Sudbury Star Article

Despite ban, asbestos still kills; Conference looks at lung disease

by: Laura Stradiotto Tuesday, May 11, 2007

It was a day to get up close and personal with occupational lung disease.

World-renowned experts gathered at Cambrian College's e-dome on Thursday for the International Conference on occupational Lung Disease: Up Close.

Currently, there are two epidemics related to exposure to asbestos, which is killing hundreds of thousands of people, said Dr. Tee L. Guidotti, professor and head of the department of environmental and occupational health at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

The Sudbury occupational Health Clinic invited local health-care professionals, labour leaders and students to the conference in an effort to draw attention to health issues in the workplace and beyond.
occupational cancer is the most common work-related cause of death in the world. Thirty-two per cent of work-related deaths are caused by cancer, compared to 17 per cent caused by injury.

Asbestos is a strong fibre resistant to heat and flame that was widely used in the past for fireproofing and insulation. However, inhaling the fibres can cause cancer and its use is banned in Canada and other countries.

Guidotti said mesothelioma, a form of cancer most commonly caused by the exposure to asbestos, has reached epidemic proportions.

"We've got an epidemic of people who've been exposed (and) have been carrying around the asbestos particles in their bodies," he said.

These people do not develop cancer until later in life. People at risk have worked with asbestos, such as miners, construction workers and people who manufactured asbestos products, such as brakes, gaskets and asbestos cement pipes.

"We have a mesothelioma epidemic that is continuing now - it's been going on now for a couple of decades and it will probably go on for another couple of decades until all the people who are exposed have, unfortunately, passed on," he said.

The second epidemic is still developing, and involves people who remove asbestos improperly.

"People who come into contact with asbestos these days - other than asbestos miners and exporters - tend to be people whose job requires the removal of asbestos as insulation," said Guidotti.

Often it takes 20 to 30 years for symptoms of mesothelioma to appear.

There is no way to reverse the effects of asbestos exposure, although there are steps you can take to deal with particular problems, he said.

The most common cause of mesothelioma is exposure to asbestos, although genetics and viral infections also determine whether a person will develop the cancer, said Dr. Michele Carbone, professor and director of the thoracic oncology program at the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Statistics show only a small fraction of people exposed to asbestos develop cancer - less than five per cent of asbestos miners develop cancer.

Carbone is studying what makes people more susceptible or resistant to asbestos.

One of the viruses that caused mesothelioma was present in the polio vaccines administered from 1955 to 1963.

"During these span of years, all the vaccines contained this virus," said Carbone.

The vaccine was prepared using monkey cells infected with a deadly virus.

Carbone is also examining why some people are more susceptible than others to similar levels of asbestos exposure. Carbone studied three villages in Turkey where more than half of all the deaths were caused by mesothelioma. People used rocks that contained a fibre similar to asbestos to build their homes.

"We found that some families were much more susceptible to those mineral fibres than other families. As a result of that, we have convinced the Turkish government to build an entire new village, and they did."

At the same time, Carbone was successful in obtaining a $10-million grant from the National Cancer Institute in the U.S. to isolate the gene he says causes mesothelioma.

Once the gene is isolated, the findings will be applied in North America to help develop treatments for mesothelioma.

Carbone is conducting clinical trials in Turkey, using blood tests in the early detection of the cancer. If the trials are successful, the research would prove vital in the treatment of mesothelioma and dramatically increase the survival rate.

lstradiotto@thesudburystar.com