If there is anyone left here from the old days (I see that Stephen
Bornfeld is still here) I was once a regular on this group. I am the
fellow whose wife was exposed to beryllium while working in a dental
lab, and ended up with incurable Chronic Beryllium Disease (CBD), which ravished her lungs.
So here is the end of our personal story: For some 20 years we made
annual treks to the Occupational Lung Disease Clinic at National Jewish Medical Center in Denver. Because there is a significant group of
patients in Denver with that disease, these people are the best in the
world for this particular disease. From the very beginning they
stressed that CBD is "managed" and not cured.
We had a terrible time back in the 1990s when Margaret was going from
doctor to doctor to find out why she had that terrible cough and why her weight was melting away. The truth was, I thought I was losing her.
Finally she ended up with a local pulmonologist, who suspected an occupational origin to Margaret's disease. That's when he started
asking us about what metals Margaret worked with on her job. Beryllium
was an ingredient in certain of those dental alloys, and she ultimately tested positive for Beryllium disease.
With proper treatment, what followed was two decades of acceptable
health, followed by an inevitable decline.
A few weeks ago I lost her after 43 years of happy marriage. What ultimately killed her was a combination of CBD and the complications
that go with living with chronic lung disease. Still, I will be forever grateful for those extra two decades of life that medical science gave
to Margaret.
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Sorry to hear about your loss.
I'm a retired chemist but had never heard about this problem.
Something as simple as a dust mask would have probably prevented it.
Don't know if dental labs were aware at the time and hope they now take precautions. I know a guy with a touch of asbestosis because he
machined it without a mask. He knew the dust was a problem but took his operation outdoors figuring the dust would blow away.
On 3/7/2018 9:28 AM, Frank wrote:
Sorry to hear about your loss.
I'm a retired chemist but had never heard about this problem.
Something as simple as a dust mask would have probably prevented it.
Don't know if dental labs were aware at the time and hope they now take precautions. I know a guy with a touch of asbestosis because he
machined it without a mask. He knew the dust was a problem but took his operation outdoors figuring the dust would blow away.
Actually paper dust masks aren't protective against beryllium.
Unfortunately machining and polishing beryllium tends to make very tiny particles that pass right through a paper mask. I share your hope, but based on my experience I wouldn't bet on dental labs either being aware
of the problem or taking appropriate precautions to protect their
employees.
OSHA did send a Hazard Warning Bulletin around to dental labs, and it specifically mentioned Margaret's case, but it's likely long forgotten
by the industry after all these years.
https://www.osha.gov/dts/hib/hib_data/hib20020419.html
Vaughn
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If there is anyone left here from the old days (I see that Stephen
Bornfeld is still here) I was once a regular on this group. I am the
fellow whose wife was exposed to beryllium while working in a dental
lab, and ended up with incurable Chronic Beryllium Disease (CBD), which ravished her lungs.
So here is the end of our personal story: For some 20 years we made
annual treks to the Occupational Lung Disease Clinic at National Jewish Medical Center in Denver. Because there is a significant group of
patients in Denver with that disease, these people are the best in the
world for this particular disease. From the very beginning they
stressed that CBD is "managed" and not cured.
We had a terrible time back in the 1990s when Margaret was going from
doctor to doctor to find out why she had that terrible cough and why her weight was melting away. The truth was, I thought I was losing her.
Finally she ended up with a local pulmonologist, who suspected an occupational origin to Margaret's disease. That's when he started
asking us about what metals Margaret worked with on her job. Beryllium
was an ingredient in certain of those dental alloys, and she ultimately tested positive for Beryllium disease.
With proper treatment, what followed was two decades of acceptable
health, followed by an inevitable decline.
A few weeks ago I lost her after 43 years of happy marriage. What ultimately killed her was a combination of CBD and the complications
that go with living with chronic lung disease. Still, I will be forever grateful for those extra two decades of life that medical science gave
to Margaret.
---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com
On 3/6/2018 11:51 AM, Vaughn Simon wrote:
If there is anyone left here from the old days (I see that Stephen
Bornfeld is still here) I was once a regular on this group. I am the
fellow whose wife was exposed to beryllium while working in a dental
lab, and ended up with incurable Chronic Beryllium Disease (CBD), which
ravished her lungs.
So here is the end of our personal story: For some 20 years we made
annual treks to the Occupational Lung Disease Clinic at National Jewish
Medical Center in Denver. Because there is a significant group of
patients in Denver with that disease, these people are the best in the
world for this particular disease. From the very beginning they
stressed that CBD is "managed" and not cured.
We had a terrible time back in the 1990s when Margaret was going from
doctor to doctor to find out why she had that terrible cough and why her
weight was melting away. The truth was, I thought I was losing her.
Finally she ended up with a local pulmonologist, who suspected an
occupational origin to Margaret's disease. That's when he started
asking us about what metals Margaret worked with on her job. Beryllium
was an ingredient in certain of those dental alloys, and she ultimately
tested positive for Beryllium disease.
With proper treatment, what followed was two decades of acceptable
health, followed by an inevitable decline.
A few weeks ago I lost her after 43 years of happy marriage. What
ultimately killed her was a combination of CBD and the complications
that go with living with chronic lung disease. Still, I will be forever
grateful for those extra two decades of life that medical science gave
to Margaret.
---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com
Vaughn--
I am sorry to hear of Margaret's passing. For what it's worth, I do
think techs are more aware of beryllium disease these days, and the
history of occupational exposure and disease is the reason for increased awareness. In the current anti-regulatory atmosphere, we'll have to be vigilant to protect people in the industry.
