Boston Lawyer Michael Shepard Taking Mesothelioma, Personal Injury, Asbestos Cases

Seeking compensation for injury caused by asbestos exposure is now easy. A mesothelioma lawyer who started with his mesothelioma cancer law practice in Boston now brings his services to Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. People who are suffering from mesothelioma and other asbestos related injuries that have affected their health and wellbeing can rely on Michael Shepard to fight for their rights and help them in claiming compensation.

Michael Shepard has an established reputation of being a compassionate attorney who, along with mesothelioma and asbestos related injuries, also helps people in their pain and suffering arising out of injuries inflicted to them due to the faults of others. If people are injured due to exposure to toxic chemicals, product defects, nursing home negligence, silica, talc, welding fumes automotive or aviation accidents, they should contact the attorneys office to seek guidance for obtaining compensation for the injury caused.

In his website, the mesothelioma cancer lawyer acknowledges that the time of the injured is precious and says “We know our clients want the freedom to see family and friends whenever they choose. We also know that because of their condition, they don’t want to be bogged down in legal matters. Through years of experience in this field, we have developed a streamlined approach to handling asbestos-related litigation that lessens the amount of time our clients spend dealing with lawyers and the courts. After a client’s brief, free, one-on-one consultation with us, we take the matter into our own hands, independently investigating the specific facts of the case, collecting crucial evidence and confronting the people who are responsible for your illness or injury. We make every effort to transform our clients’ “good” case into a “great” case that may secure the maximum compensation deserved.”

Whether the injured is in Boston, Vermont, New Hampshire or Rhode Island, Boston Mesothelioma cancer lawyers are ready to look into the case and assess the maximum compensation during the first free one to one consultation.

Source

Vermont Mesothelioma Lawyer Shepard helping Mesothelioma Victims in Rhode Island, Boston, New York, New Hampshire

The Mesothelioma Lawyer expresses his concern over the student’s health risks as asbestos that was used in these old school buildings as the primary insulation and fireproofing construction material is now projecting from the school building sites due to poor maintenance. It is contaminating the schools environment posing students, teachers and the staff to mesothelioma cancer and asbestos related respiratory diseases.

The school going students and the staff working in these schools are exposed to the risk of asbestos related respirator diseases thus laying the foundation for mesothelioma. This fact is also reviled by the Mesothelioma and Asbestos Awareness Centers report. The school buildings in New York have now grown old and need maintenance. Due to lack of maintenance in the old building the asbestos which had been used in construction is now exposed. It is polluting the environment endangering the lives of students, teachers and staff exposing them to the risk of contracting asbestos related respiratory diseases and mesothelioma cancer.

During an emergency inspection in NY schools which was carried as a NY City School was blamed for an incident of asbestos exposure. It was reveled during the inspection that 80% of the building built prior to 1980 used asbestos as insulation and fire proof material during the construction phase. Now due to the poor maintenance the risk of exposure of asbestos has increased manifolds posing risk of health to all the occupants of the school buildings. The report by the Mesothelioma and Asbestos Awareness Centers Report also state that in 2004 one Brooklyn School was forced to open late as they had to ensure the safety of the school building, staff and the students.

Even a small amount of asbestos exposure contaminates the environment, increases the possibility of inhalation of asbestos particles thus marking a start of respiratory disorders leading to mesothelioma cancer.

Mesothelioma lawyer Shepard studies all such cases, takes the path of law to bring relief to the injured who had not known about the risks of being exposed to asbestos. At present Shepard Law Firm is assisting Mesothelioma victims in:

• Boston
• New Hampshire
• Vermont
• Rhode Island

However, due to large network Shepard Law firm enjoys, cases from other areas such as Dallas, New York, Houston and other areas where school buildings are getting old and may be of concern resulting in asbestos exposure can contact: The Shepard Law Firm at http://www.shepardlawfirm.com

To learn more about Mesothelioma / Asbestos Risks visit Mesothelioma Cancer Resource
for free informaation

Source

Alfacell Deals U.S. Rights for Onconase to Strativa

Alfacell Corp. licensed U.S. commercialization rights for the Phase III cancer drug Onconase (ranpirnase) to Strativa Pharmaceuticals in a deal worth up to $225 million.

