Thousands of individuals who claim their mesothelioma diagnosis was caused by asbestos products manufactured by Garlock Sealing Technologies may only have a few weeks to provide information about their illness so they can get their settlement.

According to Dow Jones Newswires, as part of Garlock’s current bankruptcy proceedings, the company is requesting that the nearly 4,000 people with a pending asbestos lawsuit against it provide information about their mesothelioma claims by February 28,2012. The company claims it needs this information so it can accurately set up a trust that will hold money for the mesothelioma settlements that it will be dealing with in the future.

Under the company’s current bankruptcy plan, which is still subject to court approval, Garlock will be able to settle all current allowed asbestos claims and put $140 million into the asbestos trust to handle future claims. Claimants who do not bring forward information by the deadline could have their cases dismissed.

Setting up monetary trusts for mesothelioma settlements has become the norm for manufacturing companies that used asbestos and have been forced out of business due to the mesothelioma lawsuits brought against them.

If you or a loved one have developed mesothelioma that can be linked toasbestos exposure that was caused by a product or former employer, call Sokolove Law today to learn more about potentially pursuing amesothelioma lawsuit.

A successful series of UK advertisements that helped spread the word about the dangers of asbestos but saw its funding cut last year is set to return in 2012.

According to The Daily Mirror, the government-run advertising campaign – dubbed “Hidden Killer” – was started in 2008 and emphasized the increased risk of asbestos exposure that workers in the construction industry faced. However, last year the campaign was halted after its budget was slashed amid a number of budget cuts.

After pressure from a number of anti-asbestos groups and unions, the Health and Safety Executive revived the anti-asbestos ad campaign for 2012.

Educating the public about the dangers associated with asbestos is extremely important in the UK. The Mirror reported that 4,000 people die of asbestos-related diseases annually, and that 2,000 died ofmesothelioma in 2010.

If you or a loved one were exposed to asbestos and now suffer frommesothelioma, there is legal action worth pursuing. Speak to Sokolove Law today to learn more about mesothelioma lawsuits.

A 66-year-old man from Niagara Falls who used to work with asbestosmaterials and now suffers from mesothelioma was awarded a $2 millionmesothelioma settlement by a New York jury.

According to the Buffalo News, Gerald Failing was diagnosed withperitoneal mesothelioma last December. Failing worked in the compound department at Durez Plastics in North Tonawanda from 1966-1978 and he was able to recollect molding mixes he regularly used that contained asbestos fibers that were often released into the air.

Failing brought a mesothelioma lawsuit against Hedman Resources Inc., a Canadian asbestos mining company that supplied the asbestos-laden mixes but never warned workers of the dangers that could result from exposure to the fibers.

The jury sided with Failing, assigning all blame and responsibility for damages to Hedman. The trial was expedited due to the fact that peritoneal mesothelioma spreads very quickly and often kills it victims within one year of diagnosis.

If you or a loved one have worked with asbestos in any type of profession, and have since developed an asbestos illness such as mesothelioma, you may want to speak to an asbestos attorney about pursuing a lawsuit. Call Sokolove Law today to learn more aboutasbestos law and what it takes to successfully pursue a mesothelioma lawsuit.

An asbestos lawsuit in Missouri filed by a Jackson County Courthouse employee has settled for $10 million, the largest asbestos settlement in the history of the state.

According to The Associated Press, Nancy Lopez filed the asbestos lawsuit against the U.S. Engineering Co. for failing to take proper precautions to protect courthouse worker while handling asbestos. Lopez worked at the courthouse in Kansas City for 27 years. She developed mesothelioma cancer from her asbestos exposure and died from the disease in October 2010. The asbestos lawsuit settlement was awarded to her family late last month.

If you or a loved one experienced asbestos exposure and later developed mesothelioma, call an asbestos attorney at Sokolove Law today for a free consultation.

Mesothelioma clinical trials are medical research studies used to test new mesothelioma treatments to see how they affect people. Clinical trial proceed in several stages. What follows is a brief overview of Phase III and IV trials.