I hope you and the rest of your family are well.
Take care,
Steve
Any possible link with ipf, as per this ominous March 10 article?,
"Dentists keep dying of this lung disease. The CDC can't figure out why." long url follows...,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/03/10/dentists-keep-dying-of-this-deadly-lung-disease-the-cdc-cant-figure-out-why/
Any possible link with ipf, as per this ominous March 10 article?,
"Dentists keep dying of this lung disease. The CDC can't figure out why." long url follows...,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/03/10/dentists-keep-dying-of-this-deadly-lung-disease-the-cdc-cant-figure-out-why/
I'm not googling any cbd/ipf link, but coincidentally reading this
thread (sorry to hear about your loss, Vaughn) just made me speculate.
On 3/12/2018 1:12 AM, John Forkosh wrote:>
Any possible link with ipf, as per this ominous March 10 article?,
"Dentists keep dying of this lung disease. The CDC can't figure out
why."
long url follows...,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/03/10/dentists-keep-dying-of-this-deadly-lung-disease-the-cdc-cant-figure-out-why/
I'm not googling any cbd/ipf link, but coincidentally reading this
thread (sorry to hear about your loss, Vaughn) just made me speculate.
John--
I couldn't rule it out, and I don't know how the clinical and
microscopic picture of cbd compares to ipf. Of course the "I" in IPF is "idiopathic", so if there's a link it apparently hasn't been discovered
yet.
I saw that paper cited in Medpage Today, but I haven't read the source paper. Personally I've not heard of IPF as a major cause of disability
and death in dentists before this paper.
As far as beryllium is concerned, I'm sure that the issue is far greater among lab technicians using it than among dentists and other dental
personnel
Steve
On 3/12/2018 1:12 AM, John Forkosh wrote:
Any possible link with ipf, as per this ominous March 10 article?,
"Dentists keep dying of this lung disease. The CDC can't figure out why." >> long url follows...,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/03/10/dentists-keep-dying-of-this-deadly-lung-disease-the-cdc-cant-figure-out-why/
John I saw that article a few days ago, and my totally unscientific
opinion is that there are so many possible causes for that unfortunate
lung disease, that there is no special reason to suspect beryllium in
these cases (nor any reason to reject it).
First, the cause could be either a substance or a microorganism (or even both). Dental professionals work with a variety of substances, some
quite exotic. They cut, grind, cast and polish these substances, all of
which release fumes and particles into the air, where the worker can't
help but to inhale them. Paper masks are common, but not always protective.
In occupational lung disease, the delay between exposure and the
appearance of symptoms can be decades. That delay incredibly
complicates pinpointing the cause of any patient's disease. In
Margaret's case there was a specific laboratory test for beryllium, but
there are few other possible occupational lung disease causes that can
be so specifically detected in a patient.
So that leaves us with statistics. Statistics can establish a
correlation between a cause and a disease, but not a specific cause for
a specific patient.
On 3/12/2018 11:22 AM, Steven Bornfeld wrote:
On 3/12/2018 1:12 AM, John Forkosh wrote:>
Any possible link with ipf, as per this ominous March 10 article?,
"Dentists keep dying of this lung disease. The CDC can't figure out why." >>> long url follows...,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/03/10/dentists-keep-dying-of-this-deadly-lung-disease-the-cdc-cant-figure-out-why/
I'm not googling any cbd/ipf link, but coincidentally reading this
thread (sorry to hear about your loss, Vaughn) just made me speculate.
John--
I couldn't rule it out, and I don't know how the clinical and
microscopic picture of cbd compares to ipf. Of course the "I" in IPF is
"idiopathic", so if there's a link it apparently hasn't been discovered yet. >> I saw that paper cited in Medpage Today, but I haven't read the source
paper. Personally I've not heard of IPF as a major cause of disability
and death in dentists before this paper.
As far as beryllium is concerned, I'm sure that the issue is far greater
among lab technicians using it than among dentists and other dental
personnel
Steve
Here's the paper, from MMWR:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6709a2.htm?s_cid=mm6709a2_w
Steve
Steven Bornfeld <dentaltwinmung@earthlink.net> wrote:
Steve
Thanks, Steve. Yeah, I'd noticed that link in the wp article, but hadn't clicked through to it until you mentioned it again above. Seems like
they've already got more suspected causes than you can shake a stick at.
So I guess any possible beryllium connection is probably very weak,
or non-existent, compared with all those other causes. And, anyway,
while their 894 ipf patient sample is probably adequate for most
statistical tests, the 8+1=9 dental subsample might not be. For example,
31% of US dentists are female (according to the link below), but 0 in the sample. So the wp's statement that dentists are "23 times more likely
to have IPF" may also not be justifiable by that sample alone.
There are quantitative calculations for statistically significant sample sizes, depending on which kind of test you're applying to your data,
but I'm not off-hand familiar with them.
Tangentially, by the way, I checked wp's "23x more likely" -- according to
https://www.ada.org/en/science-research/health-policy-institute/dental-statistics/workforce
"there are 61.0 dentists working in dentistry per 100,000 U.S. population". Then together with the mmwr's sample where "dentists=1% of ipf patients", that's 16x more likely rather than 23x. Actually, I'd imagined there'd
be way more dentists, whereby way less than even 16x, which is what prompted me to double-check. So dentists treat 1650 patients on average (I'd have guessed way less)?
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