Ban Asbestos Now Press Conference: Statement by Dr. Harvey Pass

Read what Dr. Harvey Pass said regarding asbestos

Honorable senators, Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to be an advocate for patients afflicted with asbestos related cancers, and I am proud to represent a small cadre of intensely devoted physicians, researchers, and nurses who, behind the scenes, with far too little resources are trying to gain insight into the management of this disease.

This disease, mesothelioma, is on the run.

Since its discovery in the 1950s when it was found to be associated with asbestos, mesothelioma has had the benefit of staying under the radar, afflicting only 3000 or so individuals in the United States, and befuddling any attempts to understand how and when it will occur.

It has defied early detection just enough to frustrate the most skilled clinicians such that the unfortunates who eventually manifest the disease are mainly in advanced stages with horrific symptoms of pain, shortness of breath, and weight loss.

This frustration has been fed by the diseases’ resistance to standard therapies including chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery, and up until recently this frustration has led to the propagation of nihilism by the medical community when confronted with such patients.

There is nothing more dangerous to medical research than nihilism since it is an excuse for disregard.

Moreover, as a society, we use further excuses when confronted with this disease by citing that the “peak incidence” is approaching and because of our asbestos abatement programs, the disease will decline and disappear rapidly after 2020.

I am not an epidemiologist. I am a surgeon, but I will go on record as saying that we are fooling ourselves, and doing an incredible injustice to many of our neighbors if we think that mesothelioma and asbestos related cancers are going to “go away”.

Look to the west, and we are confronted with a new hotspot in Libby Montana, a situation so critical that a public health crises outcry necessitated the development of the center for asbestos related diseases in that city.

Yet the influence of the mines in Montana and other Western states is creeping into my community: Vermiculite, contaminated with asbestos, has been processed in plants in my state, and has been used as insulation in hundreds of thousands of houses where I live. Keywords: Mesothelioma Hotspots Epidemic