When we think of tragedy what is the first thing that comes to our mind? For over 90 percent of people all over the world, it is death. Yes, we are all scared of dying, and especially a painful death. In the movie, The Bucket List, Morgan Freeman, one of the main characters, says that when people are asked as to whether they want to know the date of their death in advance, most of them said that they did not want to know. So that is another factor, none of us want to know the day or our death in advance. But what happens if you are unlucky enough to know the fact that your days are, in fact, numbered? What happens then? It probably makes you braver than ever. This is because you do not have to live the rest of your days in fear anymore. Facing the prospect of death can suddenly make one brave. To believe that, look around you and observe the thousands of people who are terminally ill and are still enjoying every moment of whatever they have left.
That brings us to another element here. What terminal illnesses have you heard of? The common names are cancer, AIDS, leukemia, etc. Hearing these names probably fill you with a sense of dread. However, the world has more in store for us human beings. Welcome to the newest plague or scourge of the modern world. This is not AIDS. It is mesothelioma. The name probably does not strike a bell among all the "famous" diseases that you have heard of. Let us not call them diseases anymore. It sounds crude. These are all conditions that thousands of people suffer from. So, what IS mesothelioma, you may ask? And it isn’t even that widespread, so how can it pose a great threat to humankind at large? There is an answer to all of these questions.
First, mesothelioma is a kind of aggressive cancer that affects people who have been exposed to asbestos for extended periods of time, spanning years and decades. Asbestos fibers enter the body and penetrate the vital lining of various organs including the lungs, the cardiac as well as the abdominal cavities. These fibers penetrate the body, undergo genetic mutations and form new mutated cells which slowly metastasize or spread all over the body. Thus mesothelioma patients have asbestos fibers mingled within their cellular structure. And here you were thinking that genetic mutations only occur to young college kids in comic books who become super heroes after undergoing genetic mutation. This is not the Spiderman story. It is the story of thousands and thousands of people who have been subjected to one of the biggest atrocities in human history, but more of that later. There are three types of mesothelioma that affect people: Pleural (lung), Peritoneal (abdominal) and Pericardial (cardiac cavity) mesothelioma. Of these three, most patients usually suffer from the pleural because asbestos particles are usually airborne and enter the system while breathing. This cancer is aggressive, but has a very slow and extended gestation period.
The symptoms of mesothelioma usually show themselves twenty to fifty years after their exposure to asbestos. Basically the cancer feeds into the system for decades before rearing up its ugly head. Basically children whose parents were exposed to asbestos are becoming afflicted in their late adulthood. Another thing that you should know is the fact that it is extremely contagious, in the sense that even if you have prolonged contact with a person who in turn has had a sustained exposure to asbestos, then you might contract it too. Technically speaking, the person who regularly does the laundry for a mesothelioma patient might contract it too. But as I said, the exposure has to be sustained over a long period of time.
By now you must be certainly asking about the ways that this deadly condition can be cured. Well, to cut a long story short, there is no permanent and standardized cure for mesothelioma, and the sole reason for this is the fact that mesothelioma cannot be detected before decades of it has entered into your system. Also, many of the symptoms that are atypical of mesothelioma are not solely mesothelioma centric. Symptoms like shortness of breath, blood in the sputum, pleurisies or fluid in the lungs and so on. All these symptoms can be mistaken for a thousand other conditions. Of course, different forms of mesothelioma have their own specific symptoms, but again, most of them are not mesothelioma centric. For treatment, there is the usual stock of chemotherapy as well as radiation. Surgery is usually performed in the most drastic of situations, but is not that effective as the other two treatments mentioned. With chemotherapy and radiation there is a much higher incidence of being able to increase the patient’s lifespan by five years or more. With surgery that extension rate is much less. Again, there are other treatment methods like immunotherapy that has been making progress in this field as well.
