Friday, February 24, 2006

Workers Comp Law Blog: Chromium Industry Hid Cancer Risks, Report Says

Workers Comp Law Blog: Chromium Industry Hid Cancer Risks, Report Says

Chromium Industry Hid Cancer Risks, Report Says

Chromium Industry Hid Cancer Risks, Report Says

Researchers charge that businesses skewed data to weaken a proposed federal standard

Feb 24, 2006 Marla Cone Los Angeles TimesAs federal regulators are poised to announce a new standard for protecting workers, a team of scientists reported Thursday that the chromium industry and its consulting scientists withheld and skewed data that suggested workers exposed to low levels of chromium were dying from lung cancer.David Michaels, a professor of environmental and occupational science at George Washington University, and two other researchers detailed what they called an orchestrated campaign by the chromium industry to manipulate scientific data to persuade the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to weaken a proposed workplace standard.

Chromium-producing corporations and metal-finishing companies have opposed stricter limits on workers' exposure to hexavalent chromium since 1976, when OSHA first proposed changes in the regulation. The agency faces a court order to announce its new standard by Tuesday.About 380,000 U.S. workers are exposed to hexavalent chromium, which is widely used in metal-plating, aerospace production, stainless steel processing and dye manufacture, among other businesses.

Chromium is considered one of the most dangerous toxic contaminants in California's air.Classified as a human carcinogen, hexavalent chromium has been tied to lung cancer for about 50 years. But the debate over the new standard centers on whether low levels now found at modern plants increase workers' cancer rates.Michaels' report faults the handling of a cancer study at four large chromium production plants in the U.S. and Germany."This was a 10-year campaign to shape the science to fit the industry's agenda rather than shape the regulation to fit the science," Michaels, director of the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy at George Washington University's school of public health, said in an interview Wednesday.

Michaels and the two other researchers, whose report was published in the online journal Environmental Health, obtained internal documents through an industry foundation's bankruptcy proceedings that showed the industry representatives were aware in 2002 of an elevated cancer risk reported among workers.A representative of Elementis Chromium, the world's largest chromium producer, said there was no conspiracy. He said that during the period the study was conducted, the industry was in turmoil with plants shutting down and changing owners which led to delays and problems with the data's release."I would categorically say there was not an orchestrated effort to hide anything," said Joel Barnhart, vice president of technical issues at Elementis Chromium's plant in Corpus Christi, Texas. "What I can say is that it certainly may have not been handled well."Kate McMahon, an attorney for the Chrome Coalition, an industry trade group, called the allegations "completely and utterly baseless and absolutely dead wrong."OSHA officials declined to comment Thursday on the report, saying only that they expected to meet Tuesday's deadline for the chromium standard.The agency has been reviewing whether to tighten its chromium standard, which was set 35 years ago. A federal appeals court, ruling in a case filed by a union and the Public Citizen Health Research Group, ordered OSHA to act by this year.The workplace standard is 52 micrograms of chromium per cubic meter of air. In 2004, OSHA proposed 1 microgram. Michaels and others say the agency will probably adopt a standard of 5 micrograms.Industry groups say the agency's 1-microgram proposal would bankrupt businesses and cost the metal-finishing industry $380 million annually.In the mid-1990s, a foundation working for the Chrome Coalition commissioned a study of workers at four production plants, "the results of which confirmed the elevated lung cancer risk," Michaels wrote.The consultants who conducted the study reported their findings to the industry foundation in 2002. But the industry did not tell OSHA, according to Michaels. "Even when the agency specifically asked for precisely these sorts of data during its 2004-2005 rulemaking proceedings, the chromium industry and the authors remained silent," Michaels' report says.Then, the industry consultants, employees of ENVIRON, an international environmental consulting firm, rewrote the findings to remove the elevated cancer data, Michaels said. They divided the study into two parts: one with data from the American plants and one with data from the German plants.Originally, the study of the four plants found increased cancer at low chromium levels. But after the data from the U.S. and German plants were separated, the study at the U.S. plants, which was published in April in a peer-reviewed occupational medicine journal, reported no cancer link, and the German results reported elevated cancer only at high chromium levels.

Michaels said that splitting the workers into two groups disguised the cancer rate, and that industry groups used that misleading data to support their claim to OSHA that a strict standard was unwarranted.

