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The Asbestos Virginity Test?
The Asbestos To Mesothelioma
Question
by
Antonio Howell, M.D.

Mesothelioma is a devastating
disease with a low survival rate.

Mesothelioma is a primary
cancerous tumor that arises
from the mesothelium of the
pleura and it is very rare.

So rare in fact that people
who get this rare cancer it
turns out are usually exposed
to asbestos, a know carcinogen.

The almost direct cause and
effect of asbestos exposure
to mesothelioma even carries
onto the family members of
individuals who are exposed.
(Asbestos is carried into the
home by fibers sticking to
the clothing of the worker).

This secondary exposure may cause
mesothelioma to develop years
later in family members of
those individuals.

It is estimated that all
mesothelioma tumors are associated
with asbestos exposure in at least
80% of the cases.

Mesothelioma lawyers around the
world are signing up patients
who develop mesothelioma with
the intention of getting a
nice court settlement for their
pain and suffering.

All the lawyers need to do is
dig around the person's past
and they will eventually find
asbestos exposure somewhere
(in at least 80% of the cases)
and presto they have a plaintiff
and a defendant they can sue.

This defedant is usually a large
manufacturing company with deep
pockets and lots of insurance, in
a nutshell a personal injury
attorney's dream.

But what about the approximately
20% of those who have the disease
but no evidence of asbestos exposure?
Are some of them "encouraged" to make
something up so as not to miss out on
the large money settlements?

The feeling is that they might be
"misremembering" (as Roger Clements
puts it). But how to prove this?

The large companies have found a
way to fight back. To prove who is
real and who is not.

In a effort to stop the bleeding
a "new test" was recently described
in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Serum osteopontin levels can be used to
distinguish persons with cancer who were
not exposed to asbestos, and patients
with pleural mesothelioma who were
exposed to asbestos.

The test would effectively "discourage"
people with the disease from claiming
exposure to asbestos if they did not
have it. And by so doing limit the
millions of dollars paid by the defendants.

Source
NEJM.October 13, 2005.Number 15.Volume 353:1564-1573.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Antonio Howell, MD is a
Wellness & Fitness Enthusiast.
Visit his http://drhowell.net
and http://drhowellnet.blogspot.com
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Others and Changing Lives by
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