Phase III clinical trials for mesothelioma compare the safety and effectiveness of the new treatment against the current standard treatment. Drug treatments that have been proven relatively safe in phase I and that work against mesothelioma in phase II studies can advance to the third stage of testing.

Phase III clinical trials typically enroll a large number of patients, at least several hundred. These studies are often done in many different locations at the same time. Phase III studies are often randomized and double-blinded. What that means is that patients are chosen at random to get either the standard treatment or the new treatment and neither the patient nor the doctor knows which treatment the patient is getting. Placebos are sometimes used in phase III studies but not alone if there is already a treatment available that works.

Phase IV Clinical Trials for Mesothelioma

Phase IV studies are a comprehensive Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review. The treatment is delivered along with a new drug application for approval. The FDA will review the results from the studies conducted in the first four phases and ask questions, order more tests, or simply approve the new drug. The approval of the new drug can be stalled by up to five additional years if more tests are required.

But if the FDA approves the drug in this phase, it becomes the new standard of care which all newer drugs must test against before being approved for use.

For more information on mesothelioma clinical trials and their phases, visit the American Cancer Society.

If you would like to take part in a mesothelioma clinical trial, start by asking your doctor if your clinic or hospital conducts any. ACS has a “clinical trials matching service” available online. You can also get a list of current clinical trials by visiting the National Cancer Institute’s clinical trials Web site at www.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials.

Contact Sokolove Law about filing a mesothelioma lawsuit that may result in a mesothelioma settlement that could help you and your family get in-home medical care and pay off medical bills, debts, and other expenses.

Phase 0 mesothelioma clinical trials are designed to determine if and how a new mesothelioma drug might work in a human. Mesothelioma patients are currently not eligible to enroll in phase 0 studies, but they may be in the near future.

Mesothelioma in any stage is challenging to treat because it tends to spread from the mesothelial lining along nearby surfaces, nerves, and blood vessels. This makes it very difficult, except in rare situations, to completely get rid of it with surgery and chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Additional treatment options are being developed over time through the clinical trial process. This article is the first of a three-part series for patients who may be interested in enrolling in a mesothelioma clinical trial.

Both plaintiffs and defendants in asbestos lawsuits agree that asbestoscauses 80 to 90 percent of all mesothelioma cases. You would think that it naturally follows that 80 to 90 percent of mesothelioma lawsuit plaintiffs do not have to prove to a jury that asbestos exposure caused their mesothelioma. Until recently, that was not the case. Instead, through a legal process called reverse bifurcation, most if not all mesothelioma lawsuit plaintiffs had to first prove in court that their mesothelioma diagnosis is tied to past asbestos exposure. Once this was proved – and it usually was — most cases settled out of court.

Now, as reported by the Legal Intelligencer, after nearly a quarter of a century of trying asbestos lawsuits with reverse bifurcation, the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court’s mass torts program for asbestos began “straight-through trials” of asbestos cases in which it is uncontested that plaintiffs have mesothelioma because of asbestos exposure.

“Straight through trial” basically means that the plaintiffs do not first have to prove to the court – with documents and records and other evidence – that asbestos exposure caused their mesothelioma. Instead, the court takes for granted that it did, in which case most lawsuits settle out of court. So far though, even those that have gone through to trial have ended favorably for plaintiffs. One such mesothelioma patient and his family won $4.5 million in a recent trial verdict.

It’s good news for mesothelioma victims and not so good news for some defendants who make or have made asbestos-containing products. Examples of companies that had ready defenses to disprove asbestos exposure from their products as the cause of mesothelioma in a plaintiff include break pad manufacturers and insulation companies. These defendants would use reverse bifurcation to fight off taking responsibility for the victim’s illness. Hopefully, more states will follow PA’s lead on this.

If you or a loved one has suffered from asbestos exposure and later developed mesothelioma, call an asbestos attorney at Sokolove Law today for a free consultation.