Just $5 million will change hands up front, but both Alfacell and Strativa stand to gain much more if their gamble in choosing each other as partners pays off. Specifically, Alfacell could get $30 million for FDA approval of Onconase in unresectable malignant mesothelioma (UMM) and up to $190 million for milestones tied to Onconase sales as well as development and commercialization of the drug in additional indications. Alfacell also would receive double-digit royalties and retains a co-promotion option.

For Alfacell, the gamble lies in choosing Strativa, the recently-launched specialty pharmaceutical division of Par Pharmaceutical Cos. Inc. So far, Strativa markets just one product: Megace ES for anorexia, cachexia and unexplained weight loss in HIV patients. Although the company has deals in place for three additional late-stage products, all three are for HIV or cancer supportive care, and Onconase would be Strativa's first true oncology therapeutic.

Lawrence Kenyon, executive vice president and chief financial officer for Alfacell, told BioWorld Today that Onconase has been the subject of "bids from multiple companies for a number of years." Strativa was selected because it had the hunger of a start-up looking to build an oncology business focused on niche products, combined with the resources and infrastructure of Par Pharmaceuticals, he said.

For Strativa, the gamble lies in Onconase's somewhat checkered development history. The drug, a natural ribonuclease isolated from frog eggs, failed a Phase III trial in pancreatic cancer and its first Phase III trial in UMM.

In the pancreatic cancer trial, a preliminary analysis showed that Onconase plus tamoxifen failed to improve survival compared to 5-fluorouracil. Kenyon said part of the problem was an inability to recruit sufficiently healthy patients into the trial, and the pancreatic cancer program subsequently was discontinued. (See BioWorld Today, July 16, 1998.)

The first Phase III UMM trial compared Onconase as a monotherapy to doxorubicin. Again, there was no survival difference in the overall population, but Kenyon said a retrospective analysis showed that the sickest patients had been disproportionately weighted to the Onconase group. Backing them out of the analysis resulted in a two-month survival difference.

Onconase is now being studied in a Phase IIIb trial designed to confirm the positive data seen in the Phase III subset analysis. The trial, which was designed in coordination with the FDA, compares Onconase plus doxorubicin to doxorubicin alone in the less-severe groups of UMM patients. Enrollment of 428 patients is complete, and Kenyon said the company is "very close" to obtaining the number of clinical events needed to analyze the data.

Under the deal with Strativa, Alfacell will continue to fund development, manufacturing and regulatory work with Onconase, including the ongoing Phase IIIb trial. Strativa will fund U.S. commercialization.

Previous deals with US Pharmacia affiliate USP Pharma Spolka Z.O.O. and Genesis Pharma SA cover Onconase commercialization in Eastern Europe and certain Southeast European countries, respectively.

As of Oct. 31, Alfacell reported $5.4 million in cash and equivalents, most of which was earmarked to support the Onconase trial and new drug application filing. Once the filing is submitted, Alfacell intends to work with Strativa on additional indications for Onconase, including the possibility of moving a non-small-cell lung cancer program into Phase II.

Kenyon said the money from Strativa also will allow Alfacell to "ramp up" its preclinical work on AC 03-636 for glioma and antiviral indications, AC CJ-001 for glioma, and AC CJ-002 for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Shares of Somerset, N.J.-based Alfacell (NASDAQ:ACEL) rose 25 cents, or 14.3 percent, to close at $2 on Tuesday. Meanwhile, shares of Woodcliff Lake, N.J.-based Par Pharmaceuticals (NYSE:PRX) rose 52 cents to close at $21.49.

Source

Supreme Court hears ALCOA asbestos suit

Does a company have responsibility for people — other than its own employees — who are exposed to harmful agents from its facilities? That is the question the Tennessee Supreme Court tried to get its arms around Tuesday in Knoxville.
In late 2003, Maryville resident Amanda Satterfield, who was 23 years old at the time, filed a lawsuit against ALCOA Inc. and Breeding Insulation Co. in Blount County Circuit Court.

In her suit, Satterfield charged that she “was exposed to harmful asbestos dust and fibers from the day of her birth from her father’s use of asbestos products and inadvertent introduction of dust and fibers into their home and personal environments.” Satterfield had mesothelioma, a rare cancer directly associated with asbestos exposure.

On Jan. 1, 2005, at the age of 25, Satterfield lost her battle with cancer.
Doug Satterfield, Amanda’s father and the representative of her estate, continued with the suit after her death. With his 18-year-old daughter Amelia at his side, Doug Satterfield cried throughout the hearing in the Tennessee Supreme Court Building in downtown Knoxville.

