failure. Only a transplant can now save his life but he must build up lung capacity for the operation.

The couple also care for Mrs Beckworth's mother, 96, who has recently been seriously ill. "I'm angry this happened to me," Mr Beckworth said. "But I'm also angry what it has done to my family. "I've got a lovely family and we love one another to death. I see those kids hysterical that dad's not going to be around to walk them down the aisle or to see the grandkids born. It's a terrible thing."

Mr Beckworth sued James Hardie, claiming that although it knew its asbestos products were dangerous it did not to warn builders. Hardie's settled the case before it got to court but continued to deny liability.

Mrs Beckworth said waiting for the kidney transplant operation, coping with her sick mother and dealing with her husband's cancer was taking its toll. "It's awful. I thought to myself, 'please, I don't want three funerals'," she said. Mr Beckworth had nothing but contempt for Hardie's.

"I'm a normal working man. I don't deserve to be poisoned by people like that," he said. Mr Beckworth was a builder on the Mornington Peninsula for more than 40 years. All of his constructions until the late '70s contained asbestos cement sheeting. "I had no idea this dust was deadly," he said.

He was diagnosed with mesothelioma in January and told he had six to 12 months to live. "I thought what am I going to do. I've got kids crying, I've got my wife crying, I'm a bit upset myself," he said. Mr Beckworth's solicitor, Peter Gordon, a partner at Slater and Gordon, said his case was sadly not unusual.

He said more builders would develop mesothelioma but another danger was to home renovators. "Stewart is one of a generation of Australians who have been exposed this way by Hardies but it could be any one of us in the future," he said.

County's courts handling thousands of strangers' asbestos cases

By Mary McLachlin, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 4, 2004

Find out if YOU have MILLION DOLLAR LUNGS!

That's the eye-catcher headline on an Internet ad recruiting clients to file asbestos claims, which now number more than 730,000 and have cost more than $70 billion.

If you're a retired millworker or drywaller in Alabama, Mississippi or another Southern state with an industrial background, the road to those million-dollar -- or hundred-thousand-dollar -- lungs leads more and more through the courthouses of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Why? Because in South Florida a plaintiff can get on what lawyers call the asbestos "rocket docket" and stand a better chance of getting a settlement without going through a trial. Plaintiff lawyers say courts in other places just can't handle asbestos cases as efficiently as the courts do here.

It doesn't always work to a plaintiff's advantage. Union Carbide Corp. refused to settle with an Alabama man who said he got asbestosis from inhaling fibers produced by the company, and a Palm Beach County Circuit Court jury rejected his claim Thursday. William McConnell, 68, of Mount Olive, Ala., had answered a TV ad for a mass X-ray screening in Mississippi and was diagnosed three days before the trial began by a Miami doctor hired by his lawyers.

The week before, however, the 4th District Court of Appeal upheld a jury's decision that Union Carbide pay $1.153 million to Dennis Kavanaugh, a West Palm Beach carpenter who developed cancer from ingesting asbestos fibers in the 1970s. Kavanaugh, 61, died in December while the verdict was on appeal. South Florida was already a mecca for asbestos lawsuits in 1997 when Deward Ballard, a Mississippi electrician dying of cancer, won a record $31 million verdict in Palm Beach County against Owens-Corning Fiberglas Co.

The state's retiree pool provided a concentrated source of people with asbestos-related disease symptoms, which show up decades after the mineral's microscopic fibers have found their way into lungs and viscera. Also, W.R. Grace & Co. then was headquartered in Boca Raton and owned a company that had used asbestos. It offered a local link to a major corporate defendant, normally a requirement for filing suit in a particular court system. W.R. Grace ultimately filed for bankruptcy protection, one of 74 companies to do so because of asbestos claims -- including Owens-Corning.

Few cases have local connection

But since the Ballard verdict, tens of thousands more asbestos claims have been filed in South Florida, with fewer and fewer of them having any local connection. Miami attorney Susan Cole, who represents a dozen corporate defendants, estimates 4,500 of the 7,000 cases her firm handles are filed in jurisdictions with no direct relation to the plaintiffs or defendants.

