Mesothelioma Treatments To Sooth Your Precious Life

Being diagnosed with cancer is a dreadful experience, especially if it happens to be one of the serious types where all the people who you have know have all being passing away. Just imagine the state and condition of the individual when the doctor tells them that they have cancer and that it is at so and so stage and there is no guarantee that they would be totally cure of it even after treatment.

Although cancer has been around for ages people never tend to feel as though it is a dangerous disease until it strikes either them or someone they love. Cancer is a deadly disease where certain elements enter the body in an attempt to destroy the smooth functioning. It is widely know that cancer comes in various forms the most deadly being mesothelioma.

Malignant mesothelioma a rare form of cancer is attracted by patients when they are exposed to asbestos a fiber material that is generally used in construction of structures, ship building and other features that require material to be strong, tangible and resistance to heat as well. This type of cancer is known to affect the lungs, chest and even the heart after constant inhaling of the fibers for a huge period of time. Detection of this fatal disease takes years and if not detected at the early stages it could prove fatal.

Scientifically there are various treatments available to concentrate on wiping out the foreign dangerous malignant cells and safeguarding the healthy ones that enables our organs to function smoothly. The well recognized treatments which are mostly considered by doctors are surgery, radiation and of course chemotherapy which normally brings fear to patients that are experiencing it for the first time.

Now as you may have heard there is no success rate guaranteed by these treatments but it all can be summed up as to how far the malignant mesothelioma has developed in the body. Normally if it is detected at the early stage there is chances of getting rid of the cancer before it spreads to other parts of the body, this is where surgery plays a part. But on the other hand if it has blown to a full grown tumor then the best way is to carry out chemotherapy and radiation sessions to easy the disease and make life a bit easy for the suffering patient.

Basically the Mesothelioma treatments as mentioned above will involve a surgeon to remove the cancer tumor from the body which will be followed by treating the individual with doses of chemotherapy into the veins to get rid of the tiny cells and lastly rays of radiation is focused into the affected areas of the body to do a final cleansing of the deadly disease. The treatments mentioned are suggested by the doctor who chooses what is fit to deal and lessen the symptom of the cancer.

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Is Your Families Health at Risk Due to Elevated Radon Levels in Your Home?

Radon is truly one of those words with one meaning. RADON is a very weighty radioactive gaseous component formed from the decay of radium. According to the EPA's data; radon is most likely the # 1 risk factor for lung cancer within Non-smokers. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that can be found inside our homes. It is a invisible odorless gas that can only be discovered by performing a radon test inside the house to check for elevated levels. Radon is found more frequently in mountainous areas but any home can have a concern with Radon so the EPA recommends that all houses be tested for this deadly gas. The EPA's definition for elevated radon inside a home is; a radon evaluation result of 4.0 pCi/l or greater inside your home. Properties that have basements which happen to be designed to some extent underground and as well as slab built properties are more likely to already have radon rather than a home with a crawl space. Simply because you are buying a house with a crawl space doesn't indicate the home will not have increased radon concentrations, you will need to test to be sure.

There are various recognized methods for short term radon testing in which home inspectors utilize; the standalone electrical continual monitors enjoy one particular distinct advantage to a new home buyer involved with a Real Estate long term contract; you will get test results in 48 hours.

Almost all different test methods like the charcoal canisters, as well as the liquid scintillation test systems require being delivered to the right lab and then wait for final results which will differ from 24 hours to up to a week.

There are some questions about radon it's best to speak with your home inspector about. Are increased radon concentrations normally seen in this particular area? Can you test the property and / or will you need to call on another home inspector to test radon? Should the home you are buying be tested for elevated radon levels? When will the radon test results be available?

If you decide to get your house tested and the inspector discovers elevated Radon levels it is something which can be easily repaired just by installing a new radon removal system, which certainly can be equipped within nearly every kind of building at a reasonable cost.

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Asbestos Related Lung Cancer

Nowadays, there are many diseases and illnesses caused by unhealthy life style. These diseases can also be developed to constant exposure to dangerous substance or chemical. One of the most dangerous diseases is the asbestos lung cancer.

When people hear about lung cancer, most of them think about cancer suffered by smokers. It's not always true, actually. Those who are often exposed to it, are usually workers in mines, mills, factories, or home workers who usually deal with installing, carrying, or removing it. Some workers who are exposed to high concentration of asbestos are workers in automotive repair, boiler making, pipe fitting, construction, or even people who work in laundry to clean clothes containing clothing.

It is a kind of fibrous family of silica compound. It forms fibers and there are 3 types of it: white asbestos (the chrysolite), brown asbestos (the amosite), and blue asbestos (the crocidolite). All three are dangerous and can cause lung disease related to cancer or non-cancer illness. Its effect isn't direct, though. It takes about 20 years of exposure to make it resulted in cancer. During the 20 years people might not feel anything. There are 3 types of lung disease related exposure to asbestos:

Asbestosis: the scarring of the lung process which means the lungs are hurtPleura or the lining of the lung. This is caused by inflammation and the lining tissue will be thicken or hardened, and it happens on the outer part of the lungs.Lung cancer. It's caused from within the lungs or the pleura.

When the disease develops into lung cancer, there are two types of lung cancer: the small cell one (SCLC - small cell) and non small one (NSCLC - non small cell). The SCLS means that the cells are round and small, while the NSCLC means that the cells are bigger. When the cancer has the characteristics of both, it's called the mixed small/large cell cancer. The cancer in the lung will start by the dividing of tissue cell in the lung at abnormal and uncontrollable level. Sometimes the cell may grow in strange condition and become bigger and then form a cluster. The NSCLC is the biggest part of lung cancer diseases, with about 80% of patients suffer from it. Although the cancers are small, they can multiply fast and form a tumor - even large ones. The tumor then can spread to other organs and lymph nodes. Most patients won't realize that they have asbestos lung cancer until it's too late. They don't know about it because they don't feel any pain or symptoms. It's called as asymptomatic or without symptoms. To diagnose asbestos, the doctors require patients to undergo image tests, biopsy, and spit sample.

Asbestos can get worse if the patients have unhealthy habits such as smoking or drinking. Smoking will definitely worsen their condition. When patients start to feel initial symptoms they may cough over and over, have chest pain, suffer from bleeding sputum, have change in sputum's colour and volume, have weight loss, suffer from appetite loss, suffer from headaches and often feel very tired.

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Madison Square Garden Reopens After Asbestos Scare

Players and coaches had long since left the building. They were still digesting the previous warning — an asbestos scare at Madison Square Garden that forced the postponement of a home game Tuesday night.

Like the fire alarm, the asbestos warning appears to have been unwarranted, and the Knicks will soon resume their normal schedule.

Garden officials announced Wednesday evening that the arena had been deemed safe and that all events would go on as scheduled. The Knicks will play the Washington Wizards there Friday night.

In a statement, the Garden said it had received “assurance from the city and environmental experts regarding the safety of the arena.”

The statement said nothing about asbestos, the word that initially set off concerns after some debris fell from the Garden attic during overnight maintenance Monday. Tests conducted by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection and by independent contractors concluded that no asbestos had been released into the arena.

Garden officials, exercising what they called “an abundance of caution,” postponed Tuesday night’s game between the Knicks and the Orlando Magic. The teams are working with the N.B.A. to schedule a makeup date.

The decision to reopen the arena was made by Garden officials alone. The city’s oversight effectively ended once testing concluded that there was no asbestos in the arena.

“It’s essentially in their hands,” Farrell Sklerov, a spokesman for the D.E.P., said earlier in the afternoon. He added, “There’s no health risk.”

Had the Garden remained closed, the Knicks would have been forced to postpone more home games or play them at another site, probably in New Jersey. Garden officials made initial inquiries with the Prudential Center in Newark, but never made firm plans to play there.

On Wednesday, the Knicks seemed more concerned with cleaning up their offense and their record (1-2) than their aging arena. They lost close games to Boston and Portland last week, outcomes that left them with equal doses of frustration and hope. The tough schedule continues Thursday night in Chicago against the talent-rich Bulls.