Dr. Paul Sugarbaker has been a pioneer in the field of mesothelioma treatment for years. He has evolved new methods of surgery and ways of treating the carcinogenic cells by using modes of radiation and chemotherapy. He has been able to make immense progress in a field that had once been dominated by hopelessness and despair. He developed these methods at the Washington Cancer Institute. Doctors have also been searching for methods through which the condition can be detected at a much earlier stage, that is, a stage where the mutations will not have taken place yet. Asbestos takes over one’s DNA. Now you know why mesothelioma is rightly called the scourge of the 21st century…
Next comes the question of exposure. Mesothelioma was a rare cancer which is unfortunately losing its position as one, as day by day more and more people are revealed to be suffering from the condition. So how are such staggering numbers of people becoming exposed to such a deadly mineral? And if this mineral is airborne, why is every single person in this world not mesotheliomic by now? To answer these questions, let me take you back into time as history will reveal how many people fell prey to such atrocities and perhaps it is then that you will realize that human atrocities extend far beyond wars and genocide. Veiled by civilization, people and corporations have committed many crimes for materialistic reasons.
Most of us know what the Industrial Revolution was all about in the early days of modern civilization. With the invention of a multitude of machines, there was a sudden boom in industry and production of goods finally attained new levels in terms of both quantity and quality. As a result, requirement for raw material also increased. In the late 1800s, the potential of asbestos as an industrial material was discovered. With the ongoing Industrial Revolution, new inventions in science enabled the maximization of asbestos use in the industry. However, by the early years of the 20th century, different medical organizations in England began to document the deaths of industrial workers who had been exposed to asbestos. By 1917, this information had been passed on to the United States as well. From the 1920s, different medical journals like the British Medical Journal and other research organizations began to publish the results of various experiments that had been conducted to test the hazardous quality of asbestos. The backlash from the big corporations and industries started from the 1930s onward, spearheaded by companies like Johns Manville which was a major asbestos company. Asbestos was being commercially mined and was also being used as a raw material, resulting in huge profit margins. Now, desperate to protect their profits and reputation, these corporations tried to suppress these results which revealed the deadly nature of asbestos. They bribed people, tampered with test results and even released false evidence to prove to their workers and the world in general that "the hazardous nature of asbestos was merely an exaggeration," in spite of blatant medical evidence which proved that workers who were being exposed to asbestos were dying out of conditions like asbestosis, mesothelioma and a variety of other related conditions. To protect their industries and their profits, these corporations would not reveal to their workers that they were being exposed to asbestos, and neither would they implement any safety measures like protective clothing or warning signs as these might scare off the workers. Thus the lives of innumerable workers were being risked at the altar of materialism.
Many corporations could get away with it because the symptoms would not manifest until decades later. Editors were instructed to stop publishing incriminating articles against asbestos, while some articles were modified. Test results which were sponsored by asbestos companies as a so called "goodwill gesture" were tampered or suppressed if they were incriminating. Asbestos was finally banned in 1989, following almost ten years of legislation. But the worst thing is, even though asbestos was banned in 1989, the EWG Action Fund report states that 29 million pounds of asbestos had been imported into the United States for industrial use, in as late as 2001!
This kind of inhuman behavior just shows the level that mankind has sunk to. Men are willing to sacrifice, or rather cold bloodedly ruin the lives of thousands of others, just to protect their own interests. As a result of this atrocity millions of industrial workers and their families have been exposed to mesothelioma. It is not only in the industries that this has occurred. Asbestos has been used in ships and submarines as an insulating material. Therefore thousands of navy veterans who had decided to serve their country during World War II as well as the Vietnam War have been diagnosed with mesothelioma today. And these were the very men who had risked their lives to go and serve their country during times of crisis.