The situation rankles Judge Timothy McCarthy, who presides over the 1,500 asbestos cases in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. The McConnell trial occupied the judge, eight jurors, a courtroom, clerk, bailiffs and a dozen lawyers, paralegals and assistants -- most with Union Carbide -- for nearly two weeks. While it ground along, McCarthy issued an order to lawyers in more than 70 similar suits on his trial docket:

Be in court Thursday to show why these cases should not be dismissed or transferred.

The judge already had thrown down the gauntlet by dismissing four out-of-state claims June 11. In his order, McCarthy said courts are burdened not only by the number of asbestos cases, but also by a budget crunch brought on by Article V, a constitutional change under which the state took over most court funding July 1.

Cole, who coordinates asbestos trial dockets for the three South Florida circuits, estimates Broward County has 4,000 active cases; Judge Thomas Lynch, who oversees the division, estimates 5,000 to 8,000. The Miami-Dade clerk's office reports 1,750 cases. Hillsborough County carries 1,600 cases, and Duval has an estimated 800-1,000.

McCarthy's dismissal order said taxpayers in Palm Beach County and the rest of Florida shouldn't have to pay for lengthy asbestos trials between nonresidents whose alleged exposure to asbestos didn't occur here.

"This is not only expensive, but unfair to the thousands of Florida citizens whose access to court is being delayed while Florida funds and provides court access to strangers," McCarthy wrote.

McCarthy said last week he has asked Chief Judge Edward Fine to attend a hearing Friday to hear arguments on dismantling the asbestos division and spreading its cases among all civil judges in Palm Beach County.

"It seems we have built a machine here," McCarthy said. "It's like building the Sawgrass Expressway in the middle of nowhere. Build it, and they will come."

System to handle cases in place

Lawyers on both sides of the asbestos issue like the South Florida venues because they have a system in place to handle the flood of claims. McCarthy and his counterparts -- Lynch in Broward and Judge Joseph Farina in Miami-Dade -- operate under an "omnibus" case management order, which standardizes documents and sets rules and time limits. It was created in the early 1990s with input from plaintiff and defense lawyers.

When defendants try to get cases dismissed or moved for having no local connection -- under a legal principle called forum non conveniens, or inconvenient forum -- plaintiff lawyers say their clients can't get fair trials in places such as Alabama.

"(W)e know nothing at all about Alabama being an alternate forum," Miami attorney David Jagolinzer argued at the June 11 hearing. "But we do know that in Palm Beach County we have the case management order that your Honor had signed and has been designed to develop this. This court has experience in hearing asbestos cases, and the defendant has submitted absolutely nothing to show that Alabama is or is not even qualified to handle or hear asbestos cases."

In South Florida, hundreds of asbestos cases actually get set on trial dockets -- though trial is the last thing most of them want.

The real objective is to reach a settlement, which happens in more than 99 percent of asbestos claims. Defendant corporations, which can number more than 100 in a single lawsuit, and their insurance carriers pay out thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars per claim to avoid the expense of a trial and the risk of a multimillion-dollar verdict. Some settlement agreements require a lawsuit to be filed and a trial date set to trigger the payout. Deward Ballard's lawyer said he asked for $200,000 to settle the dying man's claim.

"Owens-Corning didn't offer a dollar, and it ended up going to trial," said Daniel O'Shea of Reyes & O'Shea, Miami. "We'd had a good working relationship for five or six years, and suddenly Owens-Corning didn't want to pay any of our plaintiffs to settle."

Cancer cases can bring millions

The South Florida system works pretty well, according to Miami attorney James Ferraro of Ferraro & Associates, which represents all the plaintiffs in the cases McCarthy has threatened to dismiss or transfer. "We have resolved 4,000 to 5,000 cases in Miami, Broward and Palm Beach (counties) in the last decade, and we've probably not had to try more than 15 or 20 cases," Ferraro said.

Settlements can range from $2,000 to $200,000, he said, with cancer cases typically getting more than $1 million and some as high as $5 million. "Cancer cases tend to get bigger numbers, because those people are going to die," Ferraro said.

The ones who get mesothelioma usually die within a year of the diagnosis. The incurable cancer, attributed solely to asbestos, attacks the membranes that line the lungs, stomach and abdomen. Asbestosis, the most common consequence of inhaling asbestos fibers, scars lung tissue, restricts breathing and produces chronic coughing. It isn't malignant but can be a precursor of lung cancer or mesothelioma.

