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Thread: A Fallen Hero - Video Inside

  1. #21
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    9/11 rescue work blamed for cop's death

    http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_i...4819082829R131

    By Amy Westfeldt
    April 12 2006 at 10:16AM

    New York - The death of a 34-year-old police detective who developed respiratory disease after working at ground zero is "directly related" to September 11, 2001, a New Jersey coroner said in the first known ruling positively linking a death to recovery work at the World Trade Centre site.

    James Zadroga's family and union released his autopsy results on Tuesday, saying they were proof of the first death of a city police officer related to cleanup work at ground zero after the terrorist attacks.

    "It is felt with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of death in this case was directly related to the 9/11 incident," wrote Gerard Breton, a pathologist at the Ocean County (New Jersey) medical examiner's office in the February 28 autopsy.

    A class action lawsuit and families of ground zero workers have alleged that more than two dozen deaths are related to exposure to Trade Centre dust, which doctors believe contained a number of toxic chemicals including asbestos.

    Zadroga, of Little Egg Harbor, NJ, died in January of respiratory failure and had inflammation in his lung tissue due to "a history of exposure to toxic fumes and dust," Breton wrote.

    The detective spent 470 hours after the attacks sifting through the twin towers' smouldering ruins, wearing a paper mask for protection. His breathing became laboured within weeks, he developed a cough and he had to use an oxygen tank to breathe. He retired on disability in November 2004.

    The coroner found material "consistent with dust" in Zadroga's lungs and damage to his liver and said his heart and spleen were enlarged.

    Zadroga's parents and four-year-old daughter appeared at a news conference with half a dozen other detectives who said they have suffered from cancer, strokes, lung disease and other ailments because of post-September 11 work at the Trade Centre site.

    "They all knew it was detrimental to their health," said Joseph Zadroga, James Zadroga's father. "They all knew that, yet they stayed there."

    Doctors running health screening programmes, including a city registry following more than 71 000 people, say it will take decades to truly assess the health effects of working at the trade centre site.

    A spokesperson for the registry did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Tuesday.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  2. #22
    ThotPolice Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Gold9472
    "The Environmental Protection Agency, which urged workers to use respirators at Ground Zero, did find elevated levels of pollutants on the pile at Ground Zero, as fires burned for months after the 9/11 attacks."

    By saying the air was ok to breathe, how is that urging workers to use respirators?
    I work with concrete and you see that all the time, no one tells the guys the dust is poisonous, especially to guys like sandblasters they drop like flies and still the push for awareness and to wear safety equipment in not there.

    I imagine the dust would have been worse at the trade towers both silica and melted plastics and such.

    I think also the rush to save lives and to do it quickly might have played a factor in why no respirators were being worn.

  3. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by ThotPolice
    I work with concrete and you see that all the time, no one tells the guys the dust is poisonous, especially to guys like sandblasters they drop like flies and still the push for awareness and to wear safety equipment in not there.

    I imagine the dust would have been worse at the trade towers both silica and melted plastics and such.

    I think also the rush to save lives and to do it quickly might have played a factor in why no respirators were being worn.
    You don't get it. Not only did they not tell them to use respirators, they told them the air was ok to breathe.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  4. #24
    somebigguy Guest
    Yep, everyone was told the air was safe to breathe. They even told people living in surrounding apartments to simply wipe up the dust with a damp cloth like any other dirt.

    That dust was laden with asbestos, bad idea.

  5. #25
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    Problems mount from 9/11 fallout

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4904188.stm

    By David Shukman
    4/13/2006

    The number of people with medical problems linked to the 9/11 attacks on New York has risen to at least 15,000.

    The figure, put together for the BBC, counts those receiving treatment for problems related to breathing in dust.

    Many of the victims say the government offered false reassurances that the Manhattan air was safe and are now pursuing a class-action lawsuit.

    On Tuesday, a coroner said the death of a policeman who developed a respiratory disease was "directly linked" to 9/11.

    James Zadroga - who worked at Ground Zero - died in January. The New Jersey coroner's ruling was the first of its kind.

    WTC 'cough'
    Jeff Endean used to be the macho leader of a police Swat firearms team. Now, he has trouble breathing and survives on the cocktail of drugs he takes every day.

    Kelly Colangelo, an IT specialist, used to have good health but now endures a range of problems including allergies and sinus pain.

    "It worried me that I've been damaging my health just being in my home," she told the BBC News website. "It also worries me that I see the health impact on the [the emergency crews at the scene]. We were also exposed and I wonder if in 10-15 years from now, am I going to be another victim?"

