Mesothelioma Health News

An art teacher who had his students stack damaged asbestos-containing floor tiles in the corner of his room has been placed on leave until further notice.

According to an article in the Standard-Examiner, Lee Burningham, a teacher at Box Elder High School in Brigham City, Utah who has taught pottery for 16 years, traditionally has students clean up his art classroom at the end of each semester. As students were scraping clay off the floor on Feb. 27, some tiles that may contain asbestos were loosened, the article notes.

Burningham says he’s complained to the administration about the tiles numerous times but to no avail. When the damaged tiles came loose a few weeks ago, he told the students to stack the roughly 9-inch tiles neatly in a corner.

One week later, however, Box Elder School District Superintendent Martell Menlove ordered the classroom evacuated and put Burningham on paid leave. The teacher says he was never told why he was being placed on leave.

Menlove confirmed that the investigation of Burningham was indeed connected to the asbestos, but declined to give further details. He said the district was taking steps to make the room safe.

“We’ve hired a contractor to come in and make sure the room is clear of any asbestos so we can bring the kids back in,” he said.

Communication about the asbestos problem has improved recently, Burningham told the Standard-Examiner.

“The district has contacted me, and we are talking about what it would take to get a new floor in the classroom and how to keep some of the artwork in the classroom that might have asbestos on it.”

Burningham says he is compiling a report on the incident for the school district’s review and that his students have rallied around him with intentions to defend his actions if necessary.

“I wouldn’t be a teacher if it weren’t for the students. The focus of everything we do here needs to revolve around them,” Burningham adds.

A Raleigh, N.C. daycare center was closed earlier this week, nearly a year after it was discovered that the building was full of asbestos and lead paint hazards.

According to a story on NBC-17 News, 50 children will be displaced during removal of the toxic materials at the center, which has been operating for more than 40 years. It is uncertain when and if the building will reopen.

The materials were discovered at the New Bern Avenue Daycare Center after the city was called in to help with a heating problem last April, but it took this long for the center to find another location for the children, the center director told the media.

Some parents have complained that they will be unable to bring their children to the center once it relocates. However, the health of the children is of the utmost importance, director Alyssa Strayhorn notes.

Mayor Charles Meeker said notice to vacate was given almost 11 months ago and the city does not want to disrupt the children any more than required but there are concerns about the safety of the building.

“The major concern throughout has been the health of the children to be sure there is a very clean environment,” Meeker said.

Meeker said the city has not decided what it will do with the building and will likely wait to make that decision after the lead and asbestos is removed and it can assess the cost of getting the building in shape for another use.

Earlier this week, the Ford Motor Company filed an appeal in the case of Antonio Lo Presti, the Western Australian (WA) mechanic and auto worker who was awarded nearly a million dollars in a case against the car manufacturer earlier this year.

According to an Australian Broadcasting Company news story, the giant auto maker launched an appeal with the Australian Supreme Court on the grounds the court made errors in its ruling and findings of liability. The appeal was not unexpected, given the size of the award, which was one of the largest ever in an Australian asbestos liability case.

Lo Presti was employed by numerous Ford dealerships for 17 years throughout the 1970s and 1980s when asbestos was still a major component in car parts such as brakes and clutches. Lo Presti was diagnosed with asbestosis and pleural disease in 2001.

Last month, the Supreme Court of WA ordered Ford to pay Mr. Lo Presti $840,000 in damages, saying the company had “breached its duty of care by failing to warn him about the dangers of asbestos in brakes.”

Ford admitted it knew by 1970 that exposure to certain asbestos fibers could cause asbestos-related diseases, but denied it knew Lo Presti’s type of work could increase the risk. Lo Presti added that while he worked for Ford he was not aware of the asbestos in the brake linings or the danger it posed, nor was he made to wear any sort of protective clothing to prevent the inhalation of asbestos fibers.

Asbestos-containing floor tiles at Bozeman, Montana’s Law and Justice Center are causing numerous disruptions during renovations at the aging building.

According to an article in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, asbestos floor tiles located underneath the carpet have been in the building, a former private school, for decades. As workers endeavor to replace the carpets, the tiles are being disturbed, raising cause for concern among Law and Justice Center employees.

The tiles were okay as long as they remained under the carpet and undisturbed. But state environmental laws require that, as carpeting over the tiles is replaced, all asbestos in those areas be removed, Larry Watson, the county’s grants and projects administrator, said.

It’s dangerous, complicated work that has to be performed by professionals, he added.

“You can’t pull up the carpet without affecting the asbestos-containing tile that’s underneath it,” Watson said. “You have to triple-seal the room with back-pressure. You have HEPA filters running and all that. And you have to hire a qualified abatement team to come in and do that work for you and test the air to make sure the air is clean before a contractor can go in and do the carpeting work.”

Watson says that though asbestos tiles have already been removed from two of the building’s entryways, they remain in several places throughout the facility, which was built prior to the asbestos warnings issued in the mid 1970s. Some staff could lose the use of their offices for as long as two weeks, Watson added.

The project administrator hopes the tedious and costly project will be complete by July.

The Michigan state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has announced that they will shortly begin cleanup at the old Quincy Smelter site in the town of Ripley. The site, which many consider to be historic, has also been pegged an “eyesore” by most of the town’s residents.

According to a story on WLUC-TV, the DEQ will begin the task of removing asbestos from 12 buildings at the site sometime this spring. The decision to go ahead with the cleanup comes after years of discussion among residents and various local and state government and environmental agencies. Most Ripley citizens were relieved to hear the news.

“The big concern is the environment”, says Glenn Ekdahl, the Franklin Township Supervisor. “The O.R.V. trail is right next to the buildings where some of the roofs are off. So, that’s the main concern, is to get the bulk asbestos out of those buildings.”