Asbestos is a silica-like mineral that has been mined and used commercially in the United States since the late 1800s. Production ballooned during World War II and afterward, when asbestos was put into products that touched virtually everyone's daily life: insulation, fireproofing, sound absorption, roofing, siding, pipes, brake linings, gaskets, ships, floor tile, adhesives, plastics, fire-resistant fabrics -- and, most significant in today's litigation picture, drywall joint compound.

Joint compound came in 5-gallon buckets, a goopy mixture made of limestone with 5 percent to 6 percent asbestos as a binder. As builders hung sheets of wallboard, the compound was smeared over the joints to seal them; when it dried, the seams were sanded to make them smooth. The sanding caused clouds of fiber-laden dust that was inhaled and swallowed by thousands of construction workers, who carried it home on their bodies and clothes where it could be ingested by their families.

Suppression of evidence costly

People have been suing for health damages from asbestos since the 1930s, and manufacturers have had scientific evidence of its hazards since the 1940s. But that evidence -- laboratory test results, medical opinions, confidential memos -- was suppressed for decades and now provides the strongest ammunition in lawsuits. The U.S. government ordered companies to put health warnings on joint compound in 1972, and asbestos was banned from most uses by the 1980s.

Since then, the major asbestos industry has been litigation. The Rand Institute for Civil Justice says more than 730,000 claims had been filed through 2002, and a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law said in a study released in January that 100,000 more were filed in 2003. Some of those are believed to be duplicates of suits filed previously against other defendants.

The Rand Institute says 8,400 companies in 75 different business categories have been named as defendants, as core companies sought protection in bankruptcy and lawyers cast wider nets in search of money for claimants.

Analysts say the number of claimants could reach 1 million to 3 million and ultimate costs could reach $200 billion to $265 billion before asbestos litigation plays out, according to Stephen Carroll, senior economist with the Rand Institute.

More than a dozen bankrupt companies have set up trusts, led by Johns-Manville with the Manville Trust, to pay claims. But they pay only a few cents on the dollar and are cutting payouts for marginal claims, saying they risk running out of money for the serious ones. If Congress succeeds in setting up a federal trust to pay claims through the next 30 years, it would take the asbestos issue out of the courts.

A Republican-backed version of the trust called for businesses and insurers to pay $124 billion to create it, but labor groups labeled that a business bailout and said it would need closer to $153 billion. With businesses, labor unions and trial lawyers all lobbying furiously, the proposal stalled.

Last week, Sen. Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, proposed a compromise that would require $141 billion from business and insurance carriers, plus $4 billion from existing trusts. Sen. Bill Frist, the Republican leader, said financing the trust would still be a challenge.

If it can be done, Frist said, "asbestos reform could be a reality."

Petro approves resubmitted summary

Fri, Jul. 09, 2004
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Attorney General Jim Petro has approved the summary of an attempt to stop a law that would make it more difficult for Ohioans to sue for damages if they were exposed to asbestos but not showing signs of illness.

Petro, in a letter Thursday to Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, said a summary of the law written by backers of a referendum to keep the law from going into effect represented a "fair and truthful statement" of the referendum.

Petro rejected the language of a previous summary because it did not include the effect of the referendum, which would nullify the law passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Bob Taft before it could take effect, Petro said.

The law would be the first in the country to require people to prove exposure to asbestos and provide medical evidence of an asbestos-related illness before continuing with their lawsuits. The referendum drive is backed by a group of lawyers specializing in asbestos litigation.

At issue are thousands of cases now pending in Ohio courts filed by people exposed to the white flaky substance that was widely used in building material during the 1950s and 1960s and can cause cancer.

The group would have to collect 193,740 signatures - 6 percent of the vote in the last election for governor - by Sept. 2 to place the referendum on the Nov. 2 ballot.

The last time a referendum was on an Ohio ballot was in 1997, when voters soundly rejected a law making changes to the workers' compensation system.
Associated Press

The village living in fear as mysterious cancer epidemic strikes 12 in one street

By Paul Kelbie, Scotland Correspondent

10 July 2004
Six years after John McLaughlin's wife, Grace, died he still finds it hard to speak about. He glances from time to time at the empty armchair opposite, and his voice quivers slightly as he tells how she fought one cancer for 14 years, only to be struck down by another.

