Product Description
The known commercial uses of new mineral-fibre substitutes and non-asbestiform synthetics presents a potentially great health risk because most materials have not been tested for pathogenicity - "Fiber Toxicology" was written to help prevent a repeat of the asbestos dilemma. It examines the lessons learned from the toxicological study of asbestos and provides a framework for new toxicological studies on non-asbestos fibers. This book also introduces new state-of-the-art concepts and methods for evaluating the toxicology of various fibre-types on different pulmonary systems. It covers topics from the molecular biology to cell biology (in vitro) and from intraperitoneal to inhalation models. It also examines some of the most important controversies in fibre toxicology: "in vitro" versus "in vivo" and alternative methods of exposure (intraperitoneal) to physiological methods (inhalation). Finally, the proactive angle of this text is further enhanced with a chapter on carbon fibre toxicology - the only available lucid discussion of this emerging field. ... Read more

Product Description
The book is a composite of information about the historyof and the diseases caused by exposure to asbestos.Interwoven with apersonal story, it includes the illness and subsequent death of theauthor's father due to his asbestos exposure in an industrial setting.The author highlights asbestos as a carcinogen in our environmentwhich was widely used without first being fully tested. ... Read more

Product Description
This study explores the regulation of occupational health in the British asbestos industry from the recognition in the late 1890s that asbestos dust might pose a health hazard until the establishment of the 1969 Asbestos regulations. Whereas almost all of those who have written on this subject have attacked the entire asbestos industry and all its works, The Way from Dusty Death takes a more balanced view. It accepts the history of asbestos and health as in many ways a human tragedy, but it rejects simplistic, universalised arguments that this has been a tragedy with a cast only of villains, dupes and victims. The historical account includes the emergence of medical, and then official, concern about the three diseases related to asbestos (asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma) the legislative process during and after the 1930s and the impact of the 1931 Asbestos Industry Regulations.The book brings together much previously unexamined material - including copious government records, combined with unimpeded access to the vast archive of documents kept by the leading British asbestos manufacturer, Turner and Newall - to present a unique analysis of occupational health and its regulation in the 20th Century. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume presents a rigorous account of statistical forecasting efforts that led to the successful resolution of the Johns-Manville asbestos litigation. This case, taking 12 years to reach settlement, is expected to generate nearly 500,000 claims at a total nominal value of over $34 billion. The forecasting task, to project the number, timing, and nature of claims for asbestos-related injuries from a set of exposed persons of unknown size, is a general problem: the models in this volume can be adapted to forecast industry-wide asbestos liability. More generally, because the models are not overly dependent on the U.S. legal system and the role of asbestos as a dangerous/defective product, this volume will be of interest in other product liability cases, as well as similar forecasting situations for a range of insurable or compensable events. The volume stresses the iterative nature of model building and the uncertainty generated by lack of complete knowledge of the injury process. This uncertainty is balanced against the Court's need for a definitive settlement, and the volume addresses how these opposing principles can be reconciled.The volume is written for a broad audience of actuaries, biostatisticians, demographers, economists, epidemiologists, environmental health scientists, financial analysts, industrial-risk analysts, occumpational health analysts, product liability analysts, and statisticians. The modest prerequisites include basic concepts of statistics, calculus, and matrix algebra. Care is taken that readers without specialized knowledge in these areas can understand the rationale for specific applications of advanced methods. As a consequence, this volume will be an indispensable reference for all whose work involves these topics.

Eric Stallard, A.S.A., M.A.A.A., is Research Professor and Associate Director of the Center for Demographic Studies at Duke University.He is a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries and an Associate of the Society of Actuaries.He serves on the American Academy of Actuaries Committees on Long Term Care and Social Insurance.He also serves on the society of Actuaries' Long Term Care Experience Committee.His research interests include modelling and forecasting for medical demography and health actuarial practice.He was the 1996 winner of the National Institute on Aging's James A. Shannon Director's Award.

Kenneth G. Manton, Ph.D., is Research Professor, Research Director, and Director of the Center for Demographic Studies at Duke University and Medical Research Professor at Duke University Medical Center's Department of Community and Family Medicine.Dr. Manton is also a Senior Fellow of the Duke University Medical Center's Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development.His research interests include mathematical models of human aging, mortality, and chronic disease.He was the 1990 recipient of the Mindel C. Sheps Award in Mathematical Demography presented by the Population Association of America; and in 1991 he received the Allied-Signal Inc. Achievement Award in Aging administred by the Johns Hopkins Center on Aging.

