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FILE NAME Newspaper & Magazine Articles NMA DATE 1967 Dec 26 DOC NMA010 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION Washington Post - New Cancer Cause Puzzle to Doctors Puzzle w Cancer Cause Cause ; . Middlesex General Hospital in , New Brunswick N.J. a few miles from the nation's . Tuesday Dec. 26_ 1967 | Puzzle to Doctors largest asbestos plant one No state lists the disease in . that employs 5000 workers its workmen compensation In the past three years no laws so nobody afflicted with By THOMAS O'TOOLE Washington Post WASHINGTON A fatal cancer of the chest and abdominal cavities is cropping up antong the nation's asbestos workers So rare that 20 years ago it wasn't even in textbooks The the medical cancer is called Mesothelioma and disease brought on by years of breathing asbestos dust Dr. Selikoff also found that 45 of the mean had died of lung cancer a rate 6.6 times higher than that in the normal adult male population Even more surprising he found five deaths due to Mesothelioma This incidence of more than 1 percent said Dr. Selikoff fewer than 19 cases ol Mesothelioma passed through Middlesex General Only two of the 19 were not workers at the nearby asbestos plant one a woman who apparently inhaled asbestos dust in laundering her work clothes the spinster who lived husband's second a one block from the plant it can be paid damages for his affliction Even now the first test cases are in the courts ' where they may conceivably | stay for the next five to 10 | years The fact that nobody knows | how much exposur to asbestos can bring on the disease has created controversy too seems almost peculiar to is strikingly high for tumor A relatively new disease Most laws stipulate that people exposed to asbestos which is generally considered Mesothelioma is also one of asbestos workers be in an Ironically those with the deadly stricken disease to be extremely rare Dr. Selikoff then launched a the most difficult diseases confront modern medicine to environment where there is no more than five million include a nurse whose father worked in an asbestos plant and a man who handled asbestos for no more than a . month while he insulated the plumbing in his own house Mesothelioma was first spotlighted in 1960 when South African doctor found 32 cases among the people living follow study consecutive deaths of 307 among It is almost impossible to treat Middlesex General's Dr. asbestos insulation workers Maxwell Borow says that even throughout Northeast surprise the whole Again to his he turned up 10 the most potent cancer drugs have no effect on it About all that radiation deaths due to Mesothelioma treatments do he says is About the same time the remove some of the fluid that the Pennsylvania State builds Department of Health began a in in the lunlgungss from particles of asbestos dust per one cubic foot of air - a regulation that many in the. asbestos industry fought years to get approved But with Mesothelioma the disease might be brought on by exposure to as little as one- tenth or hundredth that and working in the Cape of blind study to find how " disease 100 percent limit We're really over a disease is 100 percent The Good Hope asbestos fields Mesothelioma might be fatal Dr. Borow states barrel on this one states one up and Alerted to the probletihins affecting the more than 5000 doctor usually takes less than a year Because we don't same doctor turned up 57 asbestos workers scattered after diagnosis to run know how much exposure its more cases in the next two about the state causes the disease we don't course To 162 hospitals in the it it know what to recommend years many Southeastern part of the state Nobody knows why it Despite obstacles like these Nobody knows how many attacks have had they sent a questionnaire some asbestos research has begun in a Americans Mesothelioma Even today asking the hospitals to report workers and not others or handful of places to find out the all Mesotheliomas diagnosed why some victims of more about the ailment doctors have trouble spotting 1958 and 1963 disease get it after an Mount Sinai's Dr. Scheff is it - whether they're trying to _ : it in a person still between Back came 42 documeanppt areentdly mild exposure University to now constantly monitoring the of Asbestos diagnose 11 asbestos alive or pin it down at an cases of the disease only The 1500 members of the Medicine of which could not be traced : Michigan School of Workers Union in autopsy studies in to asbestos exposure cites one case of a man who metropolitan New York The In three separate _ Ten victims of the disease was exposed to asbestos for Philadelphia local of the same the last three years doctors about a month while he turned out to be men who union has started a sinular in three states have turned up worked in asbestos plants insulated his house Six years 71 cases Oddly 11 of them lived to have had no real Eight were people who later he was Mesothelioma dead of program Hospital with Hahneman to uncover more appeared to asbestos The near asbestos plants most of * exposure other 60 could all be traced their lives Three were Even the nature of the information to asbestos contact either members of families who had disease is little understood Middlesex General's Dr. ' worked with it one or more asbestos worke Whirle it's generally known that 7 Borow says that he is in the ' because they lived with people who did or members a three the disease attacks the lining process of setting up a in lived neighborhoods where girl whose father was an of the chest and abdomen traveling exhibit to bring ' the air was heavily laden with asbestos engineer a nurse nobody knows how it gets . attention to the disease He's asbestos dust whose father had worked for there i doing it with a 3500 dollar The first American study 35 years in an asbestos plant When asbestos dust is grant from the Papermakers was one run in 1964 by Dr. and a woman with two sons inhaled the fibers get trapped - Union which represents the Irving J. Selkkoff of New who worked as asbestos in the lungs where they form asbestos workers in the New York's Mount Sinai Hospital insulators in a shipyard gummy deposits This Jersey plant Dr. Borow who began the study to see if Of 10 deaths which seemed explains how asbestosis gets studied cancer in any way affected questionable asbestos started and perhaps even It wasn't easy getting the the lives of the asbestos exposures two turned out to lung cancer One theory is money Dr. Borow went to 40 _ insulation workers in the New York Metropolitan area Tracing the lives of C32 members of the asbestos workers union who were on the union rolls before Jan. 1 be almost bizarre One was a Swiss cheesemaker who worked almost his entire life around a large boiler covered with Asbestos insulation that flaked off at the touch that that the gummy substance builds up around the asbestos fiber lodged in | lung can cancer elsewhere in cause the body the ; But how does it do it Nobody - organizations before he got it including the American Cancer Society and the Public Health Service Any attention the disease gets might come ---- ----too 1943. Dr. Selikoff found that 255 of them had 1. 1963 Some of what died by Jan , he found did not surprise him - that 12 of the 255 died of asbestosis a Another was a worker in a brewery where it turned out that beer is filtered through pulp filters made essentially of cotton fiber and asbestos The most convincing study knows . : Becausiet is such a new and little understood disease Mesothelioma is some serious also creatin~ social and us economic problenis com soon More than 1 million tons of asbestos is consumed these days in the US with more than 3000 separate uses being reported for the growing fibe known but decreasingly fatal due to antibiotics is the most recent one conducted by a team of a ARCH 18745