When repairs were needed on an old nuclear power plant in Surry, VA, contract workers were called in to do the work. Hundreds of workers were hired including electricians, pipe fitters, general laborers and other contractors from eight different companies. When a dozen workers were caught in a cloud of asbestos after cutting some old pipe, the workers reported the incident. The exposed workers report that they were told all asbestos-containing pipes would be clearly labeled, but they were not labeled at all.

A state investigation ensued and six of the eight companies involved in the plant restoration work were cleared of blame. The company that was in charge of labeling the asbestos-containing pipes and products and that was tasked with safely removing asbestos from the building was Hopewell-based Quality Specialties Inc. and they were fined $4,900 for not labeling the pipes. The state has targeted one other company – Dominion Power, the electricity supplier for VA and NC and the owner of the power plant — to take partial blame for the incident but have not released details of their investigation.

Asbestos was used when the plant was first built to insulate pipes and other parts of the plant from excessive heat. Asbestos has been widely used for such purposes for the past century, but less so in the past 30 years or so since asbestos exposure was definitively tied tomesothelioma and other types of cancer. Asbestos is only carcinogenic when it is airborne and can be breathed into the lungs. Although any amount of asbestos exposure carries risk, mesothelioma victims are usually people who were once exposed to asbestos at a high concentration for an extended period of time.

A spokesperson for the power plant, Richard Zuercher, attempted to assuage the concern of the exposed workers and their families by asserting there was no danger to them. “Most of the asbestos has been removed and replaced with asbestos-free material, including the area where the workers were,” says Zuercher. “There is some equipment with asbestos at the plant, but it has all been abated.”

Zuercher’s statement was proved false, however, after the State Department of Labor and Industry tested the environment and found asbestos fibers on the clothes of the 12 exposed workers as well as in three of the worker trailers.

Exactly how much asbestos the workers were exposed to is indeterminable because the plant’s owner, Dominion Power, did not have air sampling equipment on site at the time of the incident.

Elbert County in Denver, CO has a unique asbestos abatement project to tackle – that of a public landfill and trash compactor site. The site has historically been used to dispose of roofing and building materials, much of which was from before the mid 1970’s when buildings were routinely constructed with an abundance of asbestos. The landfill has been the primary dumping site for such rubbish but then it is compacted into bundles and shipped off to another landfill.

Concern about asbestos at the site arose when a backhoe company began excavating the grounds in preparation to remove an old missile silo. Local residents in the area called in complaints to authorities that contaminants were being spread by the excavation. Subsequent soil tests and tests to the debris at the landfill showed the presence of asbestos. No charges were filed because the asbestos had not yet gone airborne, but rather was contained to the landfill site.

Upon learning of the presence of asbestos among other environmental contaminants, the excavating was ceased and the area was covered, pending professional asbestos abatement services.

Cory Stark, director of Elbert County Emergency Management determined that the backhoe company, Backhoe Services, was operating without having tested the soil first and without a formal contract with the city. As reported by the Denver Post, Backhoe Services could not be reached for comment.

Stark asserts that there has been no danger to local residents so far as the toxins have been contained. Still, local residents have remained cautious and concerned. They are now taking their trash and debris to an alternate dump site.

Asbestos diseases such as lung cancer, asbestosis, and mesotheliomaare the unfortunate result of asbestos exposure. If you have been diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease, contact a mesothelioma lawyer at Sokolove Law today for a free consultation.

If you read the last article we posted about asbestos trust funds, you’ll remember the clever hammock analogy used to describe what they are. If you didn’t read it, you can do so here.

Now, the Government Accountability Office (GOA) – a sort of congressional watchdog group that keeps an eye on government spending of taxpayer dollars – has published a report that reveals the somewhat secretive system of asbestos trust fund payouts.

The report looked at 52 asbestos trust funds that have paid out over 3,000,000 claims for a total of about $17.5 billion. The investigation was prompted by the fact that these asbestos trust funds don’t publish details about their activities, yet do make general information available. Attorneys representing asbestos companies or defendants — in asbestos lawsuits filed by mesothelioma victims – raised a stink about the secrecy of the details and implored congress to get involved. The investigation proceeded to determine if, in fact, these asbestos trust funds were keeping details secret.