So Tuesday’s postponement, however inconvenient, was not all bad. It gave three key players — Anthony Randolph (sprained ankle), Ronny Turiaf (sore back) and Danilo Gallinari (sore wrist) — extra time to heal.

It also allowed the Knicks to avoid, for now, a difficult matchup with Orlando’s Dwight Howard, perhaps the league’s most fearsome big man. The running joke was that the Knicks finally found a way to shut down Howard.

“One of my better coaching performances,” Coach Mike D’Antoni said, chuckling. He added: “It was either Dwight Howard or breathing bad material. It’s a tossup.”

D’Antoni said that his young team might be more ready for the challenge by the time the Knicks see the Magic.

Several players came to the training center to work out or shoot on their own. But the unexpected postponement left them with a free night and an empty feeling.

“It was tough,” Amar’e Stoudemire said. “I mean, we definitely was ready to play, was prepared for Orlando, was geared up, ready to go.”

The players were either headed to the Garden or getting ready to leave their homes when they received word that the game had been postponed. Some players said they just relaxed and watched television. Some watched other N.B.A. games. D’Antoni said he watched game film of the Bulls.

“I wanted to play,” said Gallinari, who is eager to break out of a shooting slump. “I wanted to play the game. That was not good news.”

Gallinari was already on his way to Manhattan when he heard about the incident and decided to keep going. He walked around Central Park, visited the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue (to check out the iPad), then headed to SoHo for dinner at an Italian restaurant.

It was a nice way to spend an evening, just not what he had in mind. Like his teammates, Gallinari had never lost a game to 40-year-old fire retardant.

“Only in New York can that happen,” he said.

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E.P.A. ‘Most Wanted’ Fugitive Captured in Dominican Republic

Albania Deleon was convicted in November 2008 in Massachusetts on environmental and other charges related to a fraudulent asbestos training institute she ran there. She fled the state in March 2009, two days before her sentencing.

Carrying a false identity card and having dyed her hair blond, she was arrested Saturday when Dominican agents pulled over her vehicle in Santo Domingo. The State Department had submitted an extradition request to the Dominican Republic after realizing she had left the country.

Ms. Deleon, 40, is the first woman to be listed on the E.P.A.’s two-year-old fugitives list, which includes people wanted for crimes ranging from dumping oil or contaminated soil to importing vehicles that fail to meet United States emissions standards.

She could face substantial jail time after extradition to the United States, given that she was convicted of 28 counts that carried penalties of 5 to 20 years, the E.P.A. said.

The trail of crimes goes back to roughly 2001, when Ms. Deleon began operating Environmental Compliance Training, a certified asbestos-removal training school in Methuen, Mass. Over the next five years, she granted hundreds of certificates to people who had taken no courses.

The authorities estimated that 65 to 80 percent of those who received certificates from the school had not received the necessary training. Many of those were illegal immigrants who could not afford to take four days off from work to obtain their credentials. Environmental Compliance Training became Massachusetts’ largest asbestos training business.

Many of the graduates obtained jobs through a temporary staffing agency that Ms. Deleon also owned, the E.P.A. said, and were sent out to do dangerous asbestos demolition work. She paid them under the table so she would not have to pay taxes or obtain workers’ compensation insurance for them.

She was convicted in federal court in 2008 on charges including fraud, hiring illegal immigrants, making false statements and procuring false payroll tax returns.

The E.P.A. created its most-wanted list, complete with mug shots, to draw more attention to environmental crime, which has been rising as agency regulation has expanded. Sixteen fugitives remain on that list, and five, including Ms. Deleon, are listed as former fugitives with “captured” stamped on their mug shots.

Cynthia Giles, an assistant E.P.A. administrator, declined to say whether the list had led to any tips that aided in Ms. Deleon’s capture.

“Posting defendants on the fugitive Web site creates more visibility, thereby providing an opportunity for the public to provide information about their potential whereabouts and for law enforcement authorities to be aware that these individuals are wanted by the United States,” she said.

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Debate Continues Over Deutsche Bank Tower Demolition

But in a hint of what will follow the demolition, the construction manager for the dismantling, Bovis Lend Lease, is involved in a courtroom free-for-all over tens of millions of dollars with the state agency that hired it.

Bovis claimed in a complaint filed last month in State Supreme Court in Manhattan that it had been shortchanged at least $80 million for work it was ordered to perform at the site.

But in a court filing on June 23, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation excoriated the construction company for having the “gall” to seek extra compensation and profit, despite the project’s “being more than three and a half years behind schedule and despite tens of millions of dollars of costs and damages” incurred by the agency from long delays and an August 2007 blaze in which two firefighters died.

“There are two Bovises,” Avi Schick, chairman of the development corporation, said. “One that speaks with contrition and accepts responsibility for its safety lapses on the site, and then there’s the other Bovis with its hand in the taxpayer’s pocket.”

Bovis declined to discuss the specifics of the claims.

“We are pleased with the progress being made to bring the building down,” said Mary Costello, a spokeswoman for Bovis, “and look forward to the completion of the project and to the resolution of any open issues with L.M.D.C."

There are some facts on which the two sides agree. The 41-story Deutsche Bank tower at 130 Liberty Street sustained a 15-story gash on the north side of the building during the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. The development corporation bought the building in 2004 and hired Bovis the following year to decontaminate and demolish it under an $81 million contract.

The costs of demolition are covered by a combination of government money and $100 million from insurers, with the total expected to run about $300 million.

Regulators imposed a complicated protocol for cleaning the tower, which they suspected had been contaminated by asbestos and other toxic substances. But from the beginning, the work was plagued by delays, accidents and financial disputes.

In its lawsuit, Bovis said the work had been more difficult and expensive than anticipated, in large part because of “outside regulatory interference and changed work methods imposed by government regulators.”

Bovis claimed that it had repeatedly been ordered by the agency to do work outside the scope of its contract, for which it should be compensated “with a reasonable markup for overhead and profit.”

The development corporation countered that Bovis had assumed the risk of regulatory scrutiny when it signed the contract. Yet, the corporation added, Bovis was paid $61 million more than the contract called for after the contractor threatened to walk off the job if its demands were not met. Furthermore, the development corporation said that the Bovis lawsuit was premature because both sides had agreed in 2007 to defer any litigation until demolition was finished.

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California May Drop Its Official State Rock

The lawmaker and others who would like to see serpentine stripped of its title say the olive green rock found all over the state is a grim symbol of the deadly cancers associated with asbestos, which can be found in the rock. Geologists, who have taken to Twitter on behalf of the rock, assert that serpentine is harmless and is being demonized by advocates for people with asbestos-related diseases and possibly their trial lawyers, too.

The bill to defrock the rock — which recently passed the full State Senate and is awaiting a vote in the Assembly — is sponsored by Senator Gloria Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat, with the strong support of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization.

Declaring that serpentine “has known health effects,” the bill would leave California — one of roughly half the states in the nation with an official rock or mineral — without an official rock. (According to the bill, California was the first state, in 1965, to name an official rock.) Asbestos occurs naturally in many minerals, and indeed some serpentine rocks do serve as a host for chrysotile, a form of asbestos. But geologists say chrysotile is less harmful than some other forms of asbestos, and would be a danger — like scores of other rocks — only if a person were to breathe its dust repeatedly.

“There is no way anyone is going to get bothered by casual exposure to that kind of rock,” said Malcolm Ross, a geologist who retired from the United States Geological Survey in 1995. “Unless they were breaking it up with a sledgehammer year after year.”

Dr. Ross and other opponents of the bill are concerned that removing serpentine, which is occasionally used in jewelry, as the state’s rock would demonize it and thus inspire litigation against museums, property owners and other sites where the rocks sit; they cite the inclusion of a letter of support from the Consumer Attorneys of California with the bill as evidence.

“If they keep the asbestos issue bubbling,” Dr. Ross said, “it means money for politicians, more money for lawyers and money for scientists to investigate.”