Are you one of these numerous people who has fallen to such a crime? Were you exposed to such a deadly environment for years without even knowing about it? Then it is time for you to stand up for your rights, as clichéd as that might sound. This is to make you aware of what has gone on in corporate conference rooms behind closed doors while you worked for these very people and contributed to their burgeoning profit statistics. Stand up against these people by using methods of mesothelioma litigation because these are the people who should pay for your medical bills, and all the chemotherapy sessions that you need to go in for. They earned those millions of dollars because of your hard work and it is payback time for all of them. I will give you an appalling example to prove my point. The president of the infamous Johns Manville had said that the managers of some the other asbestos companies were fools because they had notified their employees about the asbestos effects! When one of his own managers asked him, "Do you mean to tell me you would let them work until they dropped dead?" The response is reported to have been, "Yes. We save a lot of money that way." This is according to the testimony by Charles H. Roemer, Deposition taken April 25, 1984, Johns-Manville Corp., et al v. the United States of America, U.S. Claims Court Civ. No. 465-83C. Various socially motivated authors have written books exposing the entire "Asbestos Cover Up." These include Barry I. Castleman’s Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects, David Kotelchuck’s "Asbestos: The Funeral Dress of Kings and Others" in "Dying for Work: Workers’ Safety and Health in Twentieth-Century America", ed. by David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz and Paul Brodeur’s Outrageous Misconduct: The Asbestos Industry on Trial.
As more and more people are diagnosed with mesothelioma, the lawsuits against these corporations are increasing as well. Mesothelioma litigation started increasing in the late 1900s as all the people who had worked with asbestos since its entrance into industry in the late 1880s started displaying the symptoms. Today, it has reached its peak as not only workers, but even their families are being diagnosed with this condition. Billions and billions of dollars are being generated in the lawsuits that are being filed against these companies. Mesothelioma litigation has become a branch of legal specialization in itself. There are mesothelioma law firms and mesothelioma attorneys and lawyers who use their legal expertise in guiding mesothelioma patients to sue companies or individuals for the deliberate damage caused by asbestos exposure. This is a very lengthy and tedious process and often takes years and years to resolve since mesothelioma is such a delayed condition. Obviously the companies do not like being incriminated in such cases and they use their expansive pool of both financial and legal resources to fight the cases. So if you want to take legal action, do not delay. Make sure you get a competent mesothelioma law firm and begin your crusade.
Since mesothelioma is largely incurable, there are many other forms of palliative treatment that mesothelioma patients can opt for. These include aromatherapy, acupuncture, meditation and yoga. While these do not cure you of the condition, they keep you both physically and mentally happy. Another important thing is to eat well. Cancer treatments take a lot out of you and there are many weakening side effects as well. Thus you must have a proper balanced diet, which replenishes your body with all the important nutrients like proteins, vitamins and so on. Also make sure that you do not eat very oily and rich food, because this might lead to diarrhea and other digestive problems.
Do not let yourself succumb to the circumstances, no matter how painful they maybe. The latter is an all important thing that comes into play if you have a terminal condition. While expressions like "you must be brave" and "always think positive" sound clichéd and are very easy to say, it also holds true that having a strong personality and will power does indeed push away the inevitable end. Even if you get the best medicine and treatment available, falling prone to depression will knock away half of your remaining years as well. It has been scientifically proven that mesothelioma patients who have undergone both physical and mental cures have had longer life spans than those who have only gone in for medication.
Look for inspiration in Stephen Gould who was a world famous evolutionary biologist in his time. He was diagnosed with abdominal mesothelioma. When he looked up information to see how much time he had, he discovered it to be an average of eight months only. Rather than being depressed he interpreted things in his own way and by virtue of his personality and determination lived much longer. He was diagnosed in 1982. He died in 2000, that is, 18 years after his diagnosis! He stretched his 8 months, to 18 years. That is what a strong mind can do. When Gould asked his friend Sir Peter Medawar, (who incidentally is a Nobel Laureate in immunology) about what is the best way to fight against cancer, he replied, "a sanguine personality." This just goes to show that the heart and the head can prove to be better defenses than even the best form of radiation therapy that you can obtain.
There are still many gross injustices that are being carried out to stop mesothelioma legislation. The Congress has been trying to pass a bill which will take away mesothelioma patients’ right to sue. A judge has passed a ruling to create a multimillion dollar fund to aid patients. Now at first sight, it seems like a magnanimous gesture, doesn’t it? The fund was actually created so that mesothelioma patients would not sue the companies for funds. All this is being done because these influential and plutocratic corporations are pressurizing the government to save them. Life and society is being ruled by money and people who have it. But I am not saying this to make you lose hope. On the contrary this should make you fight even harder. Do not be intimidated by such formidable capitalist propaganda. Stand up and fight for what is rightly yours and your family’s.