Doug Satterfield hauled asbestos for ALCOA, starting his career with the company in 1973. He served in the military from 1975 to 1978 and then returned to work at ALCOA. His lawyers have maintained that Doug Satterfield was exposed to asbestos at ALCOA Tennessee Operations and that he brought home harmful dust and fibers on his clothes, resulting in Amanda contracting mesothelioma.

The lawsuit sought $10 million in compensatory and $10 million in punitive damages — although Satterfield has said the case is about justice and doing the right thing, not money.

ALCOA, represented by attorney John Lucas of Knoxville, argued that the ramifications of what the court is considering go far beyond this case, and could possibly create “an infinite universe of potential plaintiffs.”

Lucas referred to Satterfield’s allegations as the “conduit theory” — stating that, by assigning responsibility to companies for third-party contact with harmful agents, the court would define Doug Satterfield as the “vehicle” that transmitted asbestos into his home.

Tennessee Supreme Court Justice William Koch Jr. asked Lucas how that differed from an employee who drove an ALCOA truck into a neighborhood and exposed residents to asbestos.

“How is it negligent for ALCOA to let asbestos fly out of a truck and not negligent for ALCOA to allow employees to go home with asbestos dust on their clothing?” Koch asked.

ALCOA made a similar arguments during a coal tar pitch-related lawsuit in Knox County Chancery Court last year, charging that it would open the “floodgates of litigation” and that Tennessee would become a “plaintiff’s Mecca.” That case is now proceeding with a class action certification hearing following the conclusion of discovery depositions.

Knoxville attorney Greg Coleman, who represents Satterfield, said the real question was “what did ALCOA know, when did they know it, and what did they do about it?
“Public policy should at least extend to the home,” Coleman said. “ALCOA may not have known if an employee would stop at the Waffle House on his way home from work — but they did know that the employee would eventually end up at his home.”
Satterfield’s case has been in the legal system for more than four years. Originally heard — and dismissed — in Blount County Circuit Court Judge W. Dale Young’s court, the Tennessee Court of Appeals reversed Young’s decision, reinstated the lawsuit and charged ALCOA with the cost of the appeal in April 2007.

The Tennessee Supreme Court Justices are expected to issue a written opinion on the case within three months. They can either return the case to Blount County Circuit Court, where it will proceed, or dismiss it entirely.

After the hearing, Doug Satterfield told The Daily Times, “It seems like ALCOA is trying to change the law to protect itself.

“It’s unthinkable that public policy shouldn’t protect the children of workers.”

Amelia Satterfield, Amanda’s younger sister, said she believed the hearing went well, but said her family was nervous about the court appearance.

Coleman said: “ALCOA is trying to reverse what the law should be. They’re saying the greater the magnitude of the harm and the higher the mortality rate, the less responsibility they should have. Where I come from in Ducktown, Tennessee, that’s called bologna.”

The Tennessee Supreme Court should issue its written opinion by early April.

Source

Firm Probed on Asbestos Claim Billing

NEW YORK (Associated Press) - The Justice Department plans to seek a wider investigation into the billing practices of L. Tersigni Consulting PC, a firm that advised asbestos-injury claimants in several big bankruptcy cases.

The U.S. Trustee's Office, an arm of the department, has already asked the courts overseeing the Chapter 11 cases of Congoleum Corp., Federal-Mogul Global Inc., W.R. Grace & Co. and G-I Holdings Inc. to appoint examiners to investigate allegations that the consulting firm overbilled its clients in those proceedings.

In new court papers, the trustee's office said L. Tersigni Consulting could also have overbilled clients in other cases. The office said it would seek similar investigations "in all asbestos cases in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, in which LTC was employed as a financial adviser."

Representatives of L. Tersigni Consulting couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.

The consulting firm's clients were the official committees representing asbestos claimants in major bankruptcy cases.

Since April 2006, the U.S. Trustee's Office and federal prosecutors have looked into allegations that the firm's sole owner and principal, Loreto Tersigni, submitted bills for services that weren't performed. Tersigni died in May.

"The appointment of an independent fiduciary to investigate these serious allegations of fraud and dishonesty related to the affairs of the debtors is both warranted and necessary," the trustee's office said in court papers. An examiner, it added, could help companies that paid the bills discover whether they have "causes of action" against L. Tersigni Consulting.

The trustee's office is still waiting to hear whether the courts overseeing the bankruptcy cases of Congoleum, Federal-Mogul, W.R. Grace and G-I Holdings will appoint examiners.

