Medical study tests autoimmunity in Libby area

Results from a medical study looking at autoimmunity issues in Libby in connection with asbestos show there is a small group dealing with very severe and progressive lung illness – a sub-group of up to 15 people at a time, who may have been previously overlooked.

The study is the latest of several studies that are in the process of being completed, using Libby area residents in research on asbestos exposure.

The study on lung disease in Libby, recently published in the Med Page Today, focuses on the work of a group of researchers from Idaho State University and the Center for Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Montana.

Researchers say that a further health concern to be added to the list that long-time Libby residents already face is an as-yet un-described autoimmune condition that affects the lungs.

One of the Idaho researchers, Jean C. Pfau, PhD, stated in the article that the Libby asbestos had a number of different types of amphibole fibers – including winchite, richterite and tremolite – that appear to have a different impact on the immune system.

Most studies of occupational exposure to asbestos have focused on the serpentine fiber chrysotile – usually linked with cancer because it suppresses the immune response and ability of the immune system to destroy the cancer – while the amphibole asbestos seemed to activate the immune system, leading to the production of autoantibodies, Pfau states in the article.

Center for Asbestos Related Diseases chief executive and medical director Brad Black said that Dr. Pfau had been working with Libby residents since screenings began in the early 2000s, when assessments of the health affects of asbestos in the W.R. Grace mines began.

At that time, out of 7,000 residents questioned, 494 reported being diagnosed with lupus, systemic sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis.

Black said researchers had found indications that there were links between the Libby asbestos and autoimmunity issues but it was not clear what health effects this could be linked to until recently.

“We’ve been suspicious,” Black said of the connection. “Now we just have to sort (the data) out and hope this leads to effective treatment.

Med Page Today says Pfau and a team took serum samples from Libby residents and compared their antibody profiles with profiles of residents in Missoula.

Researchers found that 24 percent of the Libby samples had antibodies to extractable nuclear proteins found in patients with lupus. In contrast only 4 percent of the Missoula samples had these antibodies.

Pfau’s group was now looking at a specific subgroup of patients in Libby who have developed an unusual, very severe and progressive pulmonary illness.

Black said this group was varied in age – from the 30s into the 80s.

Pfau states in the Med Page Today article that many of these people succumb to infection.

“These patients are in terrible pain and lose their lung function because their lungs aren’t elastic enough for them to breathe in and out, as though there’s a wrapping of scar tissue around their lungs,” Pfau said. “We are proposing this is a novel autoimmune disease and we’re now working on the data that might actually show cause and effect, rather than just association.”

Black said there had been as many as 20 health studies done by a number of universities around the world on Libby residents in the last decade.

One study is now looking at parallels between Libby and a mining town in Western Australia to see how the asbestos affect residents in both places, Black said.

Another study – with results due later in the year – has been looking at the affect of asbestos in young children, using residents who are now in their 30s.