International Mesothelioma Interest Group Update
Several months ago I posted an entry describing the upcoming IMIG meeting in Kyoto to which I had been invited. I gave the keynote address at the legal affairs session and spent the rest of the time learning a great deal about recent developments in the diagnosis and treatment of mesothelioma. Our firm, along with the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, was a platinum sponsor of the event. In addition, for the second consecutive conference, we had the privilege of being the financial sponsors of the IMIG Young Investigator Awards. This year awards were given in honor of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat, and BANJAN, the Japanese organization of victims and advocates focusing on ensuring that asbestos is banned in Japan and appropriate compensation is provided to its victims.
I have delayed publishing anything about these awards in order to give IMIG the opportunity to post the news on its own web site, which it has now done. Please take a look so that you can get some idea of the outstanding work done by these investigators. We have refrained from publishing the winning abstracts online. We hope that the conference organizers will be able to publish these abstracts in the formal public peer-reviewed medical literature so that they can be circulated far beyond those who received the published volume of abstracts.
We are very proud to have been given the opportunity to sponsor these awards, and hope to do so in the future. Look for additional updates in months to come about IMIG 2012, to be held in Boston, and IMIG 2014, to be held in Cape Town, South Africa.