    Both are victims of what used to be called "World Trade Center cough", an innocuous sounding condition that many thought would pass once the dust that rose from the attacks of 9/11 had blown away.

    But the medical problems have not merely intensified; the list of victims has grown alarmingly at the same time.

    The apparent cause? The long line of contaminants carried by the dust into the lungs of many of those at, or near, the scene on that fateful day.

    'Real' figure
    A further 7,000 firefighters are recorded as having a wide range of medical problems, producing a total of 15,000. But the overall numbers affected could easily be far higher.

    As the US government's newly appointed "health czar" John Howard confirmed to the BBC, there were between 30,000 and 50,000 people at or near Ground Zero who might have been exposed to the hazardous dust and no one really knows how many are suffering problems now.

    Consisting of billions of microscopic particles, the dust was especially toxic because of its contents.

    A grim list includes lead from 50,000 computers, asbestos from the twin towers' structures and dangerously high levels of alkalinity from the concrete.

    Long time
    Many of the people now suffering were sent to Ground Zero to help search for survivors. Others volunteered. Still more just happened to be living or working in the area.

    The latter feel particularly aggrieved, even betrayed.

    In the days following the attacks, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared that monitoring operations had proved the "air was safe to breathe". And with that reassurance, the authorities reopened the globally important financial hub of Wall Street.

    At the time it was seen as a critical morale-booster to a wounded nation.

    Yet now the federal courts have allowed a class-action lawsuit to be filed against those very authorities.

    Last month, a judge described the EPA's reassurances as "misleading" and "shocking the conscience". The legal process could last years.

    A special report on the dust fallout from the 9/11 attacks will be featured on BBC World starting on Wednesday 3 May at 1930 GMT. The documentary will also be carried on BBC News 24.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  6. #26
    ThotPolice Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Gold9472
    You don't get it. Not only did they not tell them to use respirators, they told them the air was ok to breathe.
    That’s even more fucked up, concrete dust alone is toxic, not to mention the asbestos.

    Good way to cut down the number of witnesses?

  7. #27
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    With 9/11 Dust Officially Labeled a Killer, Debate Revives

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/14/nyregion/14dust.html

    By ANTHONY DePALMA
    Published: April 14, 2006

    In the cold, clinical language of the autopsy report of a retired New York City detective that was released this week, there were words that thousands of New Yorkers have come to anticipate and to fear.

    "It is felt with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of death in this case was directly related to the 9/11 incident," stated the report from the medical examiner's office in Ocean County, N.J.

    That "reasonable degree of medical certainty" — coroner language for "as sure as I can be" — provides the first official link made by a medical expert between the hazardous air at ground zero after the trade center collapse and the death of someone who worked in the rescue effort.

    The report has reopened old wounds, giving lawsuits brought by first responders and downtown residents new evidence to back up allegations that the toxic mixture of dust and fumes at ground zero was deadly.

    The report has also reignited a fierce debate over whether to classify deaths like that of Detective James Zadroga, 34 — who died on Jan. 5 of respiratory failure at his parents' New Jersey home — as being "in the line of duty," making survivors eligible for more benefits.

    Dr. Robin Herbert, who has screened thousands of first responders through the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program, called Detective Zadroga's autopsy report a "sentinel event" and a warning sign.

    "It should be taken very seriously and investigated with great vigor," Dr. Herbert said.

    But while acknowledging that those exposed to the dust may develop fatal diseases, many medical experts who have tracked the health effects of the trade center collapse have been reluctant to cross the line in between probability and certainty.

    The autopsy report went further than any other medical document to link a death to the dust, but it by no means provides conclusive proof of the dust's general toxicity and its impact on other workers at the site. That, experts generally agree, may take 20 years to play out, depending on the latency period for many cancers and other diseases that could be linked to exposure to the toxic materials.

    Proving the cause of a disease, even when the cause may seem obvious, is extremely difficult. Dr. Michael M. Baden, former chief medical examiner of New York and a forensics expert, said the phrase "reasonable degree of certainty" is the standard term used in court to mean that given the available information, "it's very likely that that opinion is correct."

    That said, Dr. Baden noted that given the impact of such a finding, he would have expected the medical examiner's office to consult with doctors who had tested or treated other first responders before coming to such a conclusion. Other experts said that tests should have been done on the particles found in Detective Zadroga's lungs to compare them with the contents of the dust from the trade center site.

