Watch Peter Szlosarek Explain Mesothelioma so well and he even mentions me and my result although he doesn’t say my name but we all know who he is talking about.

This has been a hectic day with Asbestos reports sent to me that had to be shared.

First one was last night the report came through that I find so hard to accept.

Pupils ‘hosed down’ for asbestos and four other key points on school buildings heard by MPs. You could never believe this could ever happen but it has.

A former headteacher has told MPs how his pupils had to be “fumigated” and “hosed down” by the emergency services amid fears they had been exposed to lethal asbestos fibres. Phil Keay, former head of Hetton School in Sunderland, said his students were forced to go through a “fumigation van” to be “de-dusted” after asbestos came loose in the school due to high winds. Mr Keay gave the startling account when giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee on the issue of deteriorating school buildings on Monday. It comes just weeks after a Government report found that asbestos in schools was still a “serious” problem, and a potential threat to children’s health. Pupils were ‘de-dusted and cleaned’ Mr Keay described how strong winds had lifted ceiling tiles made of asbestos, sparking fears that the deadly material may have contaminated the wider school before the school was rebuilt last year. “Students had to go through a fumigation van – the emergency van – to make sure they were de-dusted and hosed down and cleaned. It really was that serious,” he said. “Obviously, parents were informed, the emergency services and so on. But it was not a building that was fit to have children in for several years prior to its closure.”

According to the Health and Safety Executive, asbestos is responsible for more than 5,000 deaths a year with exposure leading to possible lung cancer, such as mesothelioma, which is “always fatal”. Symptoms of having inhaled the dangerous fibres may not appear until 40 year later, however. Meg Hillier, Labour MP and chair of the Public Accounts Committee, described the evidence as “compelling and scary”. Also giving evidence, Mike Green, Director of Capital at the Education Funding Agency (EFA), said the only real way of completely dealing with asbestos was to “rebuild the school”. According to building surveys carried out by the EFA, Mr Green said, 85 per cent of schools have asbestos of some sort and he added that HSE guidance says to “leave it and to manage it”. ‘Significant cause for concern’ But the Government’s own report found that a fifth of schools were “not fully compliant” with proper asbestos procedures, with around a million children at risk of exposure.

The report also found that 100 schools were considered to be a “significant cause for concern”. MPs were taking evidence as part of an inquiry into the state of the school estate, after a National Audit Office report found that too many schools were being left to crumble. More than £6 billion is required to bring schools up to a satisfactory standard, while a further £7 billion is needed to bring them up to a good standard. Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said “significant challenges remain” in improving the quality of school buildings.

This really must be looked into so many people have campaigned for the safety of our schools, for proper high quality surveys. I pray they come to their senses now and make our schools safe. Can you imagine the fear these children and their families are going through. 20/50 years of waiting to see if the Asbestos fibres have got into their Lungs or Stomach.

If you think we are exaggerating then go to a Chemotherapy ward at your hospital and see what Mesothelioma means to a person, How hard it is to breath and the dreadful pain we suffer.

Asbestos has been disturbed at schools in a way that could affect the health of staff and pupils on at least 90 separate occasions in the last five years, Schools Week can exclusively reveal.

Although all forms of the deadly substance have been banned as building materials for decades, it is found in about 85 per cent of schools – and was reported to councils as having been “disturbed” on 93 occasions over five years, meaning “possible exposure” to teachers, builders, caretakers or pupils between 2011 and 2016, according to Freedom of Information requests.

Campaigners say these accidental disturbances call into question the government’s claims that the presence of asbestos – which causes several aggressive forms of cancer – in schools is safe if not disturbed.
At one school, balloons released during a science experiment knocked asbestos in the ceiling to the floor – forcing all teachers and pupils to change their clothes. In another, a Second World War mask pupils held to their faces was found to contain crocidolite, the most lethal blue form of asbestos.

A spokesperson for the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said teaching unions were joining forces to call for the proactive removal of asbestos in as many schools as possible, and to ensure all staff were properly trained about its handling.

“How can you ever guarantee that asbestos is not going to be disturbed?” asked Russell Hobby, general secretary of the NAHT.
“What might be safe in an office is not suitable in a school; there are footballs being kicked and teachers pinning into walls.”

Hobby added that the Department for Education (DfE) was “simply not taking the risk of asbestos in schools and academies seriously enough”.