The investigation revealed only “one trust’s financial report contained claimant names and amounts paid to these individuals.”

The defendants in asbestos lawsuits have been the critics of asbestos trust fund secrecy. They allege that asbestos lawyers and mesothelioma law firms oversee the operation of these asbestos trust funds to prevent them from revealing how much their clients have been paid. This, they further allege, allows some asbestos attorneys to file claims with multiple trusts that could contradict each other.

The GAO report stated that 98% of asbestos trust fund claims go through what is called an expedited review process, which requires a claim form and some documentation that asbestos exposure happened. Perhaps the lawyers representing the asbestos companies want mesothelioma victims to have to go through much more than that to get the compensation they deserve?

According to the report, 65 percent of asbestos trust funds treat claims information as confidential and privileged. Defendants and insurers want the details to be available to them so they can reduce the value of the claims awarded to mesothelioma victims in court.

If you or someone you know has been diagnosed with mesothelioma and suspect it’s due to asbestos exposure, contact a mesothelioma attorneyat Sokolove Law for a free consultation. Also, write to your local congressman about keeping the details of asbestos trust fund settlements confidential and out of the hands of the asbestos companies

In a health study of Taconite Workers in Iron Range, Minnesota, the number of citizens who died of mesothelioma is higher than they reported a year ago – up from 63 to 82. Researchers found the additional nine cases by checking death records of former residents who moved out of state.

The University of Minnesota is responsible for the study, which started in 2008 and will wrap up as early as mid-2012. So far, results indicate that the rate at which residents have contracted mesothelioma is much higher than it should be.

Mesothelioma is a rare and fatal cancer, caused primarily by exposure toasbestos fibers, which often takes 30 years or more after exposure to show up.

Exactly how Iron Range residents have been exposed to asbestos is a mystery. Speculation includes one theory that workers handled asbestos in certain products then carried it home. Another theory is that processing taconite rock (a low-concentrate iron ore that has been mined and processed in Minnesota since the 1950s) releases asbestos fibers from within the rock into the air. The mystery is what provoked the $4.9 million health study, which was approved by state lawmakers in 2008.

Researchers have collected data on people who worked in mining as far back as the 1920’s. So far, the study shows that out of about 46,000 taconite workers who ever worked in the industry, 1,681 developed some sort of lung cancer.

Currently, the results from more than 2,000 air samples taken over the last two years at Minnesota’s six operating taconite plants show safe dust levels. Asbestos levels are extremely low, according to the study. Silica concentration was found to be higher than acceptable in some cases.

The International Mesothelioma Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston continue to make progress in malignant mesothelioma research. The scientists and doctors involved with the project are looking for information that will lead to better adjuvant therapies for the rare and deadly disease. Adjuvant therapies are treatments given to help boost the effectiveness of other treatments. In the case of malignant mesothelioma, the term “adjuvant therapies” typically refers to treatments that are administered to patients after they have had tumors surgically removed.

In a recent study, scientists used mice to test potential adjuvant therapies. Human mesothelioma cells were introduced into the test mice, allowed to metastasize (to grow), then surgically removed. This procedure turned the mice into workable test subjects for testing ne mesothelioma adjuvant therapies.

One of the therapies researchers studied on the mice was “intracavitary chemotherapy,” which means applying the chemotherapy drug, paclitaxel, into the cavity of the body around the site where the tumor has been removed just prior to closing the incision. The results of this test on the test mice were encouraging.

In a report published in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery, “Paclitaxel-laded Expansile Nanoparticles in a Multimodal Treatment, Model of Malignant Mesothelioma,” the researchers state: “Treatment with [paclitaxel] improved overall survival in the setting of [the surgery], suggesting that [it] merits further evaluation for intracavitary drug delivery following the surgical resection of malignant mesothelioma.” What this means is that this particular adjuvant therapy may be successful in the survival of mesothelioma patients.

Advancements such as these are very important to patients of malignant mesothelioma, as the cancer is serious and fatal.