However, the judge overseeing W.R. Grace's bankruptcy case has questioned whether she should appoint an examiner.

At a hearing in late September, Judge Judith K. Fitzgerald of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., pointed out that the federal government had been conducting a probe into L. Tersigni Consulting's billing practices for more than a year. "I don't know why the estates have to be charged with additional money to do an investigation that may already be complete," Fitzgerald said. "There are creditors in these cases who deserve at some point in time to get whatever little money they're going to get out of these cases and to the extent that this work has already been done, they shouldn't be charged with duplicating that work."

The judge also said money could be saved by appointing one examiner to look at the books and records for all of the bankruptcy cases in which the firm is suspected of overbilling.

At the hearing, Fitzgerald also criticized the trustee's office for requesting an examiner only in recent months when it knew for more than a year that there could have been a billing problem involving L. Tersigni Consulting.

Asbestos expert used in local cases comes under scrutiny

For almost a decade, Dr. Jay T. Segarra was considered the lung disease expert local plaintiffs lawyers called on to testify in their massive asbestos cases.

In the early days, on his way to earning a handsome fortune, Segarra testified as an expert here in Jefferson County for a 1998 Reaud, Morgan & Quinn case against U.S. Steel. The case, Inez Martin et al vs. AC&S et al, is still active and listed on the October docket of the 60th District Court.

After that, Dr. Segarra, a pulmonary specialist, was then used heavily as an expert throughout the late 1990s by Reaud, Provost Umphrey, Brent Coon and other plaintiffs' firms in Jefferson and Orange counties.

But according to a recent New York Times article, things have taken a turn for the worse for Segarra.

Defendants in a large Philadelphia asbestos case have asked the court to exclude testimony from Dr. Segarra because he had not followed "the standards for which he so adamantly advocated."

The Times reported that a defense motion filed last month claimed Dr. Segarra has made more than $10 million as professional witness and has been working with mass screening companies that result in "an astonishing number of would-be plaintiffs with asbestos and/or silicosis - not for any valid medical reason, but solely for profit."

Segarra, 51, lives and works on the Mississippi Gulf coast. The doctor has reportedly participated in almost 40,000 positive diagnoses for asbestos-related illnesses over the past 13 years.

As late as Sept. 1, 2006, Dr. Segarra's name appeared on a plaintiffs' designation as a "Will Call" expert witness in a large asbestos suit filed by Coon in Jefferson County.

And it wasn't just in Southeast Texas that Segarra was considered one of the top experts in asbestos-related diseases. In 2005, a federal judge in Corpus Christi held Dr. Segarra's procedure for diagnosing the illnesses to be the gold standard.

When U.S. District Judge Janis Jack began to question mass screenings that were turning up clients with both asbestosis and silicosis, she relied on Dr. Segarra's expertise.

While asbestosis and silicosis are both lung diseases caused by inhaling dust, asbestos is a mineral that can cause cancer while silica is purified sand used in making glass.

Many pulmonary experts believe it is extremely rare for a patient to have both asbestosis and silicosis. For Judge Jack, a former nurse, the number of clients having both diseases raised a red flag.

Dr. Segarra told Judge Jack that good doctors personally perform physical examinations, discuss patients medical histories, read X-rays and then review and sign their reports. He said the process to determine if a person has asbestos or silicosis can take 60 to 90 minutes.

When Judge Jack ruled that thousands of silicosis claims had been manufactured for money, she pointed to Dr. Segarra as the standard that others should follow.

But the Times states that court records indicate that Dr. Segarra violated his own rules more than 700 times, relying on others for medical histories and exams.

Records from the Claims Resolution Management Corporation, which oversees asbestos claims, show that Dr. Segarra averaged eight positive diagnoses of asbestos-related illnesses per day over the last 13 years. Some days he rendered positive diagnoses for 20 to 50 people, which would not be possible using his own 60 to 90 minutes per exam timeframe.

In March 2006, an NPR segment looked into Judge Jack's ruling and Dr. Segarra's methods. Among those interviewed by Wayne Goodwyn for the story was Coon, who had been in Jack's court on silicosis cases.

Coon told Goodwyn he disagreed with much of Judge Jack's ruling.

"Judge Jack, she's a fine judge," Coon said in the March 6, 2006, segment of All Things Considered. "But I don't think she's very sophisticated about the process. I think this is the first time she'd actually had these complex mass tort cases in her courtroom."

