The National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health, or NIOSH, plans to kick off a new study that will investigate the health risks encountered by firefighters. While firefighters face a barrage of risks every day, the NIOSH study will focus on long term, subtle dangers such as the exposure to hazardous chemicals present in smoke and superheated air.

One of the aspects of the NIOSH study will be concerned with the firefighters’ exposure to asbestos during firefighting operations.

Asbestos exposure has long been linked with a wide variety of illnesses and conditions ranging from respiratory difficulties, to scarring of the lungs, to mesothelioma - a rare, aggressive and terminal cancer that attacks the tissue which lines our body’s organs. Mesothelioma affects thousands of people in the United States each year, most of whom are exposed to asbestos through their workplace.

Asbestos materials were used fervently throughout the United States through most of the twentieth century. After the hazard they pose to human health became inarguably clear in the 1980’s, their use, handling procedures and disposal methods became strictly regulated. Asbestos’s surprising fire retardant properties made it specifically useful in fireproofing all kinds of buildings with insulation, wallboard, caulk, tile and other materials mixed with asbestos fibers.

This historic usage of asbestos products could spell trouble for firefighters. During a house or building fire, loose asbestos fibers present in a home’s materials do not burn up, but instead rise into the air due to the incredible heat. It’s possible that this phenomena could create large pockets of asbestos contaminated air around raging house fires or or building fires, putting firefighters not wearing masks and passersby in danger of inhaling the carcinogenic fibers.

NIOSH will combine efforts with the United States Fire Administration to better understand firefighters’ health risks, and to analyze the effects of exposure to the smoke and debris present in burning buildings. While it’s already understood that firefighters face countless toxins and carcinogens such as asbestos and even formaldehyde in the workplace, the long term effects have never been accurately recorded.

The study will take several years to complete, and will involve as many as some 18,000 current and retired firefighters. While firefighting involves certain well understood immediate risks of bodily injury or even death, the NIOSH hopes this new study will uncover silent, long term dangers that could be mitigated.

Speedy Excavating, a small demolition company based out of Surry, B.C. Canada, is facing charges for incorrectly disposing of toxic asbestos containing materials. Government regulations require companies like Speedy Excavating to undergo a licensing process in order to qualify for work which involves toxic materials, a process which is intended to ensure they’re capability in terms of safe, legal demolition and disposal practices.

While the charges were officially brought against the company earlier this month, the accusation concerns illegal disposal of toxic waste that occurred nearly two years ago. In 2008 the company allegedly dumped several loads of asbestos containing drywall at a recycling center in New Westminster, Canada, a center that’s not outfitted to accept toxic materials.

Illegal dumping of asbestos materials exposes the general public to the dangers of asbestos dust. Waste centers which are not equipped for handling toxic materials don’t process the waste in a way that reduces airborne fibers and other forms of contamination. In addition to being unfit for mitigating the risks of asbestos contamination, regular waste and recycling centers don’t require their employees to wear protective masks and other gear, placing them directly in harms way if the waste center’s specific capabilities are not respected.

Asbestos fibers can cause a wide variety of health problems ranging from reduced respiratory function to the development of aggressive, terminal cancers. Nearly one hundred thousand people worldwide develop mesothelioma each year, a cancer of the tissues protecting the body’s vital organs. Environmental protection agencies around the world as well as the World Health Organization recognize asbestos as a toxic substance and campaign to reduce and eliminate its use in various industries.

Jack Trudgin, the B.C. conservation officer, explained that it was Speedy Excavating’s first offense of this kind. He believes that companies like Speedy Excavating may cut corners in an attempt to underbid other companies and stay afloat during time of financial hardship. Shipping asbestos contaminated materials to the proper facilities and having it processed safely is far more expensive than simply dumping it at the nearest waste center.

The New West recycling depot where the materials were dumped two years ago, as well as other waste centers like it, don’t implement any procedures to test the materials for toxic substances, and operate mostly on an honor system.

“It is a terrible situation. And with the recession people are trying to cut corners and this is what has been happening. It is dangerous. Airborne fibers from asbestos are hazardous to people’s health,” said the owner of a hazardous materials transport company, Gary Zappone.

Earlier this year the Orange Public Library in Orange, New Jersey closed due to concerns about lead and asbestos presences in the building. The library was expected to be reopened to the public toward the end of May, but so far its doors are still closed which has sparked some concern.

The building is an excellent example of turn of the century architecture, exhibiting remarkable aspects of the Beaux Art and Classical Revival styles. It was declared a historic landmark some thirty years ago in 1981.

Asbestos exposure is a serious hazard that can lead to the development of terminal diseases such as mesothelioma, a cancer of the tissue that lines the body’s organ systems. The United States Environmental Protection Agency says that there’s no safe level of asbestos exposure, and the World Health Organization recognizes its link to certain cancers and continues to push for a world without without asbestos products.

The substance was used fervently throughout the twentieth century as insulation, and is almost always present in buildings constructed throughout the 1900’s. Federal and state laws require licensed professionals to be hired in order to safely remove asbestos materials when they are discovered, in order to reduce potential exposure to those who work, live, or visit in affected buildings.