J. D. Preston, a spokesman from the consumer lawyers group, said the group had nothing to do with drafting the legislation and was just responding to a request from the awareness organization for a support letter. “We just thought this was a good fit in our mission of consumer safety,” Mr. Preston said. “It is certainly not the intent, and we don’t even see where it opens the avenue for litigation.”

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has indicated no position.

Linda Reinstein, president of the awareness organization, whose husband died of mesothelioma, pointed out that the bill had numerous letters of support, including ones from the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and groups that represent people with mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of many internal organs associated with asbestos.

“It doesn’t do anything legally,” Ms. Reinstein said of the proposed legislation. “This bill is all about education and awareness. We never expected such a stir.”

Under the hashtag — a Twitter identifying phrase that allows easy searching of similarly themed messages — #CASerpentine, scientists and other opponents of the bill are debating the bill’s merits and offering fighting words. One read, “Dear gloria romero, you have picked the wrong nerds to mess with!”

Senator Romero said she didn't believe it was appropriate for California to have a state rock that is linked to asbestos. "California is health conscious," she said. "This is not about being anti-rock. But why do we need a rock?"

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Canada: Journal Cites Double Standard

When academic freedom is an issue, and when it isn’t.

Why the Nazi guard’s conviction matters.

A Room for Debate forum on which governors have been the most successful in closing budget gaps.

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School’s Out! (Temporarily); The Auditorium Collapsed

MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. — Students were expecting a tough week here at Mount Vernon High School, trying not to fall apart as they slogged through third-quarter exams and prepared for Advanced Placement exams and Regents tests.

They never thought it would be part of their school that fell apart.

Classes were canceled after a 100-foot section of wall in the auditorium collapsed around 4:30 p.m. Monday. The noisy avalanche exposed steel beams and wires and damaged three nearby classrooms used for woodworking, television production and R.O.T.C. meetings.

The nearest students were on a practice field on the other side of the building, and no one was injured, district officials said.

State and district officials immediately closed the 1,400-student high school, built in 1963, to determine whether it was structurally stable and to test for possible asbestos contamination.

On Thursday, yellow police tape stretched across the school property, and a police officer and security guard kept passers-by from coming onto the grounds. Mount Vernon has two other high schools.

W. L. Sawyer, the superintendent, said that preliminary investigation indicated the problem was limited to the collapsed wall and that classes would resume on Monday.

Inspectors found that cinderblocks were not properly anchored to steel beams during the construction of that part of the wall, but that the rest of the building was safe.

Officials said they would keep the area around the collapsed wall cordoned off.

Some students and nearby residents complained this week that the high school had been poorly maintained.

“It wasn’t a surprise, because there are leaks all over the building that aren’t fixed or repaired,” said Chelsea Hamlet, 18, a senior, who saw a picture of the collapsed wall on a friend’s cellphone.

Still, she said that she was recently in the auditorium for an Easter service and saw no indication of a problem.

Marian Barksdale, a 1973 Mount Vernon High graduate who once had a locker near the auditorium, said that maintenance issues might have been compounded by torrential rains that saturated Westchester this year. “It was probably already weakened and all the rain didn’t help,” she said “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Dr. Sawyer acknowledged that the district had struggled to maintain its buildings for many years because of budget problems. But, he said, other than a leaky roof, he knew of no structural problems at the high school. “This had nothing to do with maintenance,” he said.

He also said there was no indication that the heavy rain played a role in the collapse.

Mount Vernon is a working-class city of 68,000 where three-quarters of the 10,000 students qualify for free or low-price lunches.

State education officials said that Mount Vernon High School had not been cited previously for any deficiencies in building conditions and had a valid certificate of occupancy.

A major wall collapse at a school in this area in 1989 killed seven children when a tornado tore through a cafeteria at East Coldenham Elementary School in the Valley Central School District in Orange County.

Dr. Sawyer said the high school was trying to make up the four missed days by making at least one professional day for teachers a school day, and is reviewing other options so that it will not have to extend classes past June 25, s the last scheduled school day.

“There’s no time that’s good to lose four days, but when the elements are against you, what can you do?” he said.

Dr. Sawyer said that the district might also seek a waiver from the State Education Department if it cannot make up all the time. State education officials said that they would consider such a request.

Many students said they were enjoying the unexpected break.

Dwight Glin, 17, a senior, said he slept until 9:30 a.m. on Thursday. After a bowl of Froot Loops, he headed to the library to watch music videos and check online for news about the school.

If the school had not been closed, he would have been answering questions about enzymes and respiration on a biology exam, he said.

“It’s good to get another break from school,” he said. “I rub it in with my friends” who go to different schools. “I’m like ‘So how was school? Well, you know what? I didn’t have school today.’ They just get mad.”

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Inspector Says He Faked Data in New York Building Tests

A safety inspector licensed to make critical assessments of asbestos and lead risks in buildings and at construction sites across the city made a stunning admission in federal court: Despite filing hundreds of reports saying his tests had found no danger, he had not performed a single one of the tests.

The inspector, Saverio F. Todaro, 68, submitted clean asbestos or lead test results for well over 200 buildings and apartments, including some that were demolished or renovated to make way for publicly financed projects under the Bloomberg administration’s affordable-housing program, according to people briefed on the matter and court papers.

The number of potential victims of Mr. Todaro’s fraud, which spanned at least a decade, loomed so large that the Manhattan United States attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the case, created a separate Web page to comply with a law requiring it to notify victims.

His admissions late last month have raised troubling questions about whether such conduct might be more widespread, and it has led to an expanding inquiry focused on some aspects of the work of asbestos and lead inspectors in the city.

“Todaro’s guilty plea is not the end of the story,” said the Manhattan United States attorney, Preet Bharara. “This investigation is very much ongoing.”

The investigation, in part, seeks to determine whether he conspired with others — taking bribes to fashion crude forgeries and mask his failure to conduct any tests — or whether he acted alone for other reasons, officials said.

The breadth of his crimes, the simplicity of the schemes and the apparent ease with which he got away with them over the years also suggest that the city’s oversight is strained, at best.

“It’s the tip of the iceberg,” said one official briefed on the matter and on the issues facing city and federal regulators, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is continuing. “We just don’t know how big the iceberg is.”

Because Mr. Todaro never did the tests in question, and because in more than a dozen instances the buildings involved have been torn down and replaced with new ones, or gutted and renovated, it is impossible in some cases to determine if proper tests would have revealed potentially dangerous levels of lead or asbestos.

At the same time, federal and city officials have not made public the precise number and location of the buildings involved, or disclosed specifics of what they think took place in each instance. While the city’s health department has reviewed 17 cases in which Mr. Todaro performed lead tests, it remains unclear whether city officials plan to conduct any other reviews or retesting.

But the stakes are unquestionably high.

The Environmental Protection Agency has found that the long-term effects of lead exposure in children and adults can be severe. Inhaling asbestos can cause lung disease and cancer.

Several city agencies sought to play down the dangers.

City regulators have found no evidence that either the fraud or risks are widespread, said Marc La Vorgna, a spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

“We can always look for new ways to improve our process,” he said. “D.E.P. is going to start increasing audits, which is the right step to ensure inspections are being completed properly.”

But, in addition to the continuing investigation that grew out of the charges against Mr. Todaro, there are now six other unrelated federal cases under way exploring allegations of similar practices in the New York City area. Some 1,500 people hold city or federal certifications to test for lead or asbestos in the area.

One line of inquiry for investigators in the case involving Mr. Todaro is whether any building owners, management firms or contractors for whom he or other inspectors worked paid bribes for the bogus inspection reports. Officials say substantial sums of money could have been saved by allowing the demolition of buildings without performing expensive asbestos abatement.

Indeed, several current and former law enforcement officials and industry experts underscored that the city’s construction industry, and in particular the demolition and asbestos abatement sectors, have a rich history of corruption.

“It sounds like a disaster,” said Daniel J. Castleman, the former chief assistant in the office of the previous Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, where he supervised corruption cases focusing on the demolition and asbestos abatement industries. “Obviously there are always going to be people who will take a short cut in order to make money, whether it’s in the inspection of lead or asbestos or concrete or steel.”