    Neither step was taken. The autopsy was performed by Dr. Gerard Breton, a 73-year-old retired pathologist who has been on contract to the medical examiner's office in Ocean County for a decade.

    Dr. Breton said in a telephone interview yesterday that he did not attempt to classify the "innumerable foreign body granulomas" containing "unidentified foreign materials" in Detective Zadroga's lungs.

    He also did not consult any doctors besides the detective's physician, who he said had informed him of Detective Zadroga's work at ground zero.

    Nonetheless, Dr. Breton said what he found was unmistakable.

    "I cannot personally understand that anyone could see what I saw in the lungs, and know that the person was exposed to ground zero, and not make the same link I made," said Dr. Breton, who graduated from the University of Haiti in 1960 and did his residency at St. Peter's Medical Center in New Brunswick.

    Detective Zadroga, who joined the New York Police Department in 1992, did not smoke and had no known history of asthma. His family has long believed that the 450 grueling hours that the highly decorated officer spent working on recovery efforts at ground zero in 2001 had filled his lungs with fiberglass, pulverized concrete and a toxic brew of chemicals that fatally scarred his lungs, leading to his death at the age of 34.

    Joseph Zadroga, Detective Zadroga's father, said his son and other officers who had worked at the trade center site knew the air they were breathing probably would cause health problems down the road. "You had to be a fool not to realize that," he said on Tuesday at a news conference in Manhattan.

    Detective Zadroga's colleagues in the police department have argued that hundreds of officers and detectives who were also exposed to the dust cloud will likely suffer from a variety of serious illnesses, including a number of blood cancers, because of their work at ground zero.

    Michael J. Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association, said that he wanted state pension law amended so that Detective Zadroga's death and others like it are reclassified as occurring in the line of duty, qualifying survivors to receive larger benefits. A bill to make such a change has been proposed in Albany.

    In Brooklyn yesterday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg noted that a law was passed last year allowing city workers who got sick after responding to the trade center site to qualify for full disability pensions, even after they retire. He called Detective Zadroga's death tragic, but said that the autopsy report may not be definitive.

    "We'll see what other doctors say," Mr. Bloomberg said. "Generally, there are lots of other contributing factors."

    More than 7,300 people who worked at the trade center recovery site — police officers, firefighters and constructions workers — have joined in a class-action suit seeking damages from their employers.

    David E. Worby, the lawyer handling that suit, said about 40 of the plaintiffs have already died. "At a minimum, their diseases were aggravated, and accelerated by the toxic exposure," he said.

    Toxic substances known to cause cancer, like benzene and asbestos, normally take decades to develop the disease. Mr. Worby said the doctors and scientists he had consulted believe that the complex mixture of chemicals that resulted from the collapse of the two towers — along with everything in them — may have created a unique compound that acts as an accelerant, vastly increasing the speed by which known carcinogens trigger cancer.

    "It's a horror show," he said.

    In a separate class-action lawsuit against federal environmental officials, residents and school children from Lower Manhattan claim they were given false assurance that the air around ground zero was safe enough for them to move back in a few days after the attack.

    In February, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that statements about safety made by officials after 9/11 were misleading and "without question conscience-shocking."
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  8. #28
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    9/11 workers see hope, fear in autopsy

    http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...h/14389577.htm

    DEVLIN BARRETT
    Associated Press
    4/20/2006

    NEW YORK - An autopsy linking the death of a police officer to dust at the World Trade Center site was chilling confirmation to many 9/11 rescuers that more than four years later, the disaster is still claiming lives.

    "It should open up people's eyes," said former firefighter Kevin Riley, who had to retire with lung problems after rushing to the scene as the twin towers collapsed.

    A class-action lawsuit claims there have been dozens of deaths related to the cloud of debris that hung over the ruins. Hundreds of police officers, firefighters and others who labored at ground zero have respiratory illnesses and other chronic disorders they blame on asbestos and other substances. And there are others who are healthy now but fear they will develop cancer or other illnesses down the line.

    Federal and city health experts say it could take 20 years to find definite links between the toxic cloud and some diseases or deaths, because most cancers take that long or even longer to develop and decades of statistics are needed to prove a relationship.

    Last week, though, an autopsy report was released on 34-year-old police Detective James Zadroga, and it is being cited by his family and union as the first medical proof that people are still dying from the attacks.

