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| © Dave Granlund, USA Today |
Today, US Independence Day 2022, our posts become more complex. We’ll continue sharing the back-and-forth of the Covid pandemic while also focusing on another aspect of the ongoing degradation of our planet: toxic contamination. Specifically, we’ll follow the effect of toxic contamination on one human being.
To back up: Regular readers understand this blog’s fundamental assertion about the Covid pandemic: shrinking wilderness and environmental destruction equate with increasing risks of pathogenic spillover from animals to people >>
But what of other contaminants around us?
What of the companies that know/knew their products are/were toxic, yet continue to pedal those products to unwary customers?
Stay tuned.
I met Mary, my bestie, in my first week of high school. Like me, she’s a South African transplant living in California.
A month ago, Mary complained that her hip was sore. Generally not a fan of what she calls “trivial pursuits” – including “unnecessary medicine” – Mary took my advice (she called it “nagging”) and visited her personal doctor to request an x-ray. During her appointment, May 27, 2022, Mary mentioned that her usual yoga poses – including downward facing dog and the cat – made her cough, “just short, dry coughs but it’s new….”
But what of other contaminants around us?
What of the companies that know/knew their products are/were toxic, yet continue to pedal those products to unwary customers?
Stay tuned.
News blues
On the Covid front: Stay safe this Independence Day – as Covid presents We the People yet another, yet more contagious variant >>***
Meet Meso Mary and “wat-the-kek”I met Mary, my bestie, in my first week of high school. Like me, she’s a South African transplant living in California.
A month ago, Mary complained that her hip was sore. Generally not a fan of what she calls “trivial pursuits” – including “unnecessary medicine” – Mary took my advice (she called it “nagging”) and visited her personal doctor to request an x-ray. During her appointment, May 27, 2022, Mary mentioned that her usual yoga poses – including downward facing dog and the cat – made her cough, “just short, dry coughs but it’s new….”
He said, “Since you’ll be there for hip and spine x-rays, I’ll order a couple of chest x-rays, too.”
A day after the x-rays, Mary took a phone call from the hospital’s Chief of Surgery who said, “Your chest x-rays show anomalies. Let’s go ahead and order another round.”
The Chief called again after the second set. “The results of your recent scan show nodules on the pleura, the lining of your left lung. You also have fluid buildup. Let’s biopsy the large nodule and perform a pleurocentesis" [aka thoracentesis or pleural effusion].
He asked, “You’re not feeling discomfort or pain in your chest, shortness of breath?”
A day after the x-rays, Mary took a phone call from the hospital’s Chief of Surgery who said, “Your chest x-rays show anomalies. Let’s go ahead and order another round.”
The Chief called again after the second set. “The results of your recent scan show nodules on the pleura, the lining of your left lung. You also have fluid buildup. Let’s biopsy the large nodule and perform a pleurocentesis" [aka thoracentesis or pleural effusion].
He asked, “You’re not feeling discomfort or pain in your chest, shortness of breath?”
Nope, Mary reported she felt fine, well, except for the pulled muscle across her left shoulder blade… “from swimming too much - or not swimming enough,” she laughed.
A day later, the Chief called again: the biopsy indicated malignancies, “likely a form of lymphoma. A small chance it could be mesothelioma although that’s so rare, I doubt it.”
“So rare” or not, two days later, Mary was diagnosed with epithelial mesothelioma.
The subsequent PET scan indicated no metastasizes – no cancerous nodules infesting other organs.
Oh, the irony.
Over decades, both Mary and I have engaged what we call World War against Toxic Contamination - Environment and Creatures, WWaTCEC or, as we say, “what-the-kek.” (No, this is not a non-profit or money/donation-responsive agency; it’s our small inside “joke” as we engage the world’s garbage - of all sorts.)
A day later, the Chief called again: the biopsy indicated malignancies, “likely a form of lymphoma. A small chance it could be mesothelioma although that’s so rare, I doubt it.”
“So rare” or not, two days later, Mary was diagnosed with epithelial mesothelioma.
The subsequent PET scan indicated no metastasizes – no cancerous nodules infesting other organs.
Oh, the irony.
Over decades, both Mary and I have engaged what we call World War against Toxic Contamination - Environment and Creatures, WWaTCEC or, as we say, “what-the-kek.” (No, this is not a non-profit or money/donation-responsive agency; it’s our small inside “joke” as we engage the world’s garbage - of all sorts.)
Mary. A healthy, intelligent woman, unflinchingly committed-to-the-planet’s-health, exercises, eats nutritious foods, recycles plastics and junk (even as she knows she’s “wishcycling” since 85% of single-use plastic items isn’t actually recycled ) has incurable lung cancer due to the toxic and wide-spread material, asbestos.