The case bears some similarities to one brought by the district attorney last year, which exposed widespread fraud in the concrete testing industry and led to criminal convictions and cost the city and private developers millions of dollars for retesting.

The precise targets of the growing investigation are unclear, and several people briefed on the matter said it may be some time before determinations are made as to whether others will be charged.

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California May Drop Its Rock, And Geologists Feel the Pain

LOS ANGELES -- Empirically speaking, geologists are not a particularly irascible group. But those who make their living studying rocks, minerals and gems in California -- and increasingly those scientists beyond the state's borders -- are enraged over a bill in Sacramento that would knock serpentine, the official state rock, off its mantle.

The lawmaker and others who would like to see serpentine stripped of its title say the olive green rock found all over the state is a grim symbol of the deadly cancers associated with asbestos, which can be found in the rock. Geologists, who have taken to Twitter on behalf of the rock, assert that serpentine is harmless and is being demonized by advocates for people with asbestos-related diseases and possibly their trial lawyers, too.

The bill to defrock the rock -- which recently passed the full State Senate and is awaiting a vote in the Assembly -- is sponsored by Senator Gloria Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat, with the strong support of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization.

Declaring that serpentine ''has known health effects,'' the bill would leave California -- one of roughly half the states in the nation with an official rock or mineral -- without an official rock. (According to the bill, California was the first state, in 1965, to name an official rock.) Asbestos occurs naturally in many minerals, and indeed some serpentine rocks do serve as a host for chrysotile, a form of asbestos. But geologists say chrysotile is less harmful than some other forms of asbestos, and would be a danger -- like scores of other rocks -- only if a person were to breathe its dust repeatedly.

''There is no way anyone is going to get bothered by casual exposure to that kind of rock,'' said Malcolm Ross, a geologist who retired from the United States Geological Survey in 1995. ''Unless they were breaking it up with a sledgehammer year after year.''

Dr. Ross and other opponents of the bill are concerned that removing serpentine, which is occasionally used in jewelry, as the state's rock would demonize it and thus inspire litigation against museums, property owners and other sites where the rocks sit; they cite the inclusion of a letter of support from the Consumer Attorneys of California with the bill as evidence.

''If they keep the asbestos issue bubbling,'' Dr. Ross said, ''it means money for politicians, more money for lawyers and money for scientists to investigate.''

J. D. Preston, a spokesman from the consumer lawyers group, said the group had nothing to do with drafting the legislation and was just responding to a request from the awareness organization for a support letter. ''We just thought this was a good fit in our mission of consumer safety,'' Mr. Preston said. ''It is certainly not the intent, and we don't even see where it opens the avenue for litigation.''

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has indicated no position.

Linda Reinstein, president of the awareness organization, whose husband died of lung cancer, pointed out that the bill had numerous letters of support, including ones from the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and groups that represent people with mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of many internal organs associated with asbestos.

''It doesn't do anything legally,'' Ms. Reinstein said of the proposed legislation. ''This bill is all about education and awareness. We never expected such a stir.''

Under the hashtag -- a Twitter identifying phrase that allows easy searching of similarly themed messages -- #CASerpentine, scientists and other opponents of the bill are debating the bill's merits and offering fighting words. One read, ''Dear gloria romero, you have picked the wrong nerds to mess with!''

PHOTOS: PHOTO (PHOTOGRAPH BY MONICA ALMEIDA/THE NEW YORK TIMES) (A1); State Senator Gloria Romero proposed the serpentine bill. (PHOTOGRAPH BY RICH PEDRONCELLI/ASSOCIATED PRESS) (A16)

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New York Increases Monitoring of Asbestos Inspectors

Three months after a safety inspector admitted to falsifying hundreds of reports concluding that buildings were free of cancer-causing asbestos, the city agency that licensed him — and still licenses nearly 550 others — says it has taken steps to ensure better oversight.

The agency, the Department of Environmental Protection, which certifies the private inspectors who test buildings and construction sites, says the measures include sharing information with federal, state and city agencies, computerizing its filing system and substantially increasing audits and spot checks of inspectors in the field.

The changes, the result of a two-month internal review, were outlined in a June 28 memorandum to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg from the environmental agency’s commissioner, Cas Holloway. The agency provided a copy of the five-page memorandum to The New York Times.

The review, an agency official said, was prompted by an article in The Times in late April about the inspector, Saverio F. Todaro, 68, who had admitted in federal court a month earlier that he falsified the reports. Mr. Todaro pleaded guilty to federal environmental crimes, fraud and making false statements; he faces as long as five years in prison when he appears next month before a judge for sentencing.

Mr. Todaro, who operated an environmental inspection and testing company, acknowledged that he had submitted clean asbestos and lead test results for at least a decade without performing any tests.

The scope and audacity of his crimes and the apparent ease with which he got away with them suggested that the agency’s oversight was weak and raised questions about the integrity of the work of other inspectors.

A spokesman for the environmental agency, Farrell Sklerov, however, said that the two-month review, and a substantial increase in office audits and field visits since it began, found no indications that such conduct was widespread.

But the investigation that led to the charges against Mr. Todaro, by the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division, the city Department of Investigation and federal prosecutors in Manhattan, is not over, and the authorities have suggested that more charges may be brought, though it is unclear whether they would focus on more inspectors.

The city environmental agency regulates private asbestos inspectors, who play an important role in what has long been viewed as one of the more corrupt sectors of the construction industry. The agency sets the procedures and establishes requirements for training and certification.

The inspectors, formally known as certified asbestos investigators, are hired by building owners and developers to assess apartments and buildings set to undergo renovation or demolition, because inhaling asbestos can cause lung disease and cancer. The assessments can have a major impact on the cost and duration of a project, since cleanup or abatement can be expensive and time consuming.

A surprising aspect of Mr. Todaro’s case was that his certification was suspended in 2004 by the environmental agency, which cited poor building surveys and improper record keeping.

But because of a lack of communication between city agencies, he was able to keep performing asbestos assessments and avoid scrutiny. He continued to file assessments with the city’s Buildings Department, enabling developers to obtain permits to demolish or renovate, because the Department of Environmental Protection had not notified the Buildings Department of his suspension.

“The fact that Mr. Todaro continued to conduct asbestos-related investigations following the suspension of his license raised concerns about whether there are sufficient safeguards in place to ensure that only properly licensed C.A.I.’s conduct asbestos investigations in New York City,” Mr. Holloway wrote in the memo.

The environmental agency also failed to notify the State Department of Labor, which licenses asbestos abatement companies, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Mr. Holloway said that partly because of this lapse, his agency had instituted a data-sharing and notification system with the federal E.P.A., the New York State Departments of Environmental Conservation, Labor and Health and several city agencies, including the Departments of Buildings, Design and Construction, Transportation, Housing Preservation and Development, Health and Mental Hygiene.

The new protocols, he wrote in the memo, also include an Internet-based filing system for asbestos, which will automatically reject reports by any asbestos investigator whose certification has been suspended or revoked.

The agency, Mr. Holloway said in the memo, will nearly double the number of office audits it conducts each year, to 75, up from 40; the agency will check the records and activities of nearly 15 percent of the 543 asbestos investigators it certifies.

Also, the agency hired two additional inspection monitors in February, Mr. Sklerov said, bringing to 15 the number of staff members who, among other responsibilities, monitor asbestos investigators. In addition to the office audits, the monitors will conduct 500 spot-check field inspections each year to verify the accuracy of the information asbestos investigators provided about the planned scope of work and to check for any evidence of asbestos, the memo said.

Despite the changes detailed in the memo, however, experts and law enforcement officials said that many questions remained about the case of Mr. Todaro, including how he was able to get away with what he did for so long, and how the agency’s oversight practices had developed over the years.

Not the least of the questions center on the potential lingering effects of both Mr. Todaro’s crimes and of the city’s lapses in oversight.

Indeed, because Mr. Todaro falsified so many tests, it is impossible in most instances to determine if proper assessments would have revealed levels of asbestos that were potentially dangerous — not only to workers, but also to neighbors and passers-by — because the buildings have been torn down and replaced with new ones, or gutted and renovated.