The ENVIRON consultants, in a letter published in a medical journal in October, commended the industry for sponsoring research of its employees and said there was a valid scientific reason for dividing American and German workers: Their exposure was measured differently, monitoring air in the United States and urine in Germany.But Michaels said data from all four plants needed to be combined to create a study large enough to be statistically sound something the consultants emphasized in their original proposal. "It's not sound to look at your results and split them because you don't like the results," Michaels said. "The scientifically honest approach is to report the results using the method you said you would use."The handling of the studies "raise troubling questions about the ability of government to effectively issue rules protecting public health when studies are conducted, controlled and selectively published by the regulated industry," Michaels and his co-authors said in their report.The two U.S. plants, in Texas and North Carolina, are now owned by Elementis, a British company.Barnhart, of Elementis Chromium, said the study data came at a time of "chaos." The foundation that funded the study, he said, went bankrupt, two German plants shut down and the North Carolina plant was purchased by the British corporation. He said the companies involved did not review the findings and did not tell the consultants to change or withhold the cancer data."There certainly wasn't any conspiracy," Barnhart said. "It was as much ineptitude by me and maybe others who were aware of [the study] but didn't push to get it released in a form that was useful."

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Tell Your Senator to Vote NO On The Asbestos Bailout Bikk

On February 6, 2006, Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) brought to the floor of the US Senate an asbestos bill that is just another special-interest bailout- this one for the corporations that knowingly poisoned hundreds of thousands of Americans. The asbestos companies put people at risk, even long after they knew that asbestos caused cancer and other diseases. They knowingly poisoned people and covered it up. Now, they've come to Congress looking for a bailout that would leave some victims without enough money to cover their medical costs and could potentially leave the American taxpayers with as much as a hundred-billion-dollar tab. http://action.peopleoverprofits.org/ctt.asp?u=33562&l=116303

Tell Congress to oppose the Asbestos Bailout Bill As a result, people like Charles Sales, 23, of Hot Springs, AR, suffer with mesothelioma, an always fatal cancer caused only by asbestos. A non-smoker and in excellent health before his diagnosis, Charles and his wife, who have a two year-old daughter, planned on expanding their family. His wife will soon be a widow though, as most victims don't live longer than twelve months after their diagnosis. Charles' father and grandfather, employed at the lumber mill where he would eventually work, carried asbestos fibers home on their clothing, exposing young Charles to the deadly product.

Read about other asbestos victims http://action.peopleoverprofits.org/ctt.asp?u=33562&l=116304

Tell Congress to oppose the Asbestos Bailout Bill Before being diagnosed with asbestos-related cancer, Sandy Linden of Omaha, NE was an active, athletic mother of five; she had even taken part in a marathon. Now, she spends her time traveling between Omaha and Chicago for CT scans, surgery, and chemotherapy treatments. Since her mesothlioma diagnosis, Sandy has had her diaphragm, a lung, and two ribs removed. She can only sleep on one side of her body because of the pain, and the entire left side ofher chest and breast are numb. At times she feels that she is suffocating from the Gore-Tex that replaced the sac around her heart and lung. She can no longer work and is unable to secure long-term care.

Read about other asbestos victims Tell Congress to oppose the Asbestos Bailout Bill http://action.peopleoverprofits.org/ctt.asp?u=33562&l=116303

Facts about the Asbestos Bailout Bill The asbestos companies kept putting people at risk for thirty years after they learned that asbestos caused cancer and other diseases. They knowingly poisoned people and covered it up. The bill creates new obstacles and delays for victims, designed to protect asbestos companies. Under this bill, many asbestos victims will die of their disease before receiving compensation. Most studies show that the actual cost of compensating asbestos victims over the next thirty years will be at least one hundred billion dollars more than the size of the trust fund created by this bill. The last thing we can afford is a bill that gives a hundred-billion-dollar handout to big asbestos companies. Corporations should pay the cost of the illnesses they caused, not taxpayers. The asbestos bailout bill allows big asbestos companies to pay only twenty-five percent of the real cost of compensating their victims, so it's no surprise these companies support this bill.

Please tell Congress to oppose the asbestos trust fund, a trust fund victims can't trust.

Learn More About the Asbestos Bailout Billhttp://action.peopleoverprofits.org/ctt.asp?u=33562&l=116305 Then Tell a Friend about this blatant corporate bailout http://action.peopleoverprofits.org/ctt.asp?u=33562&l=116306

Tell Your Senator to Vote NO On The Asbestos Bailout Bikk

On February 6, 2006, Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) brought to the floor of the US Senate an asbestos bill that is just another special-interest bailout- this one for the corporations that knowingly poisoned hundreds of thousands of Americans. The asbestos companies put people at risk, even long after they knew that asbestos caused cancer and other diseases. They knowingly poisoned people and covered it up. Now, they've come to Congress looking for a bailout that would leave some victims without enough money to cover their medical costs and could potentially leave the American taxpayers with as much as a hundred-billion-dollar tab. http://action.peopleoverprofits.org/ctt.asp?u=33562&l=116303

Tell Congress to oppose the Asbestos Bailout Bill As a result, people like Charles Sales, 23, of Hot Springs, AR, suffer with mesothelioma, an always fatal cancer caused only by asbestos. A non-smoker and in excellent health before his diagnosis, Charles and his wife, who have a two year-old daughter, planned on expanding their family. His wife will soon be a widow though, as most victims don't live longer than twelve months after their diagnosis. Charles' father and grandfather, employed at the lumber mill where he would eventually work, carried asbestos fibers home on their clothing, exposing young Charles to the deadly product.