Joel E. Cohen, Ph.D., Dr. P.H., is Professor of Populations, and Head of the Laboratory of Populations, Rockefeller University.He also is Professor of Populations at Columbia University.His research interests include the demography, ecology, epidemiology, and social organization of human and non-human populations, and related mathematical concepts.In 1981, he was elected Fellow of the MacArthur and Guggenheim Foundations.He was the 1992 recipient of the Mindel C. Sheps Award in Mathematical Demography presented by the Population Association of America; and in 1994, he received the Distinguished Statistical Ecologist Award at the Sixth International Congress of Ecology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Details Make the Difference
Reading "Forecasting Product Liability Claims" with the eyes of an attorney involved in the management of mass tort litigation settlements is a daunting task because the text contains very detailed statistical formulae and concepts.However, it is the clarity with which the concepts are explained that allows the non-statistician who has interest to follow the logic.Understanding how the statistics professional accumulates and finds understanding in the seemingly unassociated data should give great insight to the legal professional, whether lawyer or judge, who needs to bring individual justice to thousands of claimants.The introduction by Judge Weinstein is the icing on a rich slowly digested cake for the legal professional.
Lawrence Curtis, General Counsel, Mass Tort Settlements Services ... Read more

Product Description
Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina. Reference to pathologic abnormalities associated with exposure to asbestos fibers, for pathologists. 14 Contributors. DNLM: Asbestos pathology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great reference
The gold standard for asbestos medical litigation information ... Read more

Product Description
The horrifying true story of the decades-long poisoning of a small town and the definitive exposé of asbestos in America-told by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists who broke it.

In a valley in Montana, the U.S. has spent millions of dollars removing toxic residue from a town that had lain pristine for ages. Until the last century, when the dust came down like a snowstorm. That dust turned a paradise into the worst of America's killing fields, a name at the top of the list that includes Love Canal and Woburn. A place now known to be deadlier than all the rest: Libby.

An Air That Kills is told through the eyes of the men and women who fought back-among them, a woman who watched more than forty members of her family succumb to asbestos; a miner who worked there and carried the poison home; and an EPA investigator who battled not only one of the world's most powerful corporations but also his superiors in Washington. It is the first book to reveal how deeply asbestos has embedded itself into the texture of America: how many people have died or are dying; how the industry and government repeatedly ignored the danger; and how, for many Americans, the dying is not over.It is a suspense story with real American heroes at its heart and one of the most importants works of environmental journalism in years. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

hard to believe
I knew Grace was a bad company, but did not know how bad the medical community handled this problem. Hard to believe they followed their healing oath.

autologous transfusion
This is a fine, informative book, but its odd voice and emphases will make sense if you understand from the outset that the author is the pivotal character. It's an elaboration of a news story, reported in journalistic style, tracing the peregrination of a journalist in the third person. The journalist in the story, it turns out, is the journalist telling the story.

That's not criticism. It's a hell of a story, which he knows better than anyone, at least objectively. He can't very well write himself out of it completely but also wants not to obscure any of the tale's colorful primary characters. Third person narration is one technique for accomplishing that. It leads to subtle tells, though, like details in a mystery that foretell which clues will later prove significant.

If anyone out there still believes the fallacy (oh heck! it's not a fallacy, it's a bald-faced lie) that government regulation and oversight is unnecessary, that market forces will curb the rapacious, homicidal proclivities of corporations, read this book. Of course, if you still believe that, someone will probably have to read it to you.

The truth about asbestos must be told!
I highly recommend this book. I was interested because I had just visited my friend in Montana. She is a fifth generation Montanan and we had driven past large mines throughout the state. I instantly became engulfed in the book and the individual's struggle for their lives and legislative justice.We see all the commercials on t.v. for patients suffering from Mesothelioma and how to contact a law firm. I now understand why. Companies were allowed for over 50 years to knowingly kill their employees from asbestos poisoning.They are allowed to sell asbestos as a product in the U.S. and infect consumers as well. Asbestos is still being mined and sold today. It will kill people for many years to come. Read this book and also educate yourself on House of Rep bill 6903 that is trying to outlaw asbestos as of Oct 2008. There is still time to support it and save lives

A Very Compelling but One-Sided Story
The plight of the people of Libby and the other sites around the country is very sad and you want to hate WR Grace and the previous mine owners and operators.While their reponsibility is not in doubt, the book could have been improved by more information about what exactly they knew and when.I'm sure Grace et al. did not cooperate with the authors, but the extensive litigation should have made some of this information available.

A True Account of Lethal Deception for Profit
The author Andrew Schneider tells the story of uncovering a scandal of major proportions.It is a frightening, chilling story of hidden dangers allowed by government officials whose jobs are to keep us safe.It is the story of a mineral still used in our country whose lethal dangers were recorded by Pliny the Elder.Asbestos cannot be safely used in any manner. ... Read more

Product Description
In conjunction with drafting comprehensive legislation concerning compensation for health effects related to asbestos exposure (the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Act), the Senate Committee on the Judiciary directed the Institute of Medicine to assemble the Committee on Asbestos: Selected Health Effects. This committee was charged with addressing whether asbestos exposure is causally related to adverse health consequences in addition to asbestosis, mesothelioma, and lung cancer. "Asbestos: Selected Cancers" presents the committee's comprehensive distillation of the peer-reviewed scientific and medical literature regarding association between asbestos and colorectal, laryngeal, esophageal, pharyngeal, and stomach cancers. ... Read more

Product Description
Flinders Medical Center, Adelaide, South Australia. The Cancer Series. Text for pathologists and oncology clinicians on the scientific and medical aspects of mesothelioma, as well as epidemiology, medicolegal, and ethical problems. 23 Contributors, 1 U.S.. DNLM: Mesothelioma. ... Read more

Product Description
A story in which a little black sheep, the outcast of the flock, manages to save the whole flock during a snowstorm, putting the bossy sheepdog in its place.In the OBRIEN PANDA series.Illustrated in colour. ... Read more