View the original article here

CITY ROOM; On a Midtown Block, the Big Yellow-Toothed Face of Labor, Times Two

Tourists shuffling out of Grand Central Terminal would be forgiven for wondering what the heck kind of low-rent horror movie about giant rats is being filmed on East 42nd Street. Immobile, fat and grinning with big yellow teeth - yikes!

New Yorkers, of course, will recognize the big inflated pests, familiar sights all over town, wherever a labor union has taken umbrage with the goings-on at the location. The rat may stay an hour or a day or longer, with handy fliers explaining the nature of the dispute. Indeed, the rats are almost counterproductive among natives, who barely bother to look up and notice anymore, as with panhandlers and police sirens and smiling people who want you to stop in the middle of the sidewalk and sign something.

But rarer, far rarer, is the double rat sighting on a single block, as is the case on 42nd Street. Two rats face two different buildings as if they'd planned it that way and carpooled in together, which was not quite the case. The union that owns the rats, Asbestos, Lead and Hazardous Waste Laborers' Local 78, is protesting the means of asbestos abatement at 60 East 42nd Street and 315 Madison Avenue, which faces 42nd. The rats will be there all week.One of them is 15 feet tall and, like many real rats, nude, his long tail turned up between his legs. The other rat is three feet shorter but nattier, wearing a suit and tie and clutching two big bags of money. They are the whiskered face of labor in New York, like rodent Tom Joads, perched wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, Ma

This week's rat double-billing requires two union men to stand watch all day.

''It's fun,'' said one, Juan Severino, 25, of the South Bronx, who has hauled the rats around for two years. ''You see the reactions of people. Some people hate us because we are disturbing the public. Some people love us. Tourists take pictures.''

Each rat's work day begins at 7 a.m., when 42nd Street is still relatively quiet. Mr. Severino parks his pickup on the curb and hauls out the deflated, folded-up rat, which rises only about knee high. He hooks it up to a fan, which in turn is hooked to a generator, into which he pours gasoline and yanks the start cord. The rat springs to life remarkably quickly, in seconds, and Mr. Severino ties it down to the subway grate on the sidewalk.

For a building's owners, the rat outside is just about as unwelcome as one running around inside.

''They always call the cops,'' Mr. Severino said. ''The first couple days are like that. It's intense.'' Then everybody gets used to one another, sort of like New Yorkers' resignation with, and even affection for, real rats. The big rats are street legal if they stay out of the road and they're not blocking the sidewalk. Mr. Severino said he and his partner pack the rats up around 3:30 p.m. A gallon of gas keeps one inflated for eight hours.

City Room left voice mail messages for the chief executives targeted by the Midtown rats.

The two rats are part of a stable for Local 78. There are two more rats that were perched at addresses in New Jersey on Wednesday, Mr. Severino said. And for those narrow sidewalks where the rats won't fit, the union mounts a coffin with a dummy inside.

Now, to be fair to those who think the rats are in a movie shoot, they might be on to something. A movie about inflated union rats that come to life and lead real rats in a siege of the city and chomp on people with their yellow teeth and wear nice suits and talk like Henry Fonda - yes, we would see that.

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.

PHOTO: Two inflated rats from Local 78 of the Asbestos, Lead and Hazardous Waste Laborers near Grand Central Terminal this week. (PHOTOGRAPH BY SUZANNE DeCHILLO/THE NEW YORK TIMES)

View the original article here

California May Drop Its Rock, And Geologists Feel the Pain

LOS ANGELES -- Empirically speaking, geologists are not a particularly irascible group. But those who make their living studying rocks, minerals and gems in California -- and increasingly those scientists beyond the state's borders -- are enraged over a bill in Sacramento that would knock serpentine, the official state rock, off its mantle.

The lawmaker and others who would like to see serpentine stripped of its title say the olive green rock found all over the state is a grim symbol of the deadly cancers associated with asbestos, which can be found in the rock. Geologists, who have taken to Twitter on behalf of the rock, assert that serpentine is harmless and is being demonized by advocates for people with asbestos-related diseases and possibly their trial lawyers, too.

The bill to defrock the rock -- which recently passed the full State Senate and is awaiting a vote in the Assembly -- is sponsored by Senator Gloria Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat, with the strong support of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization.

Declaring that serpentine ''has known health effects,'' the bill would leave California -- one of roughly half the states in the nation with an official rock or mineral -- without an official rock. (According to the bill, California was the first state, in 1965, to name an official rock.) Asbestos occurs naturally in many minerals, and indeed some serpentine rocks do serve as a host for chrysotile, a form of asbestos. But geologists say chrysotile is less harmful than some other forms of asbestos, and would be a danger -- like scores of other rocks -- only if a person were to breathe its dust repeatedly.

''There is no way anyone is going to get bothered by casual exposure to that kind of rock,'' said Malcolm Ross, a geologist who retired from the United States Geological Survey in 1995. ''Unless they were breaking it up with a sledgehammer year after year.''

Dr. Ross and other opponents of the bill are concerned that removing serpentine, which is occasionally used in jewelry, as the state's rock would demonize it and thus inspire litigation against museums, property owners and other sites where the rocks sit; they cite the inclusion of a letter of support from the Consumer Attorneys of California with the bill as evidence.

''If they keep the asbestos issue bubbling,'' Dr. Ross said, ''it means money for politicians, more money for lawyers and money for scientists to investigate.''

J. D. Preston, a spokesman from the consumer lawyers group, said the group had nothing to do with drafting the legislation and was just responding to a request from the awareness organization for a support letter. ''We just thought this was a good fit in our mission of consumer safety,'' Mr. Preston said. ''It is certainly not the intent, and we don't even see where it opens the avenue for litigation.''

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has indicated no position.

Linda Reinstein, president of the awareness organization, whose husband died of lung cancer, pointed out that the bill had numerous letters of support, including ones from the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and groups that represent people with mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of many internal organs associated with asbestos.

''It doesn't do anything legally,'' Ms. Reinstein said of the proposed legislation. ''This bill is all about education and awareness. We never expected such a stir.''

Under the hashtag -- a Twitter identifying phrase that allows easy searching of similarly themed messages -- #CASerpentine, scientists and other opponents of the bill are debating the bill's merits and offering fighting words. One read, ''Dear gloria romero, you have picked the wrong nerds to mess with!''

PHOTOS: PHOTO (PHOTOGRAPH BY MONICA ALMEIDA/THE NEW YORK TIMES) (A1); State Senator Gloria Romero proposed the serpentine bill. (PHOTOGRAPH BY RICH PEDRONCELLI/ASSOCIATED PRESS) (A16)

View the original article here

New York Increases Monitoring of Asbestos Inspectors

Three months after a safety inspector admitted to falsifying hundreds of reports concluding that buildings were free of cancer-causing asbestos, the city agency that licensed him — and still licenses nearly 550 others — says it has taken steps to ensure better oversight.

The agency, the Department of Environmental Protection, which certifies the private inspectors who test buildings and construction sites, says the measures include sharing information with federal, state and city agencies, computerizing its filing system and substantially increasing audits and spot checks of inspectors in the field.

The changes, the result of a two-month internal review, were outlined in a June 28 memorandum to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg from the environmental agency’s commissioner, Cas Holloway. The agency provided a copy of the five-page memorandum to The New York Times.

The review, an agency official said, was prompted by an article in The Times in late April about the inspector, Saverio F. Todaro, 68, who had admitted in federal court a month earlier that he falsified the reports. Mr. Todaro pleaded guilty to federal environmental crimes, fraud and making false statements; he faces as long as five years in prison when he appears next month before a judge for sentencing.

Mr. Todaro, who operated an environmental inspection and testing company, acknowledged that he had submitted clean asbestos and lead test results for at least a decade without performing any tests.

The scope and audacity of his crimes and the apparent ease with which he got away with them suggested that the agency’s oversight was weak and raised questions about the integrity of the work of other inspectors.

A spokesman for the environmental agency, Farrell Sklerov, however, said that the two-month review, and a substantial increase in office audits and field visits since it began, found no indications that such conduct was widespread.

