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Biomedical subjects

G W Schepers

Publications and source records attributed to G W Schepers.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

Chronology of asbestos cancer discoveries: experimental studies of the Saranac Laboratory.

This commentary challenges a recently published perception that Dr. Le Roy Upson Gardner had not actually discovered in 1942 that inhaled chrysotile fibers could induce malignant neoplasia in mice. The handwritten laboratory notes and some of Dr. Gardner's slides have recently been found. They verify that the tumors he saw in the mice included truly malignant neoplasms. Gardner had by then also accumulated 11 cases of human lung cancer (two mesotheliomas) derived from Quebec asbestos miners and millers. An inhalation study designed by Dr. Gardner and conducted between 1951 and 1954, using cancer-insusceptible mice, yielded neoplasia risk ratio of 5.7 compared with control animals. The studies also showed that the primary effect of chrysotile is to cause epithelial proliferation in alveoli adjacent to bronchioles. Chrysotile type asbestos bodies were shown to remain only transiently ferruginous, but even though invisible in direct light they can be visualized at high magnification through use of phase contrast and polarized light micrography.

Animals↗

The Veterans Administration's Asbestos Abatement Program.

1. The Veterans Administration has developed a program of asbestos abatement for its more than 1000 buildings, where health care personnel from 173 hospitals and 238 ambulatory care clinics are likely to encounter respirable asbestos. 2. This is a costly program, which has averaged about $25 million annually for the past ten years. 3. The VA has banned the use of new asbestos products containing more than 1% of asbestos in building construction or renovation projects. 4. Industrial hygiene engineering programs have been ordered instituted at all VA medical centers to monitor dust levels in compliance with OSHA and EPA requirements. 5. Health surveillance programs, managed by an environmental health physician at each medical center, have been instituted for all personnel who have been identified to have breathed asbestos fibers in excess of OSHA-EPA threshold limit values. 6. The health care program focuses on the identification of asbestosis and asbestos-related cancer through periodic X-ray films, lung function tests, and electrocardiographic and physical examination screening. 7. The program also stresses cessation of smoking.

Air Pollution, Indoor↗

Benzbromarone therapy in hyperuricaemia; comparison with allopurinol and probenecid.

The purpose of this study was to compare the serum uric acid lowering effect of benzbromarone (Minuric), allopurinol, probenecid and placebo in patients suffering from confirmed hyperuricaemia. This was a multiple dose, placebo-controlled, crossover study in six hyperuricaemic patients to compare the effects on uric acid of three different active treatments: benzbromarone 100 mg daily, probenecid 1000 mg daily and allopurinol 300 mg daily. Each patient was assessed clinically and biochemically before and after the study and blood samples for serum uric acid determinations were taken thirteen times during the study period. For the six trialists it was found that benzbromarone is superior to both probenecid and allopurinol in the lowering of serum uric acid, and that probenecid is also superior to allopurinol.

Adult↗