In April 2009, the Asian Asbestos Conference (AAC 2009) was held in Hong Kong. This landmark event accelerated the ban asbestos debate in China, the world’s largest asbestos user. New contacts were made and conduits developed with campaigners working in China on issues relating to occupational and environmental health. As a result of the discussions and demonstrations held in Hon Kong, the Asian Ban Asbestos Network (A-BAN) was formed.

Researchers from the North Carolina State University, The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences used a mouse model to examine the effect of inhalation of multi-walled carbon nanotubes on the lungs.

PINEHURST – The FirstHealth of the Carolinas Clinical Trials Department has partnered with the Wake Forest School of Medicine to promote participation in a research study investigating the development and progression of asbestos-related lung diseases and cancers.

Before she dies, Dorothy Kuykendall wants her day in court. The 76-year-old from Terre Haute was exposed to asbestos, a toxin that can lead to a deadly cancer called mesothelioma, more than three decades ago when she handled the material regularly as a worker at the city’s Glas-Col Apparatus Co.

Despite the best surgical efforts, complete removal of mesothelioma is possible in approximately 30% of the patients. When surgical removal is complete, chemotherapy followed by radiation therapy is recommended as an effort to improve control over the cancer and survival. This combination of treatments is called TRIMODALITY therapy. Unfortunately, the chances for the tumor coming back after TRIMODALITY therapy remains high. When surgical removal is not complete or not possible, some patients may receive chemo and/or radiation therapy to achieve control over the cancer, but the chances of tumor to growth again remains high and the chances of long term survival remains low.

World Health Organization continues to condemn the use of toxic chrysotile asbestos and the mining of the lethal substance while Quebec actively mines the cancer causing product.

Canadian provinces continue to allow LAB Chrysotile to mine asbestos materials known to cause fatal cancers, such as mesothelioma.

The family of a man who died of asbestos exposure from his work on a Navy ship won reinstatement of their claims against the makers of the vessel’s steam valves and pumps, in a California appeals court.

The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) today announced its support for the Surgeon General`s statement acknowledging the dangers of asbestos and thanks the U.S. Senate for continued efforts to encourage a warning. The discovery of the April 1, 2009 acting U.S. Surgeon General statement is greatly appreciated by ADAO, who has always encouraged an official warning about asbestos dangers, as recommended by a U.S. Senate Resolution establishing the first week of April as “National Asbestos Awareness Week.”

The study showed that Hanford workers were 11 times more likely to develop mesothelioma, a cancer of the lungs strongly tied to asbestos exposure, than the general population. They were three times more likely to develop multiple myeloma, a cancer found in white blood cells.

A team of scientists at Oxford University announce the development of a better diagnostic test for asbestos related mesothelioma lung cancer. The asbestos testing study was recently published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.