But the investigation that led to the charges against Mr. Todaro, by the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division, the city Department of Investigation and federal prosecutors in Manhattan, is not over, and the authorities have suggested that more charges may be brought, though it is unclear whether they would focus on more inspectors.

The city environmental agency regulates private asbestos inspectors, who play an important role in what has long been viewed as one of the more corrupt sectors of the construction industry. The agency sets the procedures and establishes requirements for training and certification.

The inspectors, formally known as certified asbestos investigators, are hired by building owners and developers to assess apartments and buildings set to undergo renovation or demolition, because inhaling asbestos can cause lung disease and cancer. The assessments can have a major impact on the cost and duration of a project, since cleanup or abatement can be expensive and time consuming.

A surprising aspect of Mr. Todaro’s case was that his certification was suspended in 2004 by the environmental agency, which cited poor building surveys and improper record keeping.

But because of a lack of communication between city agencies, he was able to keep performing asbestos assessments and avoid scrutiny. He continued to file assessments with the city’s Buildings Department, enabling developers to obtain permits to demolish or renovate, because the Department of Environmental Protection had not notified the Buildings Department of his suspension.

“The fact that Mr. Todaro continued to conduct asbestos-related investigations following the suspension of his license raised concerns about whether there are sufficient safeguards in place to ensure that only properly licensed C.A.I.’s conduct asbestos investigations in New York City,” Mr. Holloway wrote in the memo.

The environmental agency also failed to notify the State Department of Labor, which licenses asbestos abatement companies, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Mr. Holloway said that partly because of this lapse, his agency had instituted a data-sharing and notification system with the federal E.P.A., the New York State Departments of Environmental Conservation, Labor and Health and several city agencies, including the Departments of Buildings, Design and Construction, Transportation, Housing Preservation and Development, Health and Mental Hygiene.

The new protocols, he wrote in the memo, also include an Internet-based filing system for asbestos, which will automatically reject reports by any asbestos investigator whose certification has been suspended or revoked.

The agency, Mr. Holloway said in the memo, will nearly double the number of office audits it conducts each year, to 75, up from 40; the agency will check the records and activities of nearly 15 percent of the 543 asbestos investigators it certifies.

Also, the agency hired two additional inspection monitors in February, Mr. Sklerov said, bringing to 15 the number of staff members who, among other responsibilities, monitor asbestos investigators. In addition to the office audits, the monitors will conduct 500 spot-check field inspections each year to verify the accuracy of the information asbestos investigators provided about the planned scope of work and to check for any evidence of asbestos, the memo said.

Despite the changes detailed in the memo, however, experts and law enforcement officials said that many questions remained about the case of Mr. Todaro, including how he was able to get away with what he did for so long, and how the agency’s oversight practices had developed over the years.

Not the least of the questions center on the potential lingering effects of both Mr. Todaro’s crimes and of the city’s lapses in oversight.

Indeed, because Mr. Todaro falsified so many tests, it is impossible in most instances to determine if proper assessments would have revealed levels of asbestos that were potentially dangerous — not only to workers, but also to neighbors and passers-by — because the buildings have been torn down and replaced with new ones, or gutted and renovated.

View the original article here

Canada: Journal Cites Double Standard

Ramesh Ponnuru and Yuval Levin on why the Republicans should revive the McCain tax credit plan.

Richard White on why high-speed rail subsidies could repeat a 19th-century folly.

View the original article here

E.P.A. ‘Most Wanted’ Fugitive Captured in Dominican Republic

Albania Deleon was convicted in November 2008 in Massachusetts on environmental and other charges related to a fraudulent asbestos training institute she ran there. She fled the state in March 2009, two days before her sentencing.

Carrying a false identity card and having dyed her hair blond, she was arrested Saturday when Dominican agents pulled over her vehicle in Santo Domingo. The State Department had submitted an extradition request to the Dominican Republic after realizing she had left the country.

Ms. Deleon, 40, is the first woman to be listed on the E.P.A.’s two-year-old fugitives list, which includes people wanted for crimes ranging from dumping oil or contaminated soil to importing vehicles that fail to meet United States emissions standards.

She could face substantial jail time after extradition to the United States, given that she was convicted of 28 counts that carried penalties of 5 to 20 years, the E.P.A. said.

The trail of crimes goes back to roughly 2001, when Ms. Deleon began operating Environmental Compliance Training, a certified asbestos-removal training school in Methuen, Mass. Over the next five years, she granted hundreds of certificates to people who had taken no courses.

The authorities estimated that 65 to 80 percent of those who received certificates from the school had not received the necessary training. Many of those were illegal immigrants who could not afford to take four days off from work to obtain their credentials. Environmental Compliance Training became Massachusetts’ largest asbestos training business.

Many of the graduates obtained jobs through a temporary staffing agency that Ms. Deleon also owned, the E.P.A. said, and were sent out to do dangerous asbestos demolition work. She paid them under the table so she would not have to pay taxes or obtain workers’ compensation insurance for them.

She was convicted in federal court in 2008 on charges including fraud, hiring illegal immigrants, making false statements and procuring false payroll tax returns.

The E.P.A. created its most-wanted list, complete with mug shots, to draw more attention to environmental crime, which has been rising as agency regulation has expanded. Sixteen fugitives remain on that list, and five, including Ms. Deleon, are listed as former fugitives with “captured” stamped on their mug shots.

Cynthia Giles, an assistant E.P.A. administrator, declined to say whether the list had led to any tips that aided in Ms. Deleon’s capture.

“Posting defendants on the fugitive Web site creates more visibility, thereby providing an opportunity for the public to provide information about their potential whereabouts and for law enforcement authorities to be aware that these individuals are wanted by the United States,” she said.

View the original article here

Specter pressured to lower amount of proposed asbestos fund

Specter pressured to lower amount of proposed asbestos fund - Asbestos & Mesothelioma News

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information [at] asbestostoday dot comSpecter pressured to lower amount of proposed asbestos fund

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter is reportedly under pressure to scale back his proposal for a $140 Billion privately financed asbestos fund.

The White House has not explicitly endorsed Specter's proposal, and some Republicans and business interests fear its current provisions would be too costly for the defendant companies and insurers who would finance the fund.

News Source: Reuters  |  Published: February 28, 2005  |  Read Full Story Contact an Asbestos and Mesothelioma Attorney, Lawyer, Law Firm Please fill out the form below to contact an attorney. Provide as much information as possible to speed the processing of your inquiry (Only United States residents are eligible). Contact Information   *Are required items. *First Name: *Last Name: Email Address: *Daytime Phone: Evening Phone: *Zip Code: Case Information Have you, or the person you are contacting us on behalf of, been diagnosed with mesothelioma: Yes:   No: Date of diagnosis:

*Comments: (Please describe your legal issues and needs.)

Terms I understand submission of information submission of information for review does not create, is not intended to create, and must not be relied upon as creating, an attorney-client relationship. I understand such a relationship can only be created by the agreement of both the client and the attorney, evidenced by a written retainer agreement that has been signed by client and counter-signed by the attorney.By submitting your expression of interest you are consenting to receive telephone calls from participating law firms even if you are currently on the do-not-call list. *I Agree to these terms: All contents copyright ©2008, eJustice All rights reserved. Asbestos Today is part of the eJustice Network. Your use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the Asbestos Today Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

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CITY ROOM; On a Midtown Block, the Big Yellow-Toothed Face of Labor, Times Two

Tourists shuffling out of Grand Central Terminal would be forgiven for wondering what the heck kind of low-rent horror movie about giant rats is being filmed on East 42nd Street. Immobile, fat and grinning with big yellow teeth - yikes!

New Yorkers, of course, will recognize the big inflated pests, familiar sights all over town, wherever a labor union has taken umbrage with the goings-on at the location. The rat may stay an hour or a day or longer, with handy fliers explaining the nature of the dispute. Indeed, the rats are almost counterproductive among natives, who barely bother to look up and notice anymore, as with panhandlers and police sirens and smiling people who want you to stop in the middle of the sidewalk and sign something.

