Document ppVrv4XjE6E659RNaJ490ybX6

FILE NAME: Newspaper & Magazine Articles (NMA) DATE: 1967 Dec 26 DOC#: NMA010 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Washington Post - New Cancer Cause Puzzle to Doctors ...v,w Cancer Cause Middlesex General Hospital m , New Brunswick, N.J., a few miles from- the nation's Tuesday. Dec. 26- l.% 7 Puz*z,le to Doctors largest asbestos ' plant, one No state lists the disease m that employs 5900 workers. its workmen compensation fn the past three years, no ' laws, so nobody a/flicted with Gy THOMAS O'TOOLE disease brought on by years fewer than 19 cases of it can be paid damages for his Washington Pust of breathing asbestos dust. Mesothelioma passed through affliction. Even now, the first WASHINGTON - A fatal Dr. Selikoff also found that Middlesex General. Only two test cases are in the courts, cancer of the chest and 45 cf the mean had died of of (he 19 were not workers at where they may conceivably abdomir ;; cavities is cropping lung cancer, a rale 6.6 times the nearby asbestos plant, one stay for the next five to 10- up among the nation's higher than that in the normal a woman who apparently years. asbestos workers. adult male population. Even inhaled asbestos dust in The fagt that nobody knows So rare that 20 years ago it more surprising, he found five, laundering her husband's how much exposin'" to wasn't cvc:i in the medical deaths due to Mesothelioma t work clothes, the second a asbestos can bring on the textbooks. ' The cancer is "This incidence of more than spinster who lived one block disease h a s c r e a t e d catted Mesothelioma, and 1 pet cent," said Dr. Selikoff, from the plant. .controversy, too. seems almost peculiar to people exposed to asbestos. Ironically, those stricken with the deadly disease 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 and working in the Cape of Good Hope asbestos fields. A lerted to the problem, .thissam e doctor turned up 57 more cases in the next two years. Nobody knows how many Americans h a v e h a d Mesothelioma. Even today doctors have trouble spotting it -- whether they're trying to diagnose it in a person still alive or pin it down at an autopsy. In three separate studies in the last three years, doctors in three states have turned up 71 cases. Oddly, 11 of them appeared to have had no real " is strikingly high for a tumor A relatively " new" disease. Most laws stipulate that which is' generally considered Mesothelioma is also one of asbestos workers bo in an lo be extremely rare." the most difficult diseases to environment w.hcre is no Dr. Selikoff then launched a confront modern medicine. foiiow-on s t u d y of 307. T, . . , . ... . ; more than five It is almost impossible to , ,, million consecutive deaths among treat. Middlesex General's Dr. Particles o( asbestos dust per asbestos insulation workers Maxwell Borow says that ever. on cubic foot of air -- a thnjughout t h e w h o l e the most potent anti<ancer' regulation that many in the Northeast. Again, to his drugs have no effect on it. asbestos industry fought years surprise, he turned up 10 About all that radiation. (0 et approved, deaths due to Mesothelioma. treatments do, he says, is But with Mesothelioma, the About the same time, the remove some of the fluid that disease might be brought on Pennsylvania S t a t e builds up in the lungs from, by exposure to as little as one- Department of Health began a. the disease. ' tenth or one-hundredth that blind study to find how Mesothelioma m i g h t be "The disease is 100 percent "We' re over a affecting the more than 5000 fatal." Dr. Borow states, " and ^ on, ^ s one- slates one asbestos workers scattered usually takes less than a veat f 0^ 01"' Because we don t about the state. after diagnosis to run its know h w J much ] causes the disease, we don't To 162 hospitals in th e , course.' know what to recommend." Southeastern part of the state Nobody knows why it Despite obstacles like these, they sent a questionnaire, attacks s o m e asbestos research has begin in a asking the hospitals to report workers and not others, or handful of places to find out all Mesotheliomas diagnosed Why some victims of the more about the ailment. between 195S and 1963, disease- , get it after an Mount Sinai's Dr. Sch'-uTf is Back came 42 documented apparently mtld exposure to now monUoring tUe cases of the disease, only 11 asbestos. The University of 130Q members pf the ^ .,S[C, of which could not be traced Michigan School of Medicine W o r k e r s U n i o n in to asbestos exposure. cites one case of a man who metropolitan Nt, v York. The Ten victims of the disease was exposed to asbestos for ^ ^ 3 local of th, same turned out to be men who about a month while h e -------- .- ... -- worked in asbestos plants. insulated his house. Six years 1union has started a similar Eight were people who lived later, he. was dead of program with Hahneman exposure to asbestos. The near asbestos plants most of Mesothelioma. - Hospital to uncover more other 60 could all be traced their lives. Three were Even the nature of the information, to asbestos contact, either because they worked with it. lived with people who did or lived in neighborhoods where the air was heavily laden with asbestos dust. The first American study w as one run in 1964 by Dr. Irving J. Setkkoff of New Y ork's Mount Sinai Hospital, who began the study to see if cancer in any way affected the lives of the asbestos insulation workers in the New York Metropolitan area. Tracing the lives of C32 m em bers of the asbestos workers union who were on the union rolls before Jan. L 1943. Dr. Selikoff found that 255 of them had died by Jan. 1, 1953. Some of what he found did not surprise him -- that 12 of the 235 died of asbestosis, a long-known but decrcasingly fatal (due to antibiotics) members of families who had one cr more asbestos worker members -- a three-year-old girl whose-' father was an asbestos engineer, a nurse whose father had worked for 33 years in an asbestos plant and a woman with two sons who worked as asbestos insulators in a shipyard. Of 10 deaths which seemed " questionable" a s b e s t o s exposures, two turned out to be almost bizarre. One was a Swiss cheesemaker, w h o worked almost his entire life around a large boiler covered with Asbestos insulation that flaked off at the touch. Another was a worker in a brewery, whore it turned out that beer is filtered through pulp filters made essentially of couch fiber and asbestos. The most convincing study is the most recent one -- conducted by a team of disease is little understood. " Middlesex General's Dr. While It's generally known that Borow says that he is in the the disease attacks the lining' process of setting up a of the chest and abdom en,. traveling exhibit to bring nobody knows how it g e ts . attention to the disease. He's there. doing it with, a 3500 dollar When asbestos dust is grant from the Papermakers inhaled, the fibers get trapped Union, which represents the in the lungs, where they fo ra , asbestos workers in the New gummy d e p o s i t s . T h i s ! Jersey plant Dr. Borow explains how asbestosis gets Studied. started, and perhaps e v e n . It wasn't easy getting the lung cancer. One theory is money. Dr. Borow went to 40 that the gummy substance ! organizations before he got it that builds up around the 1-- including the American asbestos fiber lodged in the Cancer Society and the Public lung can cause cancer : Heaith Service. eLcwhere in the body. But Any attention the disease how docs it do it? Nobody gets might come none too knows.__ . __ ; soon. More than 1 million tons Becuuse it is such a hew of asbestos is consumed these and little understood disease, days in the US, with more Mesothelioma is also ^ ^ us,, h?in, some senous soci . .0 reporte(j jor (he fast-growing economic problems. - - . fiber. ARCH 18745