For those who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma cancer that can be linked to asbestos exposure caused by a product or former employer, you may be entitled to financial compensation. Contact an experiencedmesothelioma attorney to learn more about your rights, and to see if pursuing a mesothelioma settlement is in your best interest.

It’s long been suspected that a person’s genetics play a role in determining susceptibility to the development of mesotheliomafollowing exposure to asbestos fibers. The suspicion caused the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund research that would discover this genetic link. As of August, 2011, the specific gene mutation was not only found, but identified to also trigger other types of cancer.

The culprit is the gene, BAP1. Not a very creative name, is it? Why not name genes after Greek gods and goddesses rather than assigning them boring codes made up of capital letters and numbers? The former would better match the mystical powers genes have to determine so much about a person from appearance to temperament to health and beyond. Anyway, the research showed that people with a mutation on the BAP1 gene are more susceptible to developing both mesothelioma cancer as well as melanoma cancer of the eye.

The upshot is that people who are exposed to asbestos are far more likely to develop mesothelioma if they have this mutation to BAP1. The research was funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and led by scientists at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center in Honolulu, and Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. The study results were published in Nature Genetics and reported the outcome of tests within two U.S. families with a high incidence of mesothelioma and other cancers linked with BAP1 mutations.

The study’s co-leader,Dr. Joseph Testa, notes that “it appears likely that other genes, in addition to BAP1, will be found to be associated with elevated risk of mesothelioma.” In the study, every person in the two families who developed mesothelioma or melanoma of the eye did have mutations of the BAP1 gene. The research team went on to look at 26 additional people diagnosed with mesothelioma but with no family history of the disease and found that 25 percent of them also had the BAP1 mutations.

Dr. Michele Carbone, study co-leader and director of the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, says of the results: “Identifying people at greatest risk for developing mesothelioma, especially those exposed to dangerous levels of asbestos worldwide, is a task made easier by virtue of this discovery.”

This concludes our series on the newest science concerning mesothelioma. These findings are exciting and inspiring of hope that future diagnostic and treatment practices will help people with mesothelioma live longer, healthier lives. Hope is the message we choose to focus on this week following National Mesothelioma Awareness Week.

Because mesothelioma is typically diagnosed at an advanced stage when treatment options are limited, scientists at Somalogic Inc. set out to find ways to detect it at an earlier stage. The goal of early diagnosis is that patients with mesothelioma might be able to enjoy a better quality of life as the fight the illness.

Dr. Rachel Ostroff, a clinical research director of Somalogic Inc. presented her initial results of this ongoing study at the Fourth AACR International Conference on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development. Her results indicated that with the use of aptamer-based proteomics array technology, biomarkers and protein signatures were identified that are characteristic of cancer at an early stage for both mesothelioma and pancreatic cancers.

Aptamer-based proteomics array technology is fairly new in the world of science, developed and refined over the past ten years or so. Aptamers are nucleic acid molecules that bind to certain proteins and were first discovered about 20 years ago. SomaLogic researchers developed a new breed of aptamers called SOMAmers (Slow Off-rate Modified Aptamers), which can be “programmed” for very specific proteins. What this means is that SOMAmers can identify and count specific proteins, or biomarkers, in complex biological samples, thereby identifying potential or inevitable mesothelioma development in people exposed to asbestos.

Ostroff and her colleagues tested blood from study participants – people diagnosed but not yet treated for cancer — to discover the cancer biomarkers. Once discovered, the same technology could be used to spot these cancers at an early stage, where the potential for effective treatment is much higher than in progressed cases.

The goal was met and the researchers found the biomarkers, which they used to make a “signature” biomarker with extreme accuracy for early detection of each form of cancer. As a byproduct of their intended success, they got a little surprise gift: they found high specificity of correct diagnosis, which means the test will be accurate and not lead to disease-free people undergoing unnecessary treatment.

The study is ongoing and validation testing is underway, according to Dr. Ostroff. The research team hopes to have commercially available diagnostic tests that will ultimately yield clinical benefits for patients.

In the next post of this series, we’ll look at a newly discovered genetic link to mesothelioma and what that means for future treatment options.