It is a story which has been repeated up and down the quiet, residential avenue the couple called home for more than 30 years, and throughout the village of Chapelhall. Almost every one of its 5,000 or so residents fear a "cancer epidemic" is claiming the lives of family, friends and neighbours.

At first glance, the small, friendly Lanarkshire community, where children play in the roads and neighbours chat over garden fences, appears content. Close to the motorway linking Edinburgh and Glasgow, the village, built on a maze of old coal-mines, has panoramic views of the countryside, spoiled only by the electricity pylons stretching across the landscape.

Entrance to the community - little more than two main roads and few side streets - is dominated by the shiny, modern building of the Organon pharmaceutical testing laboratory. It provides the council-house development with a greater appearance of affluence.

But the people are living in the shadow of a killer. Nationally, the odds of contracting cancer are one in 20 or one in 30. In Chapelhall, the chances of getting cancer is one in five, the villagers say.

Some point the finger of suspicion at the nearby chemical factory, others wonder whether electromagnetic fields from the pylons, poisonous gases from disused coal mines or contaminated water from a local burn might be to blame.

Mr McLaughlin said: "When I was on the community council, one man told me he was moving out of the village because he believed that if he stayed here he would have a 110 per cent chance of developing cancer." He worries about his two sons and a daughter.

In less than a minute, the 53-year-old landscape gardener has listed details of at least 30 members of his family, friends and neighbours who have either died within the past few years or are being treated for cancer.

In his own street, Sherdale Avenue, at least 12 people have been diagnosed with cancer. Seven have died and five others are undergoing chemotherapy and surgery. Mr McLaughlin added: "If I sat down with a pen and paper I could come up with a lot more. Nearly every home in the village has either lost somebody through cancer or knows of somebody who has. I believe that in a village of fewer than 5,000 people, more than 60 per cent of the residents have been affected by cancer, and I think I am being conservative with that figure."

Across the road from his home lives Catherine Frew, 60, who lost her husband George, 61, to lung cancer last year. Next door to her lives Agnes McGuire and her 19-year-old son Mark. Both have cancer.

At No 10 Sherdale Avenue, Maureen Cain, 53, recovered from breast cancer two years ago, and at No 28 Lawrence Gemmel, 58, a lorry driver, is being treated for leukaemia. At No 33, Pearl Gibson, 82, survived cancer of the groin four years ago, but her 48-year-old neighbour Matt Douglas died of cancer of the gullet in 1998.

At No 37, May Paterson, 55, a cleaner, lost her husband Peter, 62, to cancer of the bowel in 2000, and at No 39, Hugh Bishop, 58, died in 2001, also of cancer of the gullet. At No 45, Marion Rafferty died, aged 34, of cancer of the gullet in 1993 and at No 80, Joe Docherty, 66, died from lung cancer.

Elizabeth Douglas, who lost her husband Matt after a five-year illness, said: "Four families in one block, and 11 in the same street have all been affected by cancer. I believe that is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot more who have died or suffered from cancer in the area but nobody seems to know why." Agnes McGuire, 44, who has developed a brain tumour five years after she recovered from womb cancer, said: "Nobody in authority has ever suggested what might be causing this but people round here have a few ideas of their own. People think the power lines at the other side of the park a couple of streets away, or maybe it's something to do with a nearby chemical factory or this area being built on top of old coal mines."

Although her brain tumour appears to have gone into remission, Mrs McGuire claims the most upsetting thing she has had to endure is watching her son suffer from leukaemia. Mark, 19 ,a promising footballer, had to abandon dreams of a career with Albion Rovers after being diagnosed last Christmas.

"Mark's not very well at the moment," his mother said. "He's lost all his hair and he's exhausted. He's a strapping young lad and has his whole life ahead of him. No one can believe this happened to him.'

Mary Bishop, whose husband Hugh died from cancer of the gullet three years ago, said he had been ill for only six months. "In our case, there could be some other explanation," she said. "My husband was on Christmas Island and he was involved in the clean-up after the nuclear bomb testing. There are suggestions that many of the men developed cancer but that doesn't explain what's happening to other people in the street."

