August 13, 2008
Marvin Penn was diagnosed with mesothelioma and, in June, was awarded a 16 million dollar verdict in an asbestos-related lawsuit. This is believed to the first asbestos lawsuit that named a dental tape manufacturer as a defendant.
Marvin was a postal carrier who was thinking of changing jobs in the 1960′s so he enrolled in a dental technician school. There he was exposed to asbestos in making dental castings because the dental tape used contained asbestos.
Initially, there were two dental tape manufacturers named in the suit but one, Dentsply, settled before the verdict. Twenty percent of the liability was assigned to Dentsply; another twenty percent was assigned to Kerr Corporation, the other dental tape manufacturer.
Penn also worked at a post office near the World Trade Center and was there at a time when the building was being sprayed with an asbestos spray. The jury attributed 40 percent of the liability to the spray.
The remaining 20 percent of the liability was assigned to Todd Shipyards where Penn’s father had worked as a steamfitter. Therefore, Penn had risk of secondary asbestos exposure.
Interesting case and verdict. Who would have thought that dental tape contained asbestos? Another point made in this decision is how even the secondary asbestos exposure can lead to lung disease such as mesothelioma and asbestosis.
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Asbestos, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma, lawsuits, verdict | Tagged: asbestos exposure, Asbestos Litigation, Asbestosis, dental tape, Mesothelioma, mesothelioma treatment, secondary asbestos exposure | 
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Posted by Dave Austin
August 11, 2008
Libby Montana residents, current and former, continue their battles against mesothelioma, an asbestos caused disease now being linked to the W.R. Grace facility that operated there for decades.
A report in the American Journal of Industrial Disease indicated that an epidemic of this disease could be expected in Libby in the next 10 to 20 years.
Dr. Alan Whitehouse, a pulmonologist on the front line of asbestos disease treatment in Libby, wrote the report with input from four other doctors, including Dr. Brad Black of the Center for Asbestos Related Disease, or CARD Clinic, in Libby.
The CARD Clinic is the focal point for diagnosis and treatment of asbestos-related diseases in the area. They are documenting the cases and there are a number of cases where the victims had no exposure from working at the mine or being in contact with mine workers.
One of the mesothelioma victims – a 52-year-old woman who was diagnosed in 2000 and died three years later – reported that her car was covered with dust on a daily basis at the end of the workday. The medical and dental office where she worked was five miles southwest of the vermiculite mine and a mile north of Libby. Many of the clinic’s patients were mine employees who were seen after a work shift.
Another victim, an 82-year-old man, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2002 and died the same year. He lived in Libby for 10 years beginning in the early 1960s, across the Kootenai River from the expansion and bagging plant. He had no other known exposure to asbestos.
Because mesothelioma doesn’t show up for 30-40 years after exposure, the residents of Libby who lived there in the time period from about 1940 to 1970 are just now being diagnosed with the disease. The National Cancer Institute has indicated that exposure as small as one or two months could lead to a mesothelioma diagnosis decades later and, by the time of diagnosis, the survival rate is generally 8 months to a year.
In Libby, there have been over 200 asbestos deaths and the CARD clinic has 2000 more that they are following.
In 1999, the Daily Inter Lake and Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote about the mine and the hundreds of people who were getting sick. Dr. Whitehouse met with his medical peers in the Kalispel community and warned them about what to expect.
“This is the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “God knows how many have been exposed. It could be a horrendous epidemic.”
Leave a Comment » | Asbestos, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma | Tagged: "asbestos health dangers", American Journal of Industrial Disease, asbestos exposure, CARD Clinic, Center for Asbestos Related Disease, Libby Montana, Mesothelioma, mesothelioma epidemic, National Cancer Institute, WR Grace | Permalink
Posted by Dave Austin
