| Government to act on mesothelioma claims
The controversy over compensation for mesothelioma sufferers looks set to take yet another turn after Tony Blair promised to take action over a recent House of Lords ruling. The judgment means that a single employer will not have to pay full compensation if another employer could also be guilty of exposing the same employee to asbestos. Because the time between exposure to asbestos and the diagnosis of mesothelioma can span decades it is not always possible to prove which company is responsible. The House of Lords judgment was intended to safeguard employers from having to pay full compensation in cases where another employer could have been held responsible but is no longer operating. The ruling was met with dismay by the families of mesothelioma sufferers and by the unions and prompted the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to promise action on the new law.
Puzzling actions surround Hardie asbestos debacle
WINSTON Churchill described Russia as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, which can also be applied to the developing debacle around the latest attempt to coax money from James Hardie for the victims of asbestos poisoning. The riddle is the Australian Tax Office's ruling that the new entity set up by James Hardie working title: Special Purpose Fund is not a charity, thereby threatening the December deal to keep money flowing to asbestos victims. The mystery is why this fund had to be set up. Why not use the existing charity, the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation, which has been channelling compensation to James Hardie's victims? And the enigma is: why do investors think James Hardie's liability to its victims has been capped and are optimistically bidding up its share price? It has not been capped; the liability each year is limited to 35 per cent of cash flow, but the time for paying it is open-ended, and on one assessment the potential future claims are equal to the company's entire intrinsic value.
Statins May Help Treat Mesothelioma
NEW YORK JUL 12, 2006 (Reuters Health) - Statins reverse doxorubicin resistance in human malignant mesothelioma cells in culture, a finding that may lead to new clinical strategies to improve doxorubicin efficacy in this hard to treat cancer. "The mechanism of statin-mediated inhibition of small G-protein function is the molecular basis of the drug-elicited reversion of doxorubicin resistance in human malignant mesothelioma cells," Dr. Amalia Bosia from University of Torino, Italy told Reuters Health. Dr. Bosia and colleagues investigated the ability of statins to reverse resistance to doxorubicin in drug-resistant primary human malignant mesothelioma cells and the molecular mechanism behind the reversion, according to their report in the July 1st issue of the International Journal of Cance Mevastatin and simvastatin significantly increased the intracellular accumulation of doxorubicin in the mesothelioma cells and increased the cytotoxicity of doxorubicin, the authors report.
Louis Winnick, 85, pushed low-income homeownership
MANHASSET, N.Y. Louis Winnick, an economist who helped guide the investments of the Ford Foundation and promoted low-income homeownership, has died. He was 85. Winnick died Saturday at a hospice in Manhasset, on Long Island. The cause of death was mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer that his daughter Pamela Winnick attributed to exposure to asbestos when he worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II. Winnick was born in Romania and went to Brooklyn when he was 1. He graduated from Brooklyn College and earned a graduate degree in economics at Columbia University. He worked for the New York City Planning Commission and the Housing and Redevelopment Board before joining the Ford Foundation in 1962. He served as deputy vice president in the national affairs division from 1968 to 1986.
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