5th Annual ADAO Asbestos Awareness Day Conference

The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization hosted the highly successful 5th Annual Asbestos Awareness Day conference in Manhattan Beach, California, March 27-29, 2009.

The event brought together anti-asbestos advocates from the United States, Germany, England and South Africa in a call to action to prevent, detect, and treat asbestos-related diseases. The meeting featured an international panel of speakers addressing topics including disease prevention through elimination of asbestos in products, homes and workplaces; advances in diagnosis and treatment of asbestos disease; patient and family resources; global advocacy and the continuing asbestos crisis at home and around the world.

Dr. Robert Cameron Addresses the Conference on Recent Developments in Mesothelioma Treatment

Dr. Robert Cameron

On Saturday, Dr. Robert Cameron, Director of the Mesothelioma Treatment Program at UCLA Medical Center and Chief of Thoracic Surgery at the Wadsworth VA Medical Center, provided an update of recent advances in the treatment of mesothelioma. In his presentation, Dr. Cameron reported on his continued success utilizing the lung-sparing Pleurectormy with Decortication surgery (“P/D”) as opposed to the more invasive Extra Pleural Pneumonectomy surgery (“EPP”) which involves amputation of the lung and surrounding tissues. Although EPP had long been considered by many to be the preferable way to surgically treat pleural mesothelioma, Dr. Cameron explained that, from a statistical standpoint, there is no benefit to undergoing the radical EPP as opposed to the P/D. However, for patients who have the P/D, there is a much lower rate of surgical mortality and, because they will continue to have the use of both lungs, a better quality of life.

Dr. Cameron explained that, because neither EPP nor P/D can eradicate every last mesothelioma cell, he believes that the goal of post-surgical treatment should be controlling the disease by suppressing the remaining tumor cells with chronic “maintenance” therapy. He reminded that, like mesothelioma, no “cure” currently exists for many other diseases, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, yet patients with these diseases can expect a reasonably long and high quality life with chronic treatment. Similarly, patients with mesothelioma may be managed with “maintenance” therapies such as radiation and immunotherapy to keep tumor cells from regenerating, thus leading to longer life expectancy despite continued presence of the disease.

Dr. Cameron also provided an update on current and future research projects at the Punch Worthington Research Laboratory, funded by the Pacific Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, where Dr. Cameron serves as the Scientific Director.

Dr. Cameron remained for the duration of the conference where he visited with some of his surgical patients who were in attendance and fielded questions about available treatment options from families of more recently diagnosed victims. Dr. Cameron summarized his experience at the conference: “We are working with ADAO because it is very important for educational purposes to make people understand that asbestos is still a big problem. It is ubiquitous, it’s everywhere, in our buildings and the problem is not going away. So ADAO is doing a great job of educating people and pointing out the problems that we still have with asbestos, despite the fact the politicians and even reporters now think it is some old hat problem that’s long gone.”

Jill Vaughn Inspires Hope and Admiration with the Story of Her 36 Year Battle Against Cancer—Recognizes “mesothel.com” as Her Original Source of Information on Mesothelioma Treatment Options in 1996

Jill Vaughn

This year’s attendees were treated to an inspirational presentation by Jill Vaughn who spoke about the battle she has waged against cancer for 36 years--and counting. She described the shock of learning that she had been diagnosed with life threatening cancer on not one, or two, but three separate occasions. The first was 36 years ago, in 1973. The second was in 1989. The most “recent,” was 13 years ago when she was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma in 1996.

Jill spoke about the limited amount of current information that could be found on medical treatment options for mesothelioma at the time: “Then comes 1996 and that’s when Mr. Meso comes into my life. I didn’t have a PC so I would go to the library and I would read all this old stuff and that’s all I knew. It said the longest surviving people get their lungs out. Well, I am all for getting it out of there. Just go in and chop whatever it is out of there. It was kinda hard to find somebody to treat me. … So at Christmas my husband gave me a PC and there wasn’t much on meso then, now it’s all over the place. I ran across Roger Worthington’s website and there were some sad parts, where all these people were listing what had happened to them, this got me really teary-eyed. I would read it and study it. I wrote down everything I could and I started researching, but I still wanted that lung out.”

Jill described how she thought she was getting her wish when she went to Sloane Kettering in New York to have her lung removed, only to wake up after the procedure to learn that, because the tumor had invaded the lung and peritoneum, the surgeon had closed her up without removing her lung or the tumor. The surgeon gave her only six months to live and told her that the lung was left in so she could “die easier.” Nearly 13 years later, Jill, her tumor and her lung are still here!!

Jill provided a list of other resources that she has relied upon over the years, not the least of which are her Siamese red tip cats, her two daughters and her husband Bud. “Most of all this man right here. He is fantastic. He has traveled the road of cancer with me for 36 years. He bakes, he cooks, he does the laundry, he totes me back and forth and gives me shots. He cleans all the spots where I got wires and tubes coming out of me. Anyway he gives me hope and keeps believing I’m gonna make it. Next month we will be married 46 years.”

About her daughters, Jill explained, “I have two daughters and four grandchildren. Someone mentioned earlier they didn’t think they would see their children grow up, or go to school. My children were 2 and 3 years old in 1973 and I didn’t think I would ever see them marry, or go to college, let alone have grandchildren. Now in May I am going to celebrate my first grandson’s graduation from high school.”

Jill closed her presentation with these final words of advice and inspiration: “The one thought I want to leave you with is that “attitude” is what it’s all about. It’s your life preserver. So hang onto it very tight!!”

Linda Reinstein, ADAO Executive Director; Laurie Kazan-Allen, Founder and Coordinator IBAS; John Caron, Law Office of Roger G. Worthington; Arthur L. Frank, MD, PhD; Richard Lemen, PhD, MSPH

The Law Office of Roger G. Worthington, P.C. was a “gold level” educational sponsor of this year’s Asbestos Disease Awareness Conference. “We are proud to once again support Linda and ADAO in their effort to bring strength in unity to the fight against asbestos disease,” explained RGWPC partner John Caron. “This is a unique effort on the part of doctors, scientists, advocates and concerned citizens to come together and put a face on what has happened in the past and unify their efforts and resources to combat the problem from all fronts; the medical front, the prevention front and legislative front. With all of us working together our chances for success are obviously much greater.”

For full conference materials visit the ADAO website which will continue to provide more information in the upcoming weeks.