Villagers have been diagnosed with cancer of the cervix, womb, gullet, bowel, lung, stomach, brain and leukaemia; but identifying a source is almost impossible because different carcinogens cause each cancer.

Of all the cancer clusters reported around the world, only one has ever been traced to an environmental cause. That was an epidemic of respiratory cancer called mesothelioma in a Turkish village which researchers traced to an asbestos-like mineral called eriomite abundant in the soil.

Julian Little, a professor of epidemiology at Aberdeen University who specialises in cancer, said it was unlikely that a cluster of different cancers could be blamed on a single environmental factor. "A lot depends on the time frame of these occurrences," he said. "It appears to be over a number of years so it is likely these different cancers are more likely to be a coincidence rather than a single environmental factor."

Lanarkshire has greater mortality than the rest of Scotland, and nearly half of all deaths in the area are attributable to coronary heart disease and cancer. Many people also have asthma and other breathing problems. Surveys have shown that a high proportion of people in Lanarkshire have unhealthy lifestyles, including smoking, drinking, bad diets and a lack of exercise.

"We don't pretend ill health isn't a problem in Lanarkshire," said a spokesman for Lanarkshire Health Board. "We are concerned by the people in Chapelhall but we are not convinced of any environmental factors being the cause of that illness. Health concerns raised by residents are taken seriously but we have not had any contact from people in the Chapelhall area regarding concerns over cancer. We would invite anybody to contact us."

Douglas Jamieson, a lorry driver in the village, said: "The trouble is, if Chapelhall becomes labelled as a cancerous area, who will want to come and live here? It will blight the village and damage property prices."

Tom Curley, the councillor for the area, said he was shocked to discover how many people from one street had cancer. "It is very worrying," he said. Mr Curley's sister-in-law Maureen Cain lives at No10, and had breast cancer two years ago. He said: "I will be monitoring this to see if we can put people's fears to rest."

A spokesman for Organon said no one had approached it with their concerns. "We would always be very willing to hear the concerns of local people and do our best to allay any fears.''

Lanarkshire Council is awaiting results on radiation, water and air quality tests in a primary school a few miles from Chapelhall after a member of staff died and eight others developed breast cancer.

Collision Coming Over Farm Worker Legalization
News Analysis

July 8th, 2004
SOLEDAD, Calif.--Farm worker unions and the Bush administration are heading rapidly towards confrontation over immigration.

After three years of arm-twisting, unions like the United Farm Workers, Oregon's Union de Pineros and the Ohio-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee finally have a bill in Congress -- called AgJOBS -- that would legalize over 1 million agricultural workers living without visas in the United States. But immigrant advocates say the administration, despite a proclaimed interest in Latino votes, has instead played to its right-wing Republican base by launching a national wave of immigration raids.

The unions have even agreed to expansion of already-existing guest worker programs, widely condemned for the extensive rights violations of immigrants imported as temporary workers. But they face the administration's "guest worker-only" proposal, and Bush's declaration that he will not sign any bill granting legal status to the country's 12 million undocumented residents.

Some immigration activists even believe that the raids are intended to send a dual message -- placating anti-immigrant voters while threatening mass deportations if immigrant communities resist a huge expansion of guest worker programs.

Since the wave of raids began in June, the number of deportations has mushroomed. They started in Ontario, Calif., on June 5, when 79 immigrants were arrested and deported. The following day in nearby Corona, another 77 people were picked up. The next raid, netting 15 in Escondido, near San Diego, escalated into the deportation of 268 more by mid-June. Reports of raids spread to urban areas in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, traditionally avoided by the Border Patrol because of their long history of organized resistance.

In upstate New York, agents seized eight workers in a big General Electric research facility in Niskayuna, where they were removing asbestos without adequate protection. The fibers cause a virulent form of cancer, mesothelioma, and the contractor employing the workers, LVI Environmental Services, is under federal investigation for using illegal removal procedures.

The Border Patrol announced that the deportations were part of an ongoing investigation into the asbestos abatement industry in upstate and central New York. The Laborers Union has been organizing immigrant asbestos workers throughout New York and New Jersey in one of the labor movement's most successful unionizing drives. The raids will slow that movement by increasing the fear of deportation among workers already risking their jobs by protesting dangerous conditions.

