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Asbestos was once thought of as a miracle element and a fireproofing and insulation wonder. It was soon discovered that workers were dying as a result of being exposed to asbestos. The first known group of victims was factory workers. In the 1970's, the Environmental Protection Agency put out a strongly worded caution against asbestos.
It is now recommended by regulators that, if asbestos is found in a building, it should be left alone until an Asbestos Removal Firm has been called in to contain it. These companies have to be approved by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a wing of the Department of Labor.
Since the EPA announcement, an entire cottage industry of law firms devoted to representing Mesothelioma victims - those who had chronic exposure to asbestos dust - has sprung up. In 2002, 200,000 asbestos-related lawsuits were jamming the court dockets, nationwide.
It has also recently been discovered that second-generation asbestos poisoning is a big concern. Children who have been exposed at school, or at home, are coming down with the disease that is caused only by the asbestos fiber. Whether the asbestos dust was introduced as a result of air in a family laundry room, or from the clothing that the father wore home from work, these cases are contributing to the total of 5,000 asbestos-related victims (first and second generation) that die from the disease each year.
The Mesothelium is a membrane that forms the lining of several body cavities - the abdomen (peritoneum), the heart (pericardium) and the chest (thoracal). The disease is sometimes found in male and female reproductive organs, as well. In Mesothelioma, the cells in the lining become abnormal and divide without control or order. They can invade and damage nearby tissues and organs.
Mesothelioma is thought to be a very difficult disease to cure. When symptoms are first experienced, and eventually presented at treatment facilities, the misshapen and malignant cells have proliferated, and imbedded themselves in the lining, and it is usually too late for treatment to take positive effect.
When it is indicated as a viable alternative, surgery to remove the tumor is usually the option of choice. It has been reported that doctors who think they are operating on hernias sometimes discover, instead, a Mesothelioma-induced tumor in the groin, which is usually not curative. Simpler procedures include a thoracentesis, in cases where fluid build-up is making it hard for the patient to breathe. In this treatment, fluid in the chest is removed by placing a needle in the chest cavity. This will help the patient breathe more easily, but does not cure the cancer.
There does appear to be hope for the victims of Mesothelioma. In cases where the patient is in relatively good health, and the cancer has not spread, curative surgery (as opposed to palliative surgery, which is just meant to improve the quality of the patient's life) will be performed. Such curative surgery for Mesothelioma is being performed in medical centers across the nation, and there are reports of a few patients experiencing long remissions of their disease.
There is even further reason for optimism on the horizon. In Sydney, Australia, in 2002, tests on lab mice were conducted in which the mice were injected with Mesothelioma cells and then treated with immune building drugs, and a chemotherapy drug called coramsine.
The mice went on to recover from the Mesothelioma…and actually developed a resistance to tumors that scientists subsequently attempted to introduce into the animal's bodies. (The mice rejected the tumors, and thus, the tumors were not able to "take".)
It is thought that such treatment will soon be improved upon, and applied to humans.
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