http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19828766/wid/11915773?GT1=10212
Doctors, Democrats scrutinize Sept. 11 dust
Nearly 70 percent of first responders have lung problems, researchers
say
Updated: 10:40 a.m. ET July 18, 2007
WASHINGTON - {Reuters} Pilar Albarado spent five months after September
11, 2001, cleaning pulverized building material from apartment buildings
and offices near the site of the World Trade Center. A chronic cough
came two years later, and she is also battling asthma, memory loss and
acid reflux.
Only now, almost six years after the attacks, is the extent of the
medical toll on firefighters, police and others who worked on the
cleanup coming to light, along with questions about how much the
government knew of the danger.
Albarado, 44, cannot work because of her medical problems. Her acid
reflux is so bad she cannot eat most foods.
She is being treated at the recently opened World Trade Center health
clinic at Bellevue Hospital, but she said the medicines they give her do
little to help.
"Our problems will be with us for life," she said during a protest
outside congressional offices in June. "I will never be the same."
Sickening dust
Democrats in Congress say Albarado is one of thousands of people
endangered when the Bush Administration knowingly played down the risks
posed by the dust, which contained asbestos, lead and other
contaminants.
Inhalation of dust-laden air has been implicated in at least two deaths
— from lung inflammation and scarring — and connected to the respiratory
illnesses and even cancers of thousands working and living within miles
of Ground Zero, according to medical studies.
Mount Sinai Medical Center researchers found 69 percent of the nearly
10,000 first responders they examined had new or worsened lung problems
after September 11, while doctors at New York University School of
Medicine documented these problems in lower Manhattan residents.
The Bellevue program is currently treating more than 1,300 such
patients, and others are on a waiting list.
Researchers are still working to understand the long-term effects of
these exposures and how psychological distress from the event might
contribute to physical problems.
"We're finding that there are respiratory problems that are persisting
well beyond what we anticipated -- considering people were exposed six
years ago," said Alison Geyh at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health in Baltimore. "The question is why."
The World Trade Center Health Registry, which includes more than 71,000
directly exposed New York City residents and workers, will track their
physical and mental health for up to 20 years and may provide some
answers, Geyh said in a telephone interview.
Clearing the air
Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democratic who headed a House of
Representatives hearing on the issue in June, said the Environmental
Protection Agency issued falsely reassuring statements about air safety
and asbestos levels.
This led first responders to work with inadequate protective equipment
and New Yorkers to return to "homes, schools and workplaces that had not
been properly tested."
Congressional Democrats also faulted the EPA for failing to meet its
clean-up responsibilities.
Then Environment Secretary Christie Whitman told the congressional
hearings she did not regret her comments, nor her role in reopening
Manhattan workplaces on September 17.
She added that she acted on the scientific information she had been
given at the time. "I will believe the scientists when they tell me what
is safe to breathe," Whitman said.
But according to Geyh, who was at Ground Zero collecting environmental
hazard data immediately after the attacks, the complicated circumstances
did not warrant such early assurances.
An August 2003 report by the EPA's inspector general found that some of
these statements were made without scientific evidence, and also
implicated the White House in mitigating health warnings.
Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that Whitman knowingly lied to
New York residents about their health risks. The case is now under
appeal.
--
Atheist n A person to be pitied in that he is
unable to believe things for which there is
no evidence, and who has thus deprived himself of
a convenient means of feeling superior to others.
—Chaz Bufe, The American Heretic’s Dictionary
.
|