    Zadroga died in January of what was listed as pulmonary disease and respiratory failure. The autopsy found material "consistent with dust" in Zadroga's lungs, and Gerard Breton, a pathologist at the Ocean County, N.J., medical examiner's office concluded: "It is felt with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of death in this case was directly related to the 9/11 incident."

    The autopsy did more than confirm families' suspicions. It renewed fear.

    "I'm sure not just in my household but in other people's households, the story upsets you, because my wife and my kids read that and obviously in the back of their heads, they think I'm next, so it's good and bad," said Riley, 48.

    City and federal officials tracking 9/11 health problems insist it is still far too early to know if Zadroga's death is a "sentinel case" - an early warning of what could be a rising death toll.

    Riley and many other Sept. 11 rescuers are receiving disability pay or workers' compensation for their illnesses. Some rescuers also want to make sure that when they die, they get the full death benefits available to police officers killed in the line of duty - something that would require a change in state law.

    But many of the rescuers say the main issue is not the money. Instead, they say, they want clearer answers as to what is making them sick, and better treatment for whatever it is.

    "It seems like they're trying to do the right thing, and it's good to help people in the future, but they don't have any answers for us now," said 49-year-old Joe Sykes, a fire marshal who worked at the morgue at ground zero until the end of October 2001, when his coughing forced him to take medical leave.

    "It's frustrating for me, and frustrating for my family. When they get those answers, are we still going to be alive?"

    To provide answers, Mount Sinai School of Medicine is conducting medical exams and screening to track symptoms among rescue workers and construction workers.

    Also, city employees and researchers are operating the World Trade Center Health Registry, which uses questionnaires and phone calls to collect information from 71,437 people who worked at ground zero or were in the area. The city registry hopes to monitor their health over decades.

    Critics say the research is useless if it cannot be used to help those suffering now.

    "If we're looking 10 or 20 years down the road, then we're talking about a body count. I'm not looking to do a body count, I'm talking about finding out what problems exist and treating them," Pat Lynch, president of the city's police union. "We're not there to fill someone's filing cabinet."
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  9. #29
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    Sept. 11 health official says he's worried about illnesses

    http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/h...ks-health.html

    By Devlin Barrett
    ASSOCIATED PRESS
    1:16 p.m. April 24, 2006

    WASHINGTON – The government's point man on Sept. 11 health programs said he is worried that an autopsy linking a retired detective's death to recovery work at ground zero may be a warning sign of other life-threatening cases.

    Dr. John Howard also said it will take time to determine whether there is a scientific link between deaths and exposure to toxic dust. Some epidemiologists have said it will take 20 years or more to prove such a link.

    Howard, who is to meet in New York this week with congressional leaders about ground zero health issues, was tapped by the Bush administration in February to coordinate the federal response to ongoing Sept. 11 health programs.

    That role took on greater urgency with the April release of retired Det. James Zadroga's autopsy, which concluded “with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of death in this case was directly related to the 9/11 incident.” The autopsy said Zadroga died in January of respiratory failure caused by exposure to toxic dust.

    Howard, whose day job is overseeing the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, told The Associated Press in a recent interview the autopsy was “worrisome, and we need to look further in this case.”

    Doctors and government officials worry Zadroga's death may be a so-called sentinel case, an early harbinger of future deaths from such exposure.

    “You have a particular case with characteristics that are unusual,” Howard said.

    He cited Zadroga's relatively young age, 34, and diseased heart muscle. “Just based on that, you would say, gee, is this a sentinel case?” he said. “This may be a warning and requires attention and vigilance.”

    Howard said his primary goal is to find out how many ground zero workers are suffering ill effects.

    “The first issue is treatment. That is primary,” he said.

    Rep. Vito Fossella, R-N.Y., said he was pleased Howard is aggressively examining cases like the Zadroga death.

    “Clearly and sadly, Detective Zadroga and perhaps others will be the first of a wave of those who become the secondary victims of 9/11, though they didn't go down with the towers,” Fossella said.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  10. #30
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    Whitman, Bush both lied to U.S.

    http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs...10/1095/NEWS01

    5/9/2006

    To the Editor:

    Two very powerful images remain in my mind from the 9/11 tragedy and the start of the war in Iraq. Environmental Protection Agency Commissioner Christie Whitman's statement from Ground Zero that the air quality was not hazardous and President Bush's photo-op statement. "mission accomplished" from aboard an aircraft carrier.

    We now have dead and dying from the air quality at Ground Zero and the continuing war. Their lies are still alive, however.

    FRED KANTER
    Mountain Lakes
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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