http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/05/09/wtc-sarcoidosis.html
Toxic World Trade Center dust linked to lung disease
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 9, 2007 | 10:48 AM ET
The Associated Press
Rescue workers and firefighters in New York City contracted a serious
lung-scarring disease called sarcoidosis at a much higher rate after the
Sept. 11 attacks than before, said a study that is the first to link the
disease to exposure to toxic dust at Ground Zero.
The study, published by nine doctors including the medical officer
monitoring city firefighters, Dr. David Prezant, found that firefighters
and rescue workers contracted sarcoidosis in the year after Sept. 11,
2001, at a rate more than five times higher than the years before the
attacks.
Unlike previous studies that have linked exposure to the toxic dust
cloud that enveloped lower Manhattan after the World Trade Center's
collapse to many different respiratory illnesses, this study zeroes in
on one disease.
Sarcoidosis, which can be life-threatening, causes an inflammation in
the lungs that deposits tiny cells in the organs, leaving scar tissues
that damage them. Several rescue workers and others exposed to WTC dust
have claimed they contracted the disease from their work at Ground Zero.
The study compared the rates of sarcoidosis among fire department
employees for 15 years before Sept. 11 and for five years since. It said
firefighters who showed symptoms of the disease on chest X-rays
underwent more intensive exams.
After the WTC attack, 26 firefighters were diagnosed with sarcoidosis,
the study found. Thirteen were diagnosed in the first year after the
attacks, which represents a rate of 86 per 100,000. In the 15 years
before the attack, the rate of sarcoidosis was 15 per 100,0000, the
study found.
None of the 26 rescue workers, who are in their 30s and 40s, has died of
the disease, and about 10 have improved or recovered since their
diagnoses, the study found. Two of the firefighters were former smokers,
the study found.
The study was published this week in the May issue of CHEST, a journal
published by the American College of Chest Physicians.
--
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
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