Mary has agreed to share her journey here, with me at the keyboard.
Together, we’ve progress from “WTF?” to “Let’s fight like hell to root out the origin of this disease in your lungs. We’ll fight even more fiercely than we’re fought other “wat-the-kek” skirmishes!
Mary’s up for it.
Mary has agreed to share her journey here, with me at the keyboard.
Together, we’ve progress from “WTF?” to “Let’s fight like hell to root out the origin of this disease in your lungs. We’ll fight even more fiercely than we’re fought other “wat-the-kek” skirmishes!
Mary’s up for it.
Her fighting name: Meso Mary.
How Mesothelioma Develops
***
The Lincoln Project: Our country (0:57 mins)Healthy planet, anyone?
What to know about asbestos and asbestos exposure:Asbestos are fibrous, naturally occurring hydrated silicates that have long been mined and used for their fire-retardant and insulating properties as construction materials. Asbestos can be found in amphibole and serpentine forms..[with] … amphibole fibres originally believed to pose less risk, but these fibres were then linked to increased rates of mesothelioma .
Dr. Montague Murray first recognized the negative health effects of asbestos in 1899. However, dust control legislation for mines was not enacted in North America until 1971. In the intermediate years, mining and use of asbestos increased dramatically by 120-fold, peaking upon the enaction of legislation in 1971, and decreasing exponentially until the present. The current decreases in the rate of mining are due to public health concerns and to the progressively more restrictive standards placed upon the level of asbestos dust allowed in mines, from 5 fibres/cm3 in 1971 to 1 fibres/cm3 at present. Although the global levels of asbestos mined have decreased significantly, Canada continues to be one of the world’s leading producers. 2.4 × 105 tonnes were mined in Canada in 2003, which accounted for much of the world’s production of asbestos. Read more >>
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South Africa and asbestos:As we’re learning, mesothelioma is the result of asbestos exposure, with some people more prone. Exposure can happen from repeated use of asbestos -for example from asbestos-contaminated consumer products such as talc. (Looking at you, Johnson & Johnson.) Asbestos in the workplace, homes, schools, military structures and naval ships also leads to dangerous exposure. Mesothelioma cancer develops decades after asbestos exposure occurs because it takes time for asbestos fibers to cause the damage that leads to cancer.
Although South Africa officially banned the use, processing and manufacturing of asbestos-containing products in 2008, past exposures from decades ago eventually raised the country’s incidence of mesothelioma to one of the highest rates in the world.
Out of the six types of asbestos minerals used commercially, South Africa has mined three on a large scale: amosite, chrysotile and crocidolite. While South Africa has used asbestos domestically for a variety of different purposes, the vast majority of its mined reserves were exported to other countries.
South Africa was the third largest asbestos producer in the 1970s, behind Canada and the USSR. The nation was once a global leader in the production of crocidolite and amosite, supplying approximately 97 percent of the world’s crocidolite and practically all of the world’s amosite.
The asbestos mining industry in South Africa reached its peak in 1977 when it employed 20,000 miners and achieved an output of 380,000 tons. Exports began to decline soon after, as evidence of serious health complications prompted countries around the world to enact restrictive legislation on asbestos use.
Between 1910 and 2002, South Africa mined more than 10 million tons of asbestos. The last of the nation’s asbestos mines ceased production in 2001 and closed down the following year. South Africa outlawed all types of asbestos by 2008, but the once-lucrative industry has left the environment polluted. Asbestos exposure risks continue to threaten the well-being of South Africans to this day. Read more >>
How Mesothelioma Develops
- A person inhales or swallows microscopic airborne asbestos fibers.
- The asbestos fibers become lodged in the lining of the lungs, abdomen, or heart.
- Embedded fibers damage mesothelial cells and cause inflammation.
- Over time, tumors form on the damaged mesothelium, leading to mesothelioma.
Welcome to the journey....
Alas, nary a pelican, not a single one, on the water or roosting on the pier.
Likely because it’s 4th July holiday and too many people on the beach. Or the man with the baritone voice singing Star Spangled Banner at 7:30am scared them off.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
I mentioned to a friend my daily walk on the beach and my admiration for local flocks of pelicans. My friend responded with this:A wonderful bird is the Pelican.I decided to orate these magnificent lines to my feathered friends while they're snacking on edibles carried in on the flow tide.
His beak can hold more than his belly can.
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week!
But I'll be darned if I know how the hellican?”
― Dixon Lanier Merritt
Alas, nary a pelican, not a single one, on the water or roosting on the pier.
Likely because it’s 4th July holiday and too many people on the beach. Or the man with the baritone voice singing Star Spangled Banner at 7:30am scared them off.
It’s highly unlikely they took off because word got out that a Crazy Lady aimed poetic intentions their way….
Right?
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