Once the pride of the French Navy, Clemenceau is set to be scrapped by Able UK an English firm that specializes in ship and offshore structure recycling.

The 33,000 ton carrier sailed more than one million nautical miles and saw action around the world that included protecting shipping lanes during the Iran-Iraq War and a support role during Operation Desert Storm.

The ship was originally set to be demolished in India’s notorious Alang shipyard but protests by Greenpeace and members of the socialist opposition halted the project as they called attention to working conditions and the ships toxic material that includes lead, PCBs, asbestos and other contaminants.

The ship was then returned to French waters and has sat idle while negotiations continue. Able UK indicated it has received the initial permits from the Health Safety Executive required for dismantling and will bring jobs to the Teesside area in northeastern England. The only major hurdle is that the company needs a transfrontier shipment permit to transfer the vessel from France to England.

The initiative will support cancer research by providing money for cancer studies including high-risk high-impact research proposals often not supported by conventional funding sources. Research projects will be proposed to the American Association for Cancer Research which will review and administer funding for studies with the guidance of the Scientific Advisory Committee. In addition the charity will form an advisory council composed of leaders from 25 cancer related organizations.

On average cancer claims one life every minute in the United States and cancer killed more than 7.5 million people in 2005. However, continued progress in cancer treatments and therapies have saved or extended countless lives with 10 million cancer survivors currently in the United States.

The charity will air a special 1-hour fundraiser on ABC, CBS and NBC on September 5, 2008 at 8pm EDT and PDT. For more information visit their website Stand Up to Cancer

The company currently has 7 ongoing phase I and phase II trials though none are currently for mesothelioma patients. Reoviruses, which the company is investigating, are generally gastrointestinal infections with the most common form being the rotavirus.

The goal of virotherapy is to isolate and reprogram viruses to only attack cancerous cells. It is still a relatively undeveloped field within cancer research but progress is being made.

Researchers used two mesothelioma cell lines and treated cells with piroxicam and cisplatin alone then combined the two treatments.

Cell growth was significantly limited in both lines and treatment with either agent appeared to disrupt cell cycle phase distribution and expression of some regulatory proteins.

Their effects were significantly increased when used as a combination therapy. In one of the cell lines they appeared to create a synergistic effect on apoptosis (likely through the activation of caspase 8,9).

The data suggests that a combination of piroxicam and cisplatin should warrant further investigation because of their effects on apoptosis and cell cycles.

Patients suffering from malignant pleural mesothelioma were separated into three groups. The first was given a weekly injection of vinorelbine while the second was a given four cycles of mitomycin, vinblastine and cisplatin every three weeks. The treatments were administered in addition to active symptom control treatments which include steroids, painkillers and palliative treatments. The final group only received symptom treatment with no chemotherapy.

The study found that there was a slight but insignificant difference between 1-year survival rates. Patients receiving chemotherapy had a 32 percent rate compared to 29 percent for those only receiving symptom treatment.

Patients in the group that received vinorelbine had a 37 percent 1-year survival rate and researchers concluded it deserves further investigation. However the survival difference was not statistically significant and the authors concluded that the addition of chemotherapy to treatment regimens offered no major benefits.

In addition, quality of life scores among the three groups did not show any major differences.

Cancer is essentially a genetic disease, she says, and she talks about the two types of geners that can allow cancers to form: ongogenes and tumor suppressor genes.

This sounds like the history of asbestos regulation.  For decades people in industry knew asbestos exposure was dangerous, but even after regulations were instituted, science continued to learn more about the toxic effects of asbestos.  The regulations did not always keep up, and we got a legacy of asbestos diseases.