The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
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ADAO Science Advisory Board

ADAO Science Advisory Board (SAB)

Mission:

  1. Provide review of ADAO educational materials for medical and scientific accuracy.
  2. Provide medical and scientific background information to inform public policy development.

The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization Science Advisory Board, lead by Dr. Arthur Frank and Dr. Richard Lemen, has more than 200 years of experience.

 ADAO Science Advisory Board Co-Chairs

UntitledArthur L. Frank, PhD, MD, is a physician board certified in both internal medicine and occupational medicine and currently is co-chair of ADAO’s Science Advisory Board as well as Professor of Public Health and Chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Drexel University School of Public Health in Philadelphia. He is also a Professor of Medicine (Pulmonary) at the Drexel College of Medicine. He also holds a position at Drexel as Professor of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering. A life-long academic, Dr. Frank has previously taught at Mount Sinai, the University of Kentucky and in the University of Texas System. He has served many governmental agencies in the US and has carried out research and has been a governmental advisor internationally. His research interests have been in the areas of occupational cancers and occupational lung diseases, as well as agricultural safety and health. For thirty-seven years he held a commission in the U S Public Health Service (active and inactive) and served on active duty both at the NIH and at NIOSH.

 

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Richard Lemen, PhD is a former Assistant Surgeon General of the United States and also served as the Acting Director and the Deputy Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health before his retirement. He has been a practicing epidemiologist for more than forty years, and has taught graduate level courses on environmental and occupational health issues, including asbestos, at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. He has also testified on behalf of asbestos victims; Dr. Lemen is a world-renowned author, speaker, and lecturer on this topic.

ADAO Science Advisory Board Members

UntitledBrad Black, MD, PhD has been the Medical Director and CEO for the Center for Asbestos and Related Disease in Libby, Montana since 2000. He has been a physician in the Libby medical community since 1977 and became the Lincoln County Health Officer in 1984. Beginning in 1999, he worked closely with Dr. Alan Whitehouse, a Spokane, WA pulmonologist, for 9 years. Since 2000, Dr. Black has had the opportunity to care for thousands of patients and this longitudinal observation of progressive pleural fibrosis has led to a clear characterization of Libby amphibole asbestos disease. CARD continues to provide asbestos health screening and care to a population with significant Libby Amphibole exposure and related diseases. In 2008 he presented at the National Institute of Health/National Cancer Institute about the progressive pleural fibrosis and mesothelioma identified in those exposed to Libby amphibole asbestos. He was instrumental in initiating research on Libby amphibole asbestos health effects. His work has expanded into research leading to an association with pulmonologists and occupational medicine specialists from multiple academic centers around the U.S. In 2010, Dr. Black became an adjunct professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He has collaborated on a number of professional journal publications, and most recently he participated in a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences working group that developed a publication on the non- neoplastic, pleural endpoints. Today, Dr. Black continues his dedicated efforts to providing excellent healthcare, outreach, and research for asbestos related diseases.
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Barry Castleman, ScD is an Environmental Consultant trained in chemical and environmental engineering. He holds a Doctor of Science degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. He has been a consultant to numerous agencies of the US government and other governments, international bodies, and environmental groups dealing with a wide range of public health issues. He has testified as an expert in civil litigation in the US on the history of asbestos as a public health problem and the reasons for failure to properly control asbestos hazards. Dr. Castleman has spent the past 40 years working on asbestos as a public health problem.

 


rajaRaja Flores, MD
, is the Chairman of Thoracic Surgery, Ames Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.  Dr. Flores helped pioneer the use of intraoperative chemotherapy for mesothelioma.   He led a multi-center trial designed to improve patient outcomes. In addition, he changed the surgical management of pleural mesothelioma cancer with a landmark study comparing extrapleural pneumonectomy and pleurectomy/decortication.  With over 100 related publications to date, his energies and commitment to the plight of mesothelioma patients remains paramount.

