While thousands of people poured into Oakland’s venerable Jack London Square during the past weekend for a food festival, the area frequently is all but deserted with the prime business real estate sitting mostly vacant. Via KTVU

Our firm has been helping asbestos victims and Vietnam veterans for over 30 years. For details about asbestos disease and information for veterans, navy shipyard workers and their families (especially those who served or worked for the military between 1940 and 1980) please see our Practice Focus: Vietnam Veterans page.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has announced that during World War II, several million people–civilians and those in Navy service–“were exposed to chrysotile products as well as amosite and crocidolite [all are types of asbestos] since these varieties were used extensively in military ship construction.” Continue reading →

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has investigated industry efforts in developing countries to promote the use of asbestos – a deadly carcinogen banned or restricted in 52 countries. The report, Dangers in the Dust, is the result of a nine-month investigation done in partnership with the BBC’s International News Service.

The ICIJ documented the activities of a global network of industry groups, led by the Canadian Chrysotile Institute, which has helped promote the use of asbestos in the developing world. They have tracked nearly $100 million in public and private money spent by industry groups since the mid-1980s in just three countries, Canada, India, and Brazil. With the help of industry-funded scientists, such as David Bernstein who has traveled at industry expense to 19 countries promoting chrysotile, these groups attempt to stifle governmental efforts to regulate the deadly mineral. Continue reading →

Developers Ellis Partners LLC and Kazan, McClain, Satterley, Lyons, Greenwood & Oberman PLC today announced thtat the nationally-recognized plaintiffs’ asbestos law firm will relocate its offices to Jack London Square. The firm, a fixture in Oakland since its founding in 1974, will occupy a full floor in the new Jack London Market building on Oakland’s scenic waterfront.

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Please support SB 624 via twitter and facebook. This has been a long 7 weeks with false allegations and misinformation to oppose SB 624 and confuse people about asbestos.

Our website has detailed information and blogs about SB 624

#CASerpentine Written by Kim who lost her Father to mesothelioma: Please Tweet this if you have an account. VERY IMPORTANT. Helping a cause important to me – asbestos awareness. Industry attorneys in CA – THE SAME ONES WHO REPRESENT BP – are trying to fool everyone when it comes to asbestos. Help.

#CASerpentine – CJAC fooling everyone. SB 624 is about people not rocks. Stop hiding behind a rock.

Some time ago, we were privileged to publish this volume on the research site we sponsor, www.WorldAsbestos Report.org, where it can be found as the first item under the Articles drop-down list. After the original was posted on the web site, we were fortunate enough to receive and publish translations into Mandarin, Bengali, and Japanese. We are pleased to announce that we have just published another translation; this book is now available in Farsi. This latest translation joins the other resources made available on www.WorldAsbestos Report.org in support of our effort to increase worldwide knowledge about the hazards of asbestos. Killing the Future is worth reading in any language, and we encourage you to pass the link on to anyone who might find it interesting.

In a study partly funded by the National Institutes of Health published late last year by the Thoracic Oncology Laboratory of the University of California, San Francisco’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, a group of researchers reported on a very interesting discovery. Hung, et al., wrote in the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine (Cul4A is an oncogene in malignant pleural mesothelioma, J Cell Mol Med 2009, Vol. XX, No. XX, p. 1-9) that Cul4A is an oncogene found in malignant pleural mesothelioma, which could point the way toward a potential therapeutic approach to treating mesothelioma.

Cul4A is a very specific type of cellular protein and plays an important role in the life cycle of cells of various kinds. This is the first report relating to its role in mesothelioma. Earlier reports showed that the gene responsible for this protein appeared to play a role in breast and liver cancer, so the authors looked for it in several different mesothelioma cell lines obtained from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, and also in surgical specimens obtained at the University of California, San Francisco. They found that this protein was increased, or “overexpressed,” in most mesothelioma cell lines and surgical specimens studied, and also determined that when the level of this protein was reduced, the growth rate of mesothelioma cells also slowed appreciably, and when they increased the levels of this protein, tumor growth increased. They concluded that the presence of this protein’s gene may play an important role in causing mesothelioma to develop, and thus may be a potentially interesting target for cancer therapy.

While it is way too early to make any predictions, this study is at least an important and interesting step on the road toward more effective ways to treat mesothelioma. One can only hope that the authors’ work will continue and they will have more to tell us in the years ahead.

There have been some recent developments in the world of asbestos bankruptcies that justify this brief note. After many many years of contentious litigation, the Congoleum Trust Fund, established in the reorganization of the Congoleum Corporation, has become effective. I was pleased to be one of five members of the Asbestos Creditors Committee counsel group in this case and have been appointed by the Court as one of three members of the Trust Advisory Committee. My colleagues have elected me Committee Chair, and I look forward to working with our sole Trustee, the Honorable Alfred M. Wolin, retired United States District Judge from the District of New Jersey, and R. Scott Williams, the court-appointed Future Claimants Representative. This Trust will be funded with approximately $300 million in assets, and we hope to get it up and running quickly so that claims can start to be paid shortly after the new year. Continue reading →