Benzene and Leukemia Law Blog

When does the Statute of Limitations Begin to Run?

An appeal was recently filed in a case where a lower court ruled that the time limit on a person's benzene claim began running when the person was first exposed to benzene.  Wow.  Well this is one big problem with exposure lawsuits.  The question I have is how can person bring a lawsuit for an injury they don't know they have yet. One idea (which is not new) is to allow the time period to start running when the person first learned that the benzene exposure was linked to their aplastic anemia, MDS (Myleodysplastic Syndrome) or AML.

See this link for more on the story of this person who is appealing to the US Supreme Court over this lower court decision.

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/1175937607192090.xml&coll=3

Efforts to curtail Benzene in Texas

Despite an initial backlash against what they perceived to be an overstep of mayoral authority, Baytown officials and state lawmakers seem to be falling in step, at least in principle, with Houston Mayor Bill White’s efforts to curtail benzene emissions from east Harris County refineries.

The ball is now rolling on a regional task force overseen by the Greater Houston Partnership and composed of scientists, environmental advocates, industry representatives and appointees by several local mayors, including Baytown mayor Stephen DonCarlos. The task force, the actual members of which are still being decided, should begin sitting down to discuss strategies within the next few months.

At the heart of the task force’s mandate, at least from White’s perspective, will be the voluntary reductions on benzene emissions that first sparked the outcry from officials and led to the meeting of local mayors out of which the task force eventually sprouted. Benzene, a common gasoline component and byproduct known to cause cancer over long periods of exposure in a small percentage of humans, has been red-flagged by scientists as being the toxic chemical most likely to affect people in the greater Houston-Galveston area.

For the Rest of the story please see the Baytown Sun

Targeting stem cells suggests way to cure leukemia, mice study shows

Canadian scientists are investigating a novel way of treating a deadly form of leukemia: By targeting the stem cells that allow the cancer to return after chemotherapy has resulted in apparent remission.

Using an experimental drug, researchers at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto were able to cure some mice transplanted with the human form of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The discovery offers promise that the drug could have the same effect in humans with the disease.

Read more about this at the Source:  Yahoo News Canada

An Aplastic Anemia Cluster in Oregon.

Last February, doctors diagnosed Chuck and Jacqueline Roberts' young daughter, Victoria, with a rare and life-threatening bone marrow disease, aplastic anemia.

Since then, the Robertses say, they have heard of five other cases in Columbia County, where they live, or across the river in Washington's Cowlitz County.

To the couple, six cases in counties with 150,000 residents combined looks suspicious. But is it? Is it just bad luck? Or is something, perhaps a pollutant, causing illness in the area?

Oregon and Washington officials are tackling those questions as they try to figure out whether Victoria, 7, is part of a disease cluster. So far, they have no proof of a cluster. But workers from seven agencies in two states have spent weeks gathering initial information, including climate data from a Kalama, Wash., plant that legally emits tons of benzene, a chemical that can damage the blood of people exposed to large enough amounts. This week, investigators will share their data and discuss whether there is enough suspicion to push ahead.

You can read the entire article here... www.oregonlive.com

Here is a description of Aplastic Anemia from the article.

In aplastic anemia, a person's bone marrow loses the ability to make blood cells that stop bleeding, battle infections and move oxygen through the body. In the United States, an estimated 200 to 1,800 new cases are found each year. Many things can cause the disease: genetic flaws, radiation, some drugs, chemicals such as benzene, even pregnancy. Most commonly, something spurs the body's immune system to attack the marrow, said Dr. Grover Bagby, an aplastic anemia expert at Oregon Health & Science University. But in most cases, no root cause is found.

Another Clinical Trial for an MDS Drug

From a press release from the company...