Project coordinators with the DEQ in Lansing say the “emergency removal” of asbestos is a follow-up to work previously completed at the smelter in 2004 and 2005.  EPA officials from the Chicago office are still putting the paperwork together for the current asbestos removal project. Cleanup crews are expected to start work in late April, or early May, a spokesman said.

Ekdahl says the Township will also do work this summer.

“On the east part there’s 10 acres there where the township would like to put a green space”, he says.  ”At least that’s what the township feels like they need to do; still have accessibility to the lake.”

Great Britain’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the agency responsible for ensuring that risks to people’s health and safety from work activities are properly controlled, has released a new video designed to help tradespeople understand the dangers of asbestos.

Released in conjunction with last week’s Action Mesothelioma Day, the video – entitled “Asbestos: The Hidden Killer” – features the real life story of carpenter Tom King, who suffers from malignant pleural mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer for which the only known cause is exposure to asbestos.

The video comes of the heels of a recent study by the HSE which demonstrated that the majority of young tradesmen in Britain are unaware of the health hazards of the dangerous mineral.

In the film, Tom King speaks candidly of his struggles with mesothelioma, which generally kills its victims within a year or two of diagnosis.

“It’s taken away 85% of what I do, my life has been cut short. If I had known of the dangers of the asbestos when I was younger I would have taken the right precautions. If I’m very lucky I’ll say I’ve got three years left, but it may just be a year.”

Judith Hackitt, chair of the Health and Safety Commission, stressed the importance of the commission’s ongoing asbestos awareness campaign in a press release to local media.

“Every week twenty tradesmen die simply because they have breathed in asbestos fibers during the course of their work. The problem today is that we associate it with a problem that’s been and gone because asbestos is now banned. We regard asbestos as something a previous generation was exposed to,” she explains. “There is a real risk that the younger generation entering the workforce today will think this does not apply to them but it does. If they work on any building built or refurbished before the year 2000 it could well contain asbestos.”

Reacting quickly to a potentially volatile situation, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Libby School District held a meeting Monday night to address a vermiculite leak found at Asa Wood Elementary School.

According to a story aired on WPAX-TV, dozens of parents attended the meeting, which centered on a damaged wall found at the school last week. Leaking from the hole in the wall was potentially-dangerous vermiculite. The substance was found by children playing near the hole and some reports allude to the fact that the students were actually handling the toxic substance.

Many of the parents who attended the session said they weren’t convinced that the same scenario wouldn’t happen again.

“I’ve had other parents say ‘gosh, we really didn’t need that’” explains Libby Schools Superintendent Kirby Maki. “It’s pretty unfortunate that we have a building in that particular circumstance, but what are we going to do about that? We try to get W.R. Grace, the government, to pay for a new school; it’s probably not going to happen.”

Maki says he encouraged parents to form a committee to determine whether or not a new school is needed or if suitable repairs and renovations could be made to the Asa Wood School, which was originally designed to be a middle school.

According to the story, Libby High School and Plummer Elementary School received a lot of attention when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency first started cleaning up Libby eight years ago, and this year the EPA already had planned to revisit Libby schools and test for asbestos fibers in the air. The town of Libby has suffered greatly at the hands of the W.R. Grace and Co. vermiculite mine, which mined asbestos-contaminated vermiculite. Hundreds of workers and community members have already died of asbestos-related diseases.

“There’s nothing in particular we’re looking for. There’s no new information, other than I sort of agreed with the idea that it would be good for us to do some follow up air sampling and some follow-up study work in the places where we know there’s suspect material,” said school district spokesperson Paul Peronard.

Apartment residents in Mountain View, Calif., whose furniture and clothing were covered with asbestos dust after a bad roofing job, were able to celebrate a small victory after taking the landlords to small claims court last week.

According to an article in the Mountain View Voice, the couple, Ab and Mina Hashemi, was one of more than a dozen tenants who suffered asbestos exposure last year when a contractor botched a roof job and released asbestos dust into their units at the Americana Apartments. Last week, a small claims judge gave them $7,500, the maximum allowed in his court, to cover the cost of new furniture and clothes. The judge told the Hashemis that he would have made the award larger if he could have.

“This court would give you quite a bit more than you are asking,” said Commissioner Steven Yep in his decision. “What we have here goes well over $7,500.”

Mr. Hashemi estimated damages of over $13,000 for two couches, several business suits and patio furniture that he had to leave behind because it was still covered in asbestos dust.

Linda Rodriguez, appearing on behalf of Prometheus, the company that owns the complex, admitted that “This was an unfortunate learning experience,” and blamed the problem on the roof itself, which was unknown to be missing a necessary piece of sheet metal above the ceiling. She also pointed out that 18 of the complex’s 24 buildings were built between 1969 and 1972, when asbestos-containing “popcorn” ceilings were the norm. Asbestos was also used in drywall tape throughout the building in question.

Residents say workers were unaware of the presence of asbestos and pounded violently on the roof and even cut right through the ceiling during the project, releasing tons of asbestos dust. Reports show that asbestos was found in the Hashemi’s apartment at four times the limit an environmental contractor found to be safe.

According to the article, Rodriguez said that tenants were quickly notified of the problem and apartments were sealed off. But in court, Ab Hashemi played a phone message from Prometheus manager Mike Drouin telling the couple that air sampling for their apartment had come back “absolutely perfect” several days after the problem arose.

Though Rodriguez still maintains that the couches weren’t ruined and that the clothes could have been cleaned, Commissioner Yep sided with the Hashemis.

“I don’t think they are useable after being exposed to asbestos four times the level,” Yep said. “You will get your full amount, plus cost.”

Concerned about the Hashemis, Yep asked, “Have you folks checked your health?” “How are you doing?”