Mesothelioma - The Products Contain Asbestos

The 1960s saw the onset of litigation seeking to work out whether asbestos was a cause of Mesothelioma, a rare and brutal form of cancer. Thirty years later the verdict was in and the EPA issued an order banning asbestos in products. The ban was overturned in large part in 1991 by an appellate court. The ruling raises the question of what products did and still contain asbestos.

Asbestos is a fibrous form of a few different minerals. It is very unique in nature in that it is a natural heat repellent. It melts only at the highest of temperatures. This makes it a great material for our industrial society because heat and fire is a byproduct of so much of what we do. Given this, asbestos was long viewed as a miracle material of sort. Of course, it was later discovered the fibers could lodge in the lungs and lead to a host of heath problems including lung cancer and Mesothelioma.

We often hear and read about asbestos being used in products. This is a rather vague statement. Just what products are we talking about here? Well, the specific products basically were anything dealing with heat in the 1960s. A classic example included the pipes and boilers in ships. Every sailor can tell you fire is their biggest fear at sea. Asbestos served as a great insulator on ships and was used extensively. Unsurprisingly, many shipyard workers have come down with Mesothelioma over the years.

Ships are great and all as an example, but what about something more common? Well, consider your car. The brakes work by pushing pads against a moving source. As the pads are pushed harder, the moving source slows and so do the wheels. This creates a lot of heat. To combat it, the pads on most vehicles were largely made of asbestos for decades! How about homes and buildings? Fire is again a concern, so asbestos was used in everything from wall insulation to roof shingles to the "popcorn" on ceilings to the insulation around pipes leading from the water heater to...well, just about everything.

The list of products incorporating asbestos are nearly endless. For a long period of time, fire safety equipment used by emergency personnel actually incorporated it! Imagine that! The fortunate news is Mesothelioma did not develop in a vast majority of people who were exposed to asbestos. Given the fact the survival rate is very low, this meant millions of deaths were avoided.

Mesothelioma - An Treatment Difficulties ?

Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that is associated with exposure to asbestos. The disease is a brutal form of cancer because it is very hard to discover and often only is diagnosed in the very late stages. At that point, treatment is often very difficult for a host of reasons. To give you an idea of how difficult, we cover one maddening complication in this article.

Mesothelioma is the cancer of the mesothelium from which it derives its name. The mesothelium is a lining found in the chest and abdomen that acts more or less as a protective sheath for organs such as the heart and lungs. While cancer of the lungs can be easily identified, the same cannot be said for identifying it in the thin lining surrounding them. This is what makes Mesothelioma so deadly. It usually only discovered very late, often after it has grown for 20, 30, 40 years or more.

The cancer is most often found around the Mesothelioma lining of the lungs. To diagnose it, the physicians usually must take a biopsy of the material in the area. This is done by creating a small incision and then inserting the relevant medical tool. A small amount of material is then snipped off, extracted and sent to the pathology office for examination under a microscope. It sounds simple, but here is where the difficulty in dealing with Mesothelioma rears its head.

Surgeons have noticed a unique problem with this form of cancer. When biopsies are taken, the cancer tends to follow the path of intrusion up to the incision point. Cancer growths then take root and begin to flourish in the area. Think about that for a minute. This cancer is so difficult that making an incision can spread it. Given this massive problem, you can see why less than 10 percent of patients survive five years after diagnosis.

Mesothelioma is rare, but vicious. Treatments are improving all the time, but no cure has been found nor is one on the horizon. Given this, it is all the clearer that the partial asbestos ban should be made into a complete and absolute ban before more people suffer.