Read about other asbestos victims http://action.peopleoverprofits.org/ctt.asp?u=33562&l=116304

Tell Congress to oppose the Asbestos Bailout Bill Before being diagnosed with asbestos-related cancer, Sandy Linden of Omaha, NE was an active, athletic mother of five; she had even taken part in a marathon. Now, she spends her time traveling between Omaha and Chicago for CT scans, surgery, and chemotherapy treatments. Since her mesothlioma diagnosis, Sandy has had her diaphragm, a lung, and two ribs removed. She can only sleep on one side of her body because of the pain, and the entire left side ofher chest and breast are numb. At times she feels that she is suffocating from the Gore-Tex that replaced the sac around her heart and lung. She can no longer work and is unable to secure long-term care.

Read about other asbestos victims Tell Congress to oppose the Asbestos Bailout Bill http://action.peopleoverprofits.org/ctt.asp?u=33562&l=116303

Facts about the Asbestos Bailout Bill The asbestos companies kept putting people at risk for thirty years after they learned that asbestos caused cancer and other diseases. They knowingly poisoned people and covered it up. The bill creates new obstacles and delays for victims, designed to protect asbestos companies. Under this bill, many asbestos victims will die of their disease before receiving compensation. Most studies show that the actual cost of compensating asbestos victims over the next thirty years will be at least one hundred billion dollars more than the size of the trust fund created by this bill. The last thing we can afford is a bill that gives a hundred-billion-dollar handout to big asbestos companies. Corporations should pay the cost of the illnesses they caused, not taxpayers. The asbestos bailout bill allows big asbestos companies to pay only twenty-five percent of the real cost of compensating their victims, so it's no surprise these companies support this bill.

Please tell Congress to oppose the asbestos trust fund, a trust fund victims can't trust.

Learn More About the Asbestos Bailout Billhttp://action.peopleoverprofits.org/ctt.asp?u=33562&l=116305 Then Tell a Friend about this blatant corporate bailout http://action.peopleoverprofits.org/ctt.asp?u=33562&l=116306

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Overdose Deaths Linked To Fentanyl Pain Patch Being Investigated By Jersey Law Firm

Overdose Deaths Linked to Fentanyl Pain Patch Being Investigated By Jersey Law Firm

The New Jersey, USA Offices of Bagolie Friedman Injury Lawyers are investigating overdose deaths linked to the fentanyl pain patch. Known as the Duragesic Trans dermal Patch, it is a device developed to alleviate chronic pain which could possibly leak, exposing patients to dangerous levels of fentanyl, a powerful opiate based pain reliever.

The fentanyl patch is comprised of an outer impermeable plastic shell and a drug permeable inner lining. The patch is applied directly to the skin where heat from the body activates a regular release of fentanyl over a 72 hour period. This drug is a powerful opiate pain-reliever held in a gel suspension between the two linings of the patch. The inner lining only lets a certain amount of the drug into the body based on the needs of the patient, typically between 25 to 100 micrograms per hour. Sales of Duragesic earned Janssen Pharmaceutica over a billion dollars between the year 2002-2003. Unfortunately a problem in the seal between the linings was discovered in February 2004, prompting Janssen to initially recall one group of the patches, but an additional four groups of the patch were removed from the market later in April. The company has since recalled over two million of the patches.

Bagolie Friedman Injury Lawyers, with affiliate offices in Jersey City and Clifton New Jersey, Hollywood Florida and Brisbane, Australia, have begun to review and accept injury cases from surviving family members and individuals who have suffered from Fentanyl overdose. "We will be reviewing potential cases from the United States, Australia and Europe," said founding partner, Ricky Bagolie. Duragesic is no longer the only fentanyl pain patch being marketed. On January 28, 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted final approval for Mylan Laboratories, Inc. to market a generic fentanyl transdermal system. The manufacturer of Duragesic® has also begun to market an authorized generic version of the fentanyl patch through an agreement with Sandoz. Other generic companies have applications pending at the FDA to market similar fentanyl patches, therefore, other generic versions may soon be available. Problems associated with these newer generic patches have also been reported.

"It is very difficult for a person examining a fentanyl patch to detect a defect or leak. This can lead to a dangerous situation as exposure to an excessive amount of fentanyl can lead to serious injury or death." says attorney Alan Friedman.If you believe that you, or a member of your family, has been injured or suffered from an overdose as a result of receiving a fentanyl pain , contact Ricky Bagolie or Alan Friedman toll free at 1-866-333-3529, e-mail them at info@bagoliefriedman.com or visit http://www.bagoliefriedman.com/ now for a confidential and free consultation.