Unfortunately, studies have shown that long-term exposure to asbestos can lead to serious, if not deadly, health problems.

CytRx Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company that makes therapeutics based on molecular chaperone amplification technology, has agreed to purchase Innovive Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company with four clinical stage oncology drug candidates. The combined company will have a broad portfolio of clinical development programs in oncology, ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, stroke recovery and diabetic foot ulcers. According to Steven Kelly, Innovive President and CEO, Innovive has focused primarily on four treatments of diseases with well-understood clinical endpoints that would provide the company with a streamlined path to approval by the FDA. Partnering with CytRx will allow Innovive access to funding to advance the four drug candidates, thereby serving the best interests of cancer patients. One of Innovive’s oncology portfolio highlights is INNO-305, also known as WT1 (Wilm’s Tumor Antigen

1). INNO-305 is a cancer vaccine immunotherapeutic that is in a Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of patients with AML, MDS, non-small cell lung cancer and mesothelioma. INNO-305 was designed to have a unique ability among WT1 peptide cancer immunotherapies to stimulate both CD8 and CD4 T-cells, which may result in a more robust immune response.

For more information on the two companies, visit www.cytrx.com and www.Innovivepharma.com.

For more on this story, go to Pharma Live.

A Kingsbury woman has angrily attacked the BBC after it gave her 55,000 at the end of a hearing into her father's death.

A Kingsbury woman has angrily attacked the BBC after it gave her 55,000 at the end of a hearing into her father's death.

Though these items may seem harmless, extreme caution should be used when cleaning up damaged containers and chemicals.

A new clinical trial is underway for victims of mesothelioma. The Mesothelioma Center of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center is actively recruiting patients for a clinical research study of a targeted radiation and chemotherapy protocol for pleural mesothelioma. According to Dr. Robert Taub, the study’s principal investigator, the Mesothelioma Center is the only hospital in the country offering the experimental therapy to mesothelioma sufferers. At present, the standard protocol for treatment of pleural mesothelioma requires surgery to remove the lung. Dr. Taub and his team will investigate whether the new protocol can benefit patients while at the same time avoiding surgery and reducing the toxic side affects associated with systemic chemotherapy. Clinical trial patients will receive chemotherapy drugs cisplatin and doxorubicin by surgically implanted catheters. Some patients will also receive cisplatin and pemetrexed intravenously. In addition, all study participants will receive targeted radiotherapy using the P-32 radioisotope.

For the full story, go to RxPG News.

A Sarasota journalist recently looked back on the controversial career of architect Paul Rudolph, who died of mesothelioma a little more than a decade ago. Paul Rudolph moved to Sarasota, Florida in 1948 as a dynamic, Harvard-trained young architect and left ten years later to serve as the dean of the School of Art and Architecture at Yale. While at Yale, he became widely known as a tower of mid-century design. But his buildings became known for their problems. His imposing “Brutalist” style structures were built from poured concrete that developed cracks and leaks. Two of the high schools the architect built in Sarasota, Florida suffered structural, environmental and acoustic problems almost as soon as they were completed. Rudolph’s most famous work, the Art and Architecture building at Yale, had an innovative asbestos ceiling that had to be ripped out and replaced in the 1970s. By the 1980s, the architect worked mainly in Asia, where the issues with his American buildings were less well known. It was not until after Texas billionaire Sid Bass, a 1965 Yale graduate, gave $20 million to Yale in 2000 to restore the Art and Architecture building, that Rudolph’s reputation experienced a turnaround. Rudolph died in 1997 from mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer caused by inhalation of asbestos fibers.

For the full story, go to the Herald Tribune.

The congregation of the Family Life Cathedral in Vicksburg, Mississippi has been working since 1997 to remove asbestos from the church. Finally, the church—which was once the Ken Karyl Elementary School—will be asbestos-free by the end of June. The church bought the building for $10,251 in 1997 and received estimates for as much as $90,000 to remove the asbestos ceiling and floor tiles from the 46-year-old structure. In actuality, the cost has been a little less than half that amount. The final phase of the removal will be completed this month. Ken Karyl Elementary was built in the early 1960s to avoid integrating the schools, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. But when schools were ultimately integrated, the Ken Karyl facility was abandoned and left empty until Family Life Cathedral purchased the asbestos-ridden structure in 1997.

For the full story, go to the Vicksburg Post.

LegalView updated mesothelioma blog readers to the severe consequences that may exist in the aftermath of environmental destruction such as tornadoes or storms.

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected without comment the appeals of W.R. Grace and six of its top executives, who have been criminally charged with releasing asbestos-contaminated vermiculite from a mine in Libby, Montana. The decision means the case will now go back to U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy of Missoula for trial. “We are disappointed. We take this seriously,” admitted Greg Euston, a spokesman for W.R. Grace. Trial could begin in late fall in a prosecution that is “one of the most significant cases ever brought under the federal environmental crimes program, ” according to David M. Uhlmann, former chief of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section.

Lawyers for W.R. Grace had asked the U.S. Supreme Court in April to review a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that would allow U.S. prosecutors to proceed with many criminal charges against the asbestos manufacturer that had previously been thrown out by the district court. The U.S. government responded by urging the Court to deny W.R. Grace’s request for review, thereby moving prosecutors closer to a trial that has been beset with delays. “There … is a strong … need to prevent any additional, unnecessary delay of the trial,” according to the government’s 30-page brief in opposition. “Some witnesses and many victims … are dying from mesothelioma, asbestosis, and other asbestos-related diseases. We cannot escape the fact that people are sick and dying as a result of this continuing exposure. As time passes, more witnesses will be unavailable to testify, and fewer victims will be able to attend the trial.”

At issue are the government’s charges that that top W.R.Grace executives intentionally concealed the dangers associated with asbestos-contaminated vermiculite mined near Libby, Montana. Asbestos-related disease has now killed more than 200 Libby residents. But W.R. Grace persuaded the district court that it could not be charged with “knowing endangerment” under the federal Clean Air Act because the regulatory definition of asbestos enacted by the Environmental Protection Agency does not include the types of asbestos produced at the Libby facility. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, saw it the government’s way—and ruled that the definition of asbestos applicable to criminal violations is more encompassing than that governing civil claims. Now that the Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal, the Ninth Circuit’s decision will stand and the case against W.R.Grace may proceed in the district court.

Source: W.R. Grace & Co. v. U.S., — S.Ct. —-, 2008 WL 1740074 (2008); W.R. Grace & Co. v. United States of America, 2008 WL 1744742 (U.S. 2008). For more on this story, go to the Missoulian.