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Michael R. Harbut, MD, MPH, FCCP is Chief of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine: Clinical Assistant Professor, Wayne State University, School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan. An internationally known expert in the diagnosis and treatment of environmental and workplace diseases, Dr. Harbut has been named co-Director of the National Center for Vermiculite and Asbestos Related Cancers. He is the co-author of the American Thoracic Society’s 2004 Recommendations for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Non-Malignant Disease Caused by Asbestos Exposure. Dr. Harbut is a past chair of the occupational and environmental health section of the American College of Chest Physicians, and has served on the Board of Directors of the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation. Dr. Harbut brings his expertise to address the need for early diagnosis and aggressive treatment of asbestos related diseases

 

Steven Markowitz, MD, DrPH, is an occupational medicine physician, directs the Barry Commoner Center for Health and the Environment (CCHE) at Queens College, City University of New York. He is Adjunct Professor of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He received his B.A. from Yale University and MD and DrPH (epidemiology) from Columbia University. With the United Steelworkers, Dr. Markowitz directs the Worker Health Protection Program, a national medical screening program for Department of Energy nuclear weapons workers that has since 2000 used low-dose CT scanning to screen over 13,000 workers for early lung cancer detection. Dr. Markowitz has also continued the work of Dr. Irving Selikoff in documenting asbestos-related mortality among North American insulators. Dr. Markowitz is Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine (AJIM) and the Associate Editor of a major textbook, Environmental and Occupational Medicine, 4th Edition.

 

Jacqueline M. Moline, M.D., M.Sc. is an Occupational Medicine specialist and Professor of Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology and Prevention and Internal Medicine at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine. She obtained her medical degree from the Pritzker School of Medicine of the University of Chicago. She completed residencies in Internal Medicine at Yale University and Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where she obtained her Masters of Science degree. She is the former Director of the NIOSH funded New York/New Jersey Education and Research Center in Occupational Safety and Health. After 19 years on the faculty at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, she joined Northwell Health as the founding Chairperson of the Department of Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology and Prevention. Dr. Moline continues to maintain a clinical practice, focusing on patients with occupational exposures such as asbestos. Since 2001, many of Dr. Moline’s endeavors have been centered on the medical evaluation and treatment of World Trade Center (WTC) responders. While at Mount Sinai she directed the WTC health program, which she now runs at Northwell Health in Queens, NY. In 2010, Dr. Moline was the recipient of the Kehoe Award of Merit from the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine for significant contributions to research in the field of occupational and environmental medicine and she has received numerous awards for her service to WTC responders.

 

Christine Oliver, MD, MPH, MS, FACPM is President of Occupational Health Initiatives, Inc.  She is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Physician in the Department of Medicine (Pulmonary and Critical Care Unit) at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.  Board certified in internal medicine and in preventive (occupational) medicine, Dr. Oliver’s primary specialty is Occupational and Environmental Medicine, with an emphasis on occupational lung disease.  She is the Co-Director of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital.  There she evaluates and cares for patients with a variety of occupational and environmental diseases, including occupational asthma, interstitial lung disease associated with exposure to asbestos and beryllium, and building-associated illness.  Dr. Oliver has done research and published in the area of occupational lung disease.  An important focus of her research and clinical activities has been asbestos-related disease.  She has lectured frequently on this topic.  Dr. Oliver is responsible for medical surveillance of a group of public school custodians employed by the City of Boston and exposed to asbestos during the course of that work.  She consults on medical-legal issues and provides expert witness testimony.  Dr. Oliver has testified before Congress on issues related to workplace exposures and related disease.  She was an active participant in the implementation of medical aspects of the 1991 Workers’ Compensation Reform Act signed into law in Massachusetts.

 
Andrea Wolf, MD, MPH, is Director of the NY Mesothelioma Program and Associate Professor of Thoracic Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She graduated Cum Laude from Princeton and earned highest honors at Harvard Medical School. She served as Chief Resident in Surgery at the MGH and Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she completed a Thoracic Oncology Research Fellowship while earning her MPH at the Harvard School of Public Health. She has expertise in surgery for pleural mesothelioma and VATS lobectomy, and research interests in mesothelioma, health care disparities, and lung cancer. She and her team at the NY Mesothelioma Program received the 2020 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer Care Team Award. She has presented at numerous national and international meetings, is co-editor of the third edition of Sugarbaker’s Adult Chest Surgery and has published extensively on pleural mesothelioma and lung cancer. She has one son and loves to run
2021-11-24T20:42:05-08:00July 30th, 2015|
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