But rarer, far rarer, is the double rat sighting on a single block, as is the case on 42nd Street. Two rats face two different buildings as if they'd planned it that way and carpooled in together, which was not quite the case. The union that owns the rats, Asbestos, Lead and Hazardous Waste Laborers' Local 78, is protesting the means of asbestos abatement at 60 East 42nd Street and 315 Madison Avenue, which faces 42nd. The rats will be there all week.One of them is 15 feet tall and, like many real rats, nude, his long tail turned up between his legs. The other rat is three feet shorter but nattier, wearing a suit and tie and clutching two big bags of money. They are the whiskered face of labor in New York, like rodent Tom Joads, perched wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, Ma

This week's rat double-billing requires two union men to stand watch all day.

''It's fun,'' said one, Juan Severino, 25, of the South Bronx, who has hauled the rats around for two years. ''You see the reactions of people. Some people hate us because we are disturbing the public. Some people love us. Tourists take pictures.''

Each rat's work day begins at 7 a.m., when 42nd Street is still relatively quiet. Mr. Severino parks his pickup on the curb and hauls out the deflated, folded-up rat, which rises only about knee high. He hooks it up to a fan, which in turn is hooked to a generator, into which he pours gasoline and yanks the start cord. The rat springs to life remarkably quickly, in seconds, and Mr. Severino ties it down to the subway grate on the sidewalk.

For a building's owners, the rat outside is just about as unwelcome as one running around inside.

''They always call the cops,'' Mr. Severino said. ''The first couple days are like that. It's intense.'' Then everybody gets used to one another, sort of like New Yorkers' resignation with, and even affection for, real rats. The big rats are street legal if they stay out of the road and they're not blocking the sidewalk. Mr. Severino said he and his partner pack the rats up around 3:30 p.m. A gallon of gas keeps one inflated for eight hours.

City Room left voice mail messages for the chief executives targeted by the Midtown rats.

The two rats are part of a stable for Local 78. There are two more rats that were perched at addresses in New Jersey on Wednesday, Mr. Severino said. And for those narrow sidewalks where the rats won't fit, the union mounts a coffin with a dummy inside.

Now, to be fair to those who think the rats are in a movie shoot, they might be on to something. A movie about inflated union rats that come to life and lead real rats in a siege of the city and chomp on people with their yellow teeth and wear nice suits and talk like Henry Fonda - yes, we would see that.

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.

PHOTO: Two inflated rats from Local 78 of the Asbestos, Lead and Hazardous Waste Laborers near Grand Central Terminal this week. (PHOTOGRAPH BY SUZANNE DeCHILLO/THE NEW YORK TIMES)

View the original article here

California May Drop Its Official State Rock

The lawmaker and others who would like to see serpentine stripped of its title say the olive green rock found all over the state is a grim symbol of the deadly cancers associated with asbestos, which can be found in the rock. Geologists, who have taken to Twitter on behalf of the rock, assert that serpentine is harmless and is being demonized by advocates for people with asbestos-related diseases and possibly their trial lawyers, too.

The bill to defrock the rock — which recently passed the full State Senate and is awaiting a vote in the Assembly — is sponsored by Senator Gloria Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat, with the strong support of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization.

Declaring that serpentine “has known health effects,” the bill would leave California — one of roughly half the states in the nation with an official rock or mineral — without an official rock. (According to the bill, California was the first state, in 1965, to name an official rock.) Asbestos occurs naturally in many minerals, and indeed some serpentine rocks do serve as a host for chrysotile, a form of asbestos. But geologists say chrysotile is less harmful than some other forms of asbestos, and would be a danger — like scores of other rocks — only if a person were to breathe its dust repeatedly.

“There is no way anyone is going to get bothered by casual exposure to that kind of rock,” said Malcolm Ross, a geologist who retired from the United States Geological Survey in 1995. “Unless they were breaking it up with a sledgehammer year after year.”

Dr. Ross and other opponents of the bill are concerned that removing serpentine, which is occasionally used in jewelry, as the state’s rock would demonize it and thus inspire litigation against museums, property owners and other sites where the rocks sit; they cite the inclusion of a letter of support from the Consumer Attorneys of California with the bill as evidence.

“If they keep the asbestos issue bubbling,” Dr. Ross said, “it means money for politicians, more money for lawyers and money for scientists to investigate.”

J. D. Preston, a spokesman from the consumer lawyers group, said the group had nothing to do with drafting the legislation and was just responding to a request from the awareness organization for a support letter. “We just thought this was a good fit in our mission of consumer safety,” Mr. Preston said. “It is certainly not the intent, and we don’t even see where it opens the avenue for litigation.”

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has indicated no position.

Linda Reinstein, president of the awareness organization, whose husband died of mesothelioma, pointed out that the bill had numerous letters of support, including ones from the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and groups that represent people with mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of many internal organs associated with asbestos.

“It doesn’t do anything legally,” Ms. Reinstein said of the proposed legislation. “This bill is all about education and awareness. We never expected such a stir.”

Under the hashtag — a Twitter identifying phrase that allows easy searching of similarly themed messages — #CASerpentine, scientists and other opponents of the bill are debating the bill’s merits and offering fighting words. One read, “Dear gloria romero, you have picked the wrong nerds to mess with!”

Senator Romero said she didn't believe it was appropriate for California to have a state rock that is linked to asbestos. "California is health conscious," she said. "This is not about being anti-rock. But why do we need a rock?"

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 16, 2010

Because of an editing error, an article on Wednesday about a dispute in California over removing serpentine as the state’s official rock because it contains asbestos misstated the cause of death for the husband of Linda Reinstein, the president of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization. Her husband died of mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs and other organs that is closely tied to asbestos exposure; he did not die from lung cancer.

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Billings Workers Have Minimal Exposure to Asbestos says Dr.

Billings Workers Have Minimal Exposure to Asbestos says Dr. - Asbestos & Mesothelioma News

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information [at] asbestostoday dot comBillings Workers Have Minimal Exposure to Asbestos says Dr.

Dr. Kate Flanigan, from the Denver office of Federal Occupational Health spoke to the Billings Gazettle about the high levels of asbestos at the Billings federal courthouse in late January 2005, early February 2005.

The highest asbestos readings last week were three times the level that triggers alarms in standards set by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, she said. But OSHA doesn't start seeking medical surveillance in a building until levels exceed the standard for eight-hour periods on 30 days during a year. High readings in Billings were found on only one or two days, she said. And employees entering and leaving the lobby were not exposed for eight hours, she said.

News Source: Billings Gazette  |  Published: February 21, 2005  |  Read Full Story Contact an Asbestos and Mesothelioma Attorney, Lawyer, Law Firm Please fill out the form below to contact an attorney. Provide as much information as possible to speed the processing of your inquiry (Only United States residents are eligible). Contact Information   *Are required items. *First Name: *Last Name: Email Address: *Daytime Phone: Evening Phone: *Zip Code: Case Information Have you, or the person you are contacting us on behalf of, been diagnosed with mesothelioma: Yes:   No: Date of diagnosis:

*Comments: (Please describe your legal issues and needs.)

Terms I understand submission of information submission of information for review does not create, is not intended to create, and must not be relied upon as creating, an attorney-client relationship. I understand such a relationship can only be created by the agreement of both the client and the attorney, evidenced by a written retainer agreement that has been signed by client and counter-signed by the attorney.By submitting your expression of interest you are consenting to receive telephone calls from participating law firms even if you are currently on the do-not-call list. *I Agree to these terms: All contents copyright ©2008, eJustice All rights reserved. Asbestos Today is part of the eJustice Network. Your use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the Asbestos Today Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

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Inspector Says He Faked Data in New York Building Tests

A safety inspector licensed to make critical assessments of asbestos and lead risks in buildings and at construction sites across the city made a stunning admission in federal court: Despite filing hundreds of reports saying his tests had found no danger, he had not performed a single one of the tests.

The inspector, Saverio F. Todaro, 68, submitted clean asbestos or lead test results for well over 200 buildings and apartments, including some that were demolished or renovated to make way for publicly financed projects under the Bloomberg administration’s affordable-housing program, according to people briefed on the matter and court papers.