The presence of exposed asbestos in the Orange Public Library was discovered by an employee and confirmed by the state’s subsequent investigation. The state then required the library to begin professional asbestos remediation efforts by the end of March, a deadline which the library’s director failed to meet. The date by which action was required was then extended until the end of June, but the director’s failure to begin seeking contractors or otherwise preparing for the project caused the library board to suspend her. The library was was then closed until further notice.

The city and the library had maintained that the building would reopen to the public at the end of May. The month, however, came and went without any word from state or library officials and without any update published on their website.

Asbestos related diseases have sparked a huge wave of litigation over the past several decades as a result of negligence on the part of employers, building owners, and others who exposed hapless victims to the dangerous substance. The discovery of asbestos in a library public building patronized by hundreds of citizens every day could put the library in a difficult spot if any of their employees or members were to develop health issues due to the incident.

A study conducted by researchers in Sydney, Australia has shed some new light on factors associated with longer peritoneal mesothelioma survival rates. The study, published last quarter in The American Surgeon, included twenty patients treated for the disease between 1997 and 2008 at the University of South Wales Department of Surgery.

Peritoneal mesothelioma is characterized by abnormal cell growth and tumor development in the mesothelial tissues of the abdominal organ tissues, and is normally caused by exposure to asbestos. The cancer causes swelling, discomfort and organ dysfunction in its early stages, and organ failure upon spreading to the organs themselves.

The patients included in the study underwent cytoreductive surgery which aimed to remove malignant tumors, as well as heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy with the drugs cisplatin and doxorubicin. Cisplatin and doxorubicin are believed to be more effective in combination than separately, and are administered at temperatures higher than the body’s to increase absorption and efficacy. Nineteen of the twenty patients survived the treatment.

The average survival beyond surgery is 30 months, a finding that’s consistent with other, similar studies and which researchers said was “encouraging” in establishing the accuracy of their findings. The patients which participated in the study were “disease free”, or relatively free of recurring tumors, for an average of eight months after surgery.

A wide variety of factors had noticeable impacts on the patients’ individual responses to surgery and chemotherapy, and on their subsequent survival. Non-smokers within the group studied remained “disease free” for eleven months after treatment, while smokers experienced tumor recurrences just four months after surgery and chemotherapy. Cigarette smoke is a known carcinogen, or cancer causing agent, which likely contributes to the relatively fast return of the disease in patients who are smokers.

Both gender and age influenced survival rates as well. Women with peritoneal mesothelioma survived on average three times as long as men, and patients under the age of fifty-five survived just four months compared to older patients who survived for fifteen months. The researchers explained these phenomena by suggesting that tumors presenting in younger patients are more aggressive and less responsive to the body’s immune system to begin with, and that women often seek medical advice sooner than men.

Another factor which influenced survival rates, the researchers found, was whether or not the patients drank alcohol on a regular basis. Patients who abstained from alcohol and did not have a history of regular drinking survived with the disease for far longer compared to other victims of mesothelioma. The researchers were not certain why alcohol impacts recovery and survival rates, and stated that the results of the study are still preliminary.

A new study funded by a branch of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aims to improve the understanding of asbestos related diseases such as mesothelioma, an aggressive and fatal cancer cause by exposure to asbestos fibers. The study centers around the circumstances of a national tragedy, the asbestos contamination of Libby, Montana, in order to research specific phenomena related to asbestos exposure.

Libby, Montana was placed in a state of emergency a few years ago by the Environmental Protection Agency as a result of the incredible amounts of asbestos debris found in the town. The debris was the product of a local asbestos mining operation which produced two million tons of asbestos each year. In addition to being subject to clouds of asbestos dust belched out by the mining operations, residents of Libby were subjected to piles of unusable asbestos debris discarded throughout the town.

The new study targets individuals who completed the majority of their high school education at Libby High between the years of 1950 and 1999, and who moved permanently to different places after their graduation. By laying out these specific circumstances, the researchers hope to isolate individuals who were exposed to asbestos as children, but whose exposure ceased before adulthood. Around 13,000 former students of Libby High fit the qualifications. Researchers are seeking these graduates out and asking them to submit to a battery of tests including X-rays, CT scans and pulmonary function tests as part of a larger study study concerning the rapidly progressing nature of asbestos diseases in Libby.

Asbestos fibers have long been linked to a variety of different diseases including mesothelioma, a cancer of the protective tissue which encases the body’s organs. When asbestos fibers are accidentally drawn into an individual’s body through inhalation or ingestion, the fibers make their way through the lung or intestinal walls. After becoming entangled in the mesothelium, the protective tissue encasing the organs, the asbestos begins to cause scarring which can lead to the growth of malignant tumors.

Normally, mesothelioma takes decades to develop. In Libby, Montana, however, the disease and others like it have been observed progressing much more rapidly. Dr Stephen Levin of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York expresses concern about asbestos issues in Libby, saying “This progresses much more rapidly than your grandfather’s asbestos-related disease.”

The ambitious study plans to follow Libby High graduates for more than fifty years, periodically documenting their health in an effort to better understand the effects of toxic asbestos exposure in children.