– See more at: http://www.curetoday.com/publications/cure/2016/summer-2016/rescuing-the-rescuers-the-effort-to-cover-and-monitor-911-responders-for-lung-disease-and-cancer#sthash.IhrcD9k3.dpuf
hen terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring almost 9,000 more, it wasn’t the end of the tragedy. In the days and weeks to come, thousands of emergency workers — firefighters, police officers, construction workers and private citizens — descended on Lower Manhattan to aid in rescue and recovery efforts. Some are still paying a heavy price for their service.
Unknown to them, the Twin Towers were built using a toxic mix of asbestos-laden building products that pulverized into a fine dust when they came down.
Like some veterans of the U.S. military, many 9/11 responders have experienced illnesses they believe to have stemmed from the contaminants they inhaled during their service that day, and in the days that followed. And like military veterans, some of them are receiving health care for those conditions that is provided by the government.
Two days after the attacks, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a statement that the air was safe to breathe — an assertion that turned out to be incorrect. Of the more than 40,000 people who responded that day and in the weeks to come, some 70 percent have experienced lung problems.
“We have seen a few cases of mesothelioma, but mostly what I’m seeing is lung cancer,” says Raja M. Flores, professor and chief of thoracic surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. Flores notes that it can take several years for symptoms to manifest. “I think in the next 10 or 15 years, we’ll be learning a lot more about the kinds of diseases you can get from pulverized concrete and steel,” he says.
Brian G.M. Durie, an attending physician at Cedars-Sinai and chairman of the International Myeloma Foundation, explains that a statistical approach, comparing cancers that would be expected in the general population versus those that emerge in first responders, can make a strong case. “With 9/11,” he says, “there were many more cases of myeloma than you would expect in people who weren’t exposed.”
– See more at: http://www.curetoday.com/publications/cure/2016/summer-2016/rescuing-the-rescuers-the-effort-to-cover-and-monitor-911-responders-for-lung-disease-and-cancer#sthash.IhrcD9k3.dpuf
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