He said that there were some problems with some of the silicosis diagnoses, but that Jack did properly weed those out. Coon went on to say that the screenings save lives by alerting clients to possible lung disease earlier than they might otherwise have known.

Coon said that overall, the screening process is "very good."

SOURCE

Killer asbestos diseases stalk South African mining communities

PRIESKA, South Africa (AFP) — Robert Devenish has resigned himself to an agonising death of asbestos-induced cancer, a silent but cruel killer stalking mining communities in South Africa's Northern Cape province.

"Nobody wants to die suffering, but we don't all have a choice," said the 64-year-old former mine employee who was diagnosed with mesothelioma last December and given months to live.

Mesothelioma is a non-curable cancer of the lung lining that can take up to 40 years from asbestos exposure to develop. It condemns its victims to a painful and breathless end, usually about 18 months after diagnosis.

Devenish is one of tens of thousands of South Africans, most of them in small Northern Cape towns, who contracted asbestos-related diseases (ARDs) -- a hangover from the country's heyday as one of the world's top producers of the substance believed as far back as the 1920s to pose serious health risks.

Asbestos mining stopped in South Africa in the mid-1980s, but people are still being diagnosed with ARDs like mesothelioma and asbestosis on a regular basis, while many more continue to be at risk from unrehabilitated sites.

Several uses for asbestos, once a popular insulator due to its heat resistant properties, have been banned around the world.

And foreign-owned mining companies have in the past six years paid out tens of millions of dollars in settlements from which an estimated 10,000 South African victims of their asbestos extracting activities have benefited so far.

Mesothelioma sufferers like Devenish got 28,000 rand (just over 4,000 dollars, 2,800 euros) each, small comfort for a dying man.

At a time that he should have been welcoming retirement, Devenish is instead packing up house with his wife, Anna, and moving from the remote settlement of Marydale to a smaller home in a bigger town where she can remain after his death.

"The doctors said the life expectancy is between six and 18 months without special treatment," explained Devenish, who is following an expensive but hopefully life-prolonging course of chemotherapy.

Prieska doctor Gideon Smith said his longest surviving mesothelioma patient died two years after being diagnosed. But some are known to have lived for five years.

Smith told AFP he diagnosed five to 10 cases of mesothelioma per year in the town of about 20,000.

"Every time somebody comes to me with a lung ailment, the first thought is asbestos. It is almost always the case," said Smith.

One of his patients, 68-year-old Petrus van Nell, has taken to bed with mesothelioma without much hope of rising from it again.

Like many others, he grew up on asbestos mines and worked as a youngster at crushing stones for pocket money.

"I am short of breath and tired. Extremely tired. I have a lot of pain," Van Nell said as he battled to sit upright in his bed.

In a small house nearby, mesothelioma sufferer Magrieta Esau, 52, is on a permanent course of morphine. She grew up on asbestos mines, later worked on one, and lost both parents to ARDs.

"The asbestos was everywhere, even our homes. But nobody ever warned us," she said. "As children, we played on the asbestos mine heaps. And we were sometimes paid small change for helping to crush the stones.

"I am angry. It is hard to make peace with the fact that the rest of my life will be full of pain."

Studies have put the prevalence of ARDs in Northern Cape mining areas as high as 50 percent of the population.

Yet piles of raw asbestos fibres are still to be found dumped and uncovered, while rehabilitation work has yet to be done on several mine dumps that threaten communities within a 100-kilometre (62-mile) radius with wind contamination.

Some secondary roads in the province contain asbestos fibres visible to the naked eye, and many schools and homes in towns like Prieska still have asbestos in their frames.

"If this was Europe, huge areas would have to be evacuated. They are not safe for people to live in," said lawyer Richard Spoor, who has represented dozens of ARD sufferers in court.

In a provincial budget speech in June, Northern Cape environment minister Pieter Saaiman said rehabilitation of derelict, ownerless asbestos mines was progressing well.

"However, secondary asbestos pollution remains a matter of concern," he said, without proposing a course of action.

Anti-asbestos activist Sol Bosch watched his father die cruelly over three years of the lung disease asbestosis.

Bosch is bitter over what he perceives as mining companies' past callousness and the current government's inertia.

But on a personal level, fear of sharing his father's fate is never far from the surface.

"I am too scared to go for an X-Ray," he said. "I would rather not know."

SOURCE