Lorus Therapeutics Inc. ('Lorus'), a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the research, development and commercialization of pharmaceutical products and technologies for the management of cancer, today announced a plan for a new clinical investigation of GTI-2040 as a single-agent in patients with high grade myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Source:  Yahoo News

Stem Cell Mutation Research

An interesting article talking about the discovery of a mutation in stem cells that may lead to a blood disorder.  The thought is that if they can isolate and treat this mutation it may lead to further discoveries and treatment for more acute leukemias.

A mutation in blood stem cells occurs in patients with a blood disorder called polycythemia vera (PV), scientists at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and Comprehensive Cancer Center at Stanford University School of Medicine have confirmed.

The discovery suggests that development of a very specific inhibitor at the stem-cell level, to interfere with the pathway leading to the disease, could improve treatment for the cancer-causing disorder. According to research published in the April 3-7 early on-line edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, patients with PV -- a disease in which the patient's body makes too many red blood cells and which can lead to acute leukemia -- have a mutation expressed in the stem cell, the point at which the body's blood cells become structurally and functionally specialized.

The scientists discovered that a mutation in the JAK2 signaling pathway allows the cells to bypass the body's usual mechanism of red blood-cell production, the binding of the hormone erythropoietin (EPO) to its receptor, a process which normally regulates the production of red blood cells. As a result of this intrinsic defect, the bone marrow produces excessive numbers of red blood cells.

"This discovery is important because if we can pinpoint an inhibitor that directly targets the JAK2 mutant allele, we can fight the disease without inhibiting normal stem cell differentiation. These patients could then still produce normal red blood cells, normal platelets and white blood cells," said Catriona H.M. Jamieson, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine and Director for Stem Cell Research at UCSD's Moores Cancer Center.

"The body is very utilitarian," added Jamieson, first author of the study. "There are primal pathways that are important for regenerating cells and tissues, and those are the same pathways that cancers use, subverting normal processes and using them for the wrong purpose. The discovery of this mutation means we can look toward interrupting these pathways, systematically, without wiping out the patient's normal blood cells."

Source:  Science Daily.com

Shorter Treatment for NHL

A new study has found that survival rates among elderly patients affected by non-Hodgkin's lymphoma has increased by using a different treatment method.

The treatment involves cutting the standard chemotherapy time in half, but still using the same combination and doses of drugs and antibodies.

Dr Luke Coyle from Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital says the new, shorter burst of treatment has effective results.

"It's very exciting to have the scientific proof that you can do it better and you can treat patients in a shorter period of time, which will hopefully allow them to tolerate the procedure much better as well," he said.

"It's a very difficult thing in your life to have six months of therapy punctuated by regular hospital visits and hopefully this will perhaps be compressed into a much shorter period, perhaps three months."

He says the practice is now likely to be adopted in all Australian hospitals.

Source:  Yahoo News

Hodgkin's v. Non-Hodgkin's: What's the difference

I found this on the Mayo Clinic website.  Great stuff explaining the difference between the two diseases.

Follow this link:  Hodgkin's v. non-Hodgkin's  What's the difference?

New agent causes leukemia cell death

I found this article about a method for inhibiting leukemia cells. 

A team of researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center has discovered an entirely new mechanism of action for a novel pharmacological agent currently in clinical trials in patients - the kinase inhibitor BAY 43-9006 - which was designed to disrupt the survival pathways of tumor cells....

"We were surprised to find that the killing effects of Bay 43-9006 in human leukemia cells had very little to do with inhibition of the Raf-1 pathway," Grant said. "Instead, the major mechanism of lethality of this compound involved down-regulation of a protein known as Mcl-1, which plays a critical role in protecting leukemic cells from apoptosis.

Source:  Medicalnewstoday.com

Team in Training and Leukemia

A little of topic here.  I'm not going to opine about anything legal...

Team in Training supports people who raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  I had a friend who did this and ran an Olympic distance triathlon in Florida last year (approx. 3/4 mile swim, 26 mile bike, 10K run). The Palm Beach group raised $300,000 last year for Leukemia research.

Palm Beach Article