That fear is spreading in California's farm worker towns as well. "It's no secret that a very high percentage of farm workers are undocumented," says Efren Barajas, a UFW leader. "When people are afraid of being deported, they don't fight about bad working conditions and miserable wages."

In the week before July 4, the UFW organized six simultaneous marches through California valley towns, including a five-day peregrination up the Salinas Valley. They combined protest over the raids with a call for passage of the farm worker AgJOBS legalization bill.

Unions have become some of the strongest supporters of legalization because fear of deportation undermines the organizing efforts of immigrant workers. Two decades ago, most unions saw undocumented workers as job competition and even strikebreakers.

But in the 1990s that attitude changed, as immigrants became a large part of the workforce in many industries and unions began organizing them. The UFW was a leading voice at the AFL-CIO's Los Angeles convention in 1998, which adopted a new pro-immigrant position, including a call for amnesty. "The way we see it, they come to this country to make life better for their families," Barajas says. "They're hard-working people, who pay taxes like anyone else. They're not going away, and making people legal is the right thing to do."

But legalization for farm workers has a price. In three years of hard negotiations with growers, farm worker unions got agreement to a broad amnesty, but had to agree to relax restrictions on growers' ability to import temporary contract workers.

East Coast growers have been accused of massive abuse of guest workers under the existing H2-A program. The North Carolina Growers Association is being sued by North Carolina Legal Aid for maintaining a blacklist of workers who protest bad conditions.

Farm worker advocates say they've negotiated labor protections into the compromise, giving guest workers the right to go to court, but doubt remains that this will enable them to challenge their employers. And unions hope the program won't expand out of the Southeast, where most guest workers are currently employed.

"Our interest is legalizing people," Barajas says. "We had to swallow some things in the bill to get that... If we legalize millions of farm workers, it will be much better than what we have now, and we don't see any other way to get that."

And there lies the coming confrontation with Bush. The administration proposes vast new guest worker programs, and says it will not agree to any amnesty. Unions say they've already lined up a veto-proof majority in the Senate, but Congress' Republican leadership will undoubtedly protect the president in an election year, and prevent a vote that might force his veto.

But because it is an election year, Latino votes count for legislators, even if they've lost their importance to Bush. "If Bush doesn't see that," Barajas laughs, "perhaps we should have a new president."

PNS contributor David Bacon (dbacon@igc.org) is a freelance writer and photographer who writes regularly on labor and immigration issues.

Emerging Mesothelioma Treatments

New approach to treating mesothelioma cancer based on using light to kill cancer cells; more mesothelioma treatment options to follow.

2004 Mesothelioma Lung Cancer News
January	February	March	April
May	June	July	August
September	October	November	December

FREE
Mesothelioma Packet Mesothelioma Patient Handout
Click Here to get this free packet delivered quickly!

Talk to a Live
Online Chat Operator:

Your Name

Your Question

To Obtain the Best Treatment Info & Financial Assistance contact us for a FREE INFORMATION PACKET which includes;

Doctors & Cancer Hospitals
Clinical Trials
Hazardous Jobs/ Products

New Treatment Options
Veteran's Resources
Financial Assistance

Fill out the form below or call 1-800-780-2686.

Use the "tab" key to move to the next field, not enter.

First Name
Last Name
Address
City
State
Zip
Phone
Email

Have you or a loved one been diagnosed or have:

Mesothelioma:			Yes No
Symptoms of Mesothelioma: Display symptoms			Yes No
Lung Cancer:			Yes No
Fluid in the Lungs/ Pleural Effusion:			Yes No
Did you or your loved one work around asbestos?:			Yes No

Comment / Info Request

Please just hit Submit once, then wait for the form to be sent

Mesothelioma and Lung Cancer News - July 2004

Big Compensation Payout Too Late

Asbestos Dust Delays Moving in of Tenants, Norwich City

Damning report released on James Hardie's compensation fund

Everything to live for

Collision Coming Over Farm Worker Legalization News Analysis

Collision Coming Over Farm Worker Legalization
News Analysis