The number of potential victims of Mr. Todaro’s fraud, which spanned at least a decade, loomed so large that the Manhattan United States attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the case, created a separate Web page to comply with a law requiring it to notify victims.

His admissions late last month have raised troubling questions about whether such conduct might be more widespread, and it has led to an expanding inquiry focused on some aspects of the work of asbestos and lead inspectors in the city.

“Todaro’s guilty plea is not the end of the story,” said the Manhattan United States attorney, Preet Bharara. “This investigation is very much ongoing.”

The investigation, in part, seeks to determine whether he conspired with others — taking bribes to fashion crude forgeries and mask his failure to conduct any tests — or whether he acted alone for other reasons, officials said.

The breadth of his crimes, the simplicity of the schemes and the apparent ease with which he got away with them over the years also suggest that the city’s oversight is strained, at best.

“It’s the tip of the iceberg,” said one official briefed on the matter and on the issues facing city and federal regulators, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is continuing. “We just don’t know how big the iceberg is.”

Because Mr. Todaro never did the tests in question, and because in more than a dozen instances the buildings involved have been torn down and replaced with new ones, or gutted and renovated, it is impossible in some cases to determine if proper tests would have revealed potentially dangerous levels of lead or asbestos.

At the same time, federal and city officials have not made public the precise number and location of the buildings involved, or disclosed specifics of what they think took place in each instance. While the city’s health department has reviewed 17 cases in which Mr. Todaro performed lead tests, it remains unclear whether city officials plan to conduct any other reviews or retesting.

But the stakes are unquestionably high.

The Environmental Protection Agency has found that the long-term effects of lead exposure in children and adults can be severe. Inhaling asbestos can cause lung disease and cancer.

Several city agencies sought to play down the dangers.

City regulators have found no evidence that either the fraud or risks are widespread, said Marc La Vorgna, a spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

“We can always look for new ways to improve our process,” he said. “D.E.P. is going to start increasing audits, which is the right step to ensure inspections are being completed properly.”

But, in addition to the continuing investigation that grew out of the charges against Mr. Todaro, there are now six other unrelated federal cases under way exploring allegations of similar practices in the New York City area. Some 1,500 people hold city or federal certifications to test for lead or asbestos in the area.

One line of inquiry for investigators in the case involving Mr. Todaro is whether any building owners, management firms or contractors for whom he or other inspectors worked paid bribes for the bogus inspection reports. Officials say substantial sums of money could have been saved by allowing the demolition of buildings without performing expensive asbestos abatement.

Indeed, several current and former law enforcement officials and industry experts underscored that the city’s construction industry, and in particular the demolition and asbestos abatement sectors, have a rich history of corruption.

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Mississippi Justice Overturns Judge's Order in Asbestos Injury Lawsuit

Mississippi Justice Overturns Judge's Order in Asbestos Injury Lawsuit - Asbestos & Mesothelioma News

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information [at] asbestostoday dot comMississippi Justice Overturns Judge's Order in Asbestos Injury Lawsuit

AP reports that Mississippi Supreme Court Justice, George C. Carlson Jr, has ordered plaintiffs in an asbestos injury lawsuit to justify why their cases should be heard in Jones County, Mississippi. This overturns an order by Circuit Judge Billy Joe Landrum where by 115 plaintiffs would be grouped together.

Carlson said the plaintiffs must provide the defendants with information on who each plaintiff sued and why. That information should also include when the plaintiff was exposed and the work site where the exposure occurred.

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New York Increases Monitoring of Asbestos Inspectors

Three months after a safety inspector admitted to falsifying hundreds of reports concluding that buildings were free of cancer-causing asbestos, the city agency that licensed him — and still licenses nearly 550 others — says it has taken steps to ensure better oversight.

The agency, the Department of Environmental Protection, which certifies the private inspectors who test buildings and construction sites, says the measures include sharing information with federal, state and city agencies, computerizing its filing system and substantially increasing audits and spot checks of inspectors in the field.

The changes, the result of a two-month internal review, were outlined in a June 28 memorandum to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg from the environmental agency’s commissioner, Cas Holloway. The agency provided a copy of the five-page memorandum to The New York Times.

The review, an agency official said, was prompted by an article in The Times in late April about the inspector, Saverio F. Todaro, 68, who had admitted in federal court a month earlier that he falsified the reports. Mr. Todaro pleaded guilty to federal environmental crimes, fraud and making false statements; he faces as long as five years in prison when he appears next month before a judge for sentencing.

Mr. Todaro, who operated an environmental inspection and testing company, acknowledged that he had submitted clean asbestos and lead test results for at least a decade without performing any tests.

The scope and audacity of his crimes and the apparent ease with which he got away with them suggested that the agency’s oversight was weak and raised questions about the integrity of the work of other inspectors.

A spokesman for the environmental agency, Farrell Sklerov, however, said that the two-month review, and a substantial increase in office audits and field visits since it began, found no indications that such conduct was widespread.

But the investigation that led to the charges against Mr. Todaro, by the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division, the city Department of Investigation and federal prosecutors in Manhattan, is not over, and the authorities have suggested that more charges may be brought, though it is unclear whether they would focus on more inspectors.

The city environmental agency regulates private asbestos inspectors, who play an important role in what has long been viewed as one of the more corrupt sectors of the construction industry. The agency sets the procedures and establishes requirements for training and certification.

The inspectors, formally known as certified asbestos investigators, are hired by building owners and developers to assess apartments and buildings set to undergo renovation or demolition, because inhaling asbestos can cause lung disease and cancer. The assessments can have a major impact on the cost and duration of a project, since cleanup or abatement can be expensive and time consuming.

A surprising aspect of Mr. Todaro’s case was that his certification was suspended in 2004 by the environmental agency, which cited poor building surveys and improper record keeping.

But because of a lack of communication between city agencies, he was able to keep performing asbestos assessments and avoid scrutiny. He continued to file assessments with the city’s Buildings Department, enabling developers to obtain permits to demolish or renovate, because the Department of Environmental Protection had not notified the Buildings Department of his suspension.

“The fact that Mr. Todaro continued to conduct asbestos-related investigations following the suspension of his license raised concerns about whether there are sufficient safeguards in place to ensure that only properly licensed C.A.I.’s conduct asbestos investigations in New York City,” Mr. Holloway wrote in the memo.

The environmental agency also failed to notify the State Department of Labor, which licenses asbestos abatement companies, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Mr. Holloway said that partly because of this lapse, his agency had instituted a data-sharing and notification system with the federal E.P.A., the New York State Departments of Environmental Conservation, Labor and Health and several city agencies, including the Departments of Buildings, Design and Construction, Transportation, Housing Preservation and Development, Health and Mental Hygiene.

The new protocols, he wrote in the memo, also include an Internet-based filing system for asbestos, which will automatically reject reports by any asbestos investigator whose certification has been suspended or revoked.

The agency, Mr. Holloway said in the memo, will nearly double the number of office audits it conducts each year, to 75, up from 40; the agency will check the records and activities of nearly 15 percent of the 543 asbestos investigators it certifies.

Also, the agency hired two additional inspection monitors in February, Mr. Sklerov said, bringing to 15 the number of staff members who, among other responsibilities, monitor asbestos investigators. In addition to the office audits, the monitors will conduct 500 spot-check field inspections each year to verify the accuracy of the information asbestos investigators provided about the planned scope of work and to check for any evidence of asbestos, the memo said.

Despite the changes detailed in the memo, however, experts and law enforcement officials said that many questions remained about the case of Mr. Todaro, including how he was able to get away with what he did for so long, and how the agency’s oversight practices had developed over the years.

Not the least of the questions center on the potential lingering effects of both Mr. Todaro’s crimes and of the city’s lapses in oversight.

Indeed, because Mr. Todaro falsified so many tests, it is impossible in most instances to determine if proper assessments would have revealed levels of asbestos that were potentially dangerous — not only to workers, but also to neighbors and passers-by — because the buildings have been torn down and replaced with new ones, or gutted and renovated.

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