A National Audit Office report released last month found asbestos was a “potentially dangerous issue” in most schools, and warned it could be disturbed by “unruly” pupils or teachers attaching work to walls.

The FoI requests to councils revealed asbestos had been disturbed in 51 schools over the past five years – a figure campaigners described as “the tip of the iceberg”, since many teachers do not recognise asbestos when they find it.

In Lancashire, primary school teachers rummaging in a store room found damaged asbestos around a pipe. An administration officer in Milton Keynes similarly “disturbed asbestos pipe lagging” in a cupboard while moving archives.

Meanwhile, a contractor working “in breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act” disturbed asbestos at a Cambridgeshire primary school. Another “put his foot through the ceiling into the empty classroom below” out of school hours.

One school even had to evacuate its premises. Whiston Academy in Rotherham was forced to move into another building in 2013 after refurbishment works “identified asbestos in the ceiling”. Pupils could only return after air safety tests had been carried out.

The Health and Safety Executive, which sets asbestos regulations and describes it as “the hidden killer”, holds that “as long as asbestos is in good condition, well-managed and unlikely to be damaged or disturbed, it is not a significant risk to the health of teachers and pupils”.

Nevertheless, councils have paid out more than £10 million in compensation claims to teachers and former pupils for exposure to asbestos over the past five years.

Almost 250 staff and former pupils made claims for asbestos exposure between 2011 and 2016, with just under half (48 per cent) winning compensation. The claimants all had mesothelioma, a cancer which develops as a result of asbestos exposure.

Among the claimants was an ex-pupil in Devon who, along with four school staff members, said they had been victims of negligent management of asbestos at school. All but one member of the group won their case.

Last month Lucion released an article outlining the key role SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) analysis can play in the ongoing management of Asbestos in schools, stating that most teachers and school staff are not directly involved in managing the buildings or in carrying out repair or maintenance work.

Read all the Blog here http://www.lucionservices.com/latest/staff-and-pupils-exposed-to-asbestos-on-more-than-90-occasions/

At Last the Lancelet has published my Trial MK3475-28

Clinical safety and activity of pembrolizumab in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (KEYNOTE-028): preliminary results from a non-randomised, open-label, phase 1b trial
Summary

Background
Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a highly aggressive cancer with poor prognosis and few treatment options following progression on platinum-containing chemotherapy. We assessed the safety and efficacy of pembrolizumab (an anti-programmed cell death receptor 1 [PD-1] antibody) in advanced solid tumours expressing programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) and report here on the interim analysis of the malignant pleural mesothelioma cohort.

Methods
Previously treated patients with PD-L1-positive malignant pleural mesothelioma were enrolled from 13 centres in six countries. Patients received pembrolizumab (10 mg/kg every 2 weeks) for up to 2 years or until confirmed progression or unacceptable toxicity. Key eligibility criteria included measurable disease, failure of standard therapy, and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 0 or 1. PD-L1 positivity was defined as expression in 1% or more of tumour cells by immunohistochemistry. Response was assessed based on investigator review using the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST; version 1.1). Primary endpoints were safety and tolerability, analysed in the all-patients-as-treated population, and objective response, analysed for the full-analysis set. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02054806, and is ongoing but not recruiting participants.

Findings
As of June 20, 2016, 25 patients received pembrolizumab. 16 (64%) patients reported a treatment-related adverse event; the most common adverse event were fatigue (six [24%]), nausea (six [24%]), and arthralgia (five [20%]). Five (20%) patients reported grade 3 treatment-related adverse events. Three (12%) patients required dose interruption because of immune-related adverse events: one (4%) of 25 each had grade 3 rhabdomyolysis and grade 2 hypothyroidism; grade 3 iridocyclitis, grade 1 erythema multiforme, and grade 3 erythema; and grade 2 infusion-related reaction. No treatment-related deaths or discontinuations occurred. Five (20%) patients had a partial response, for an objective response of 20% (95% CI 6·8–40·7), and 13 (52%) of 25 had stable disease. Responses were durable (median response duration 12·0 months [95% CI 3·7 to not reached]);
two patients remained on treatment at data cutoff. But only me with Complete Response I find that so sad and this is where my survivor guilt started.

Interpretation
Pembrolizumab appears to be well tolerated and might confer anti-tumour activity in patients with PD-L1-positive malignant pleural mesothelioma. Response durability and efficacy in this patient population warrants further investigation.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(17)30169-9/abstract