'World Trade Center Cough' a growing concern

[blazinjason]

(New York- WABC, January 11, 2006) - There is more evidence that the number of people sick with 9/11 related illnesses is growing dramatically.

So much so - there's a name for it -- "the World Trade Center cough" . And there is a waiting list for victims seeking medical help.

It's similar to what may have killed NYPD Officer James Zadroga who spent hundreds of hours at ground zero. His funeral was yesterday.

The Investigators Jim Hoffer has the story.


It is a warning sign of what's to come: more and more people seeking help for deteriorating lung problems and chronic coughs linked to their work at ground zero.

The numbers appear to be growing and the long term diagnosis is not good.

Dr. Robin Herbert: "There is a certain core group of people who have become very ill as result of their World Trade Center exposure and aren't getting any better."

That core group, according to the co-director of Mt. Sinai's World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program, is estimated to be in the hundreds and growing.

Dr. Herbert, Mt. Sinai Hospital: "We have a three to four month waiting period for new patients to come into our treatment program because the demand is so tremendous."

more...

[adolfo]

1. Fallout

For many it is a death sentence. Does anyone know if there was a required asbestos cleanup prior to 9/11? I read somewhere that it was long overdue and an expensive process.


Measuring Post-9/11 Health Fallout

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/10/september11/main642687.shtml

[rman]

2. wtc had (has) millions of pending asbestos liabilities

http://www.mesotoday.com/mesothelioma_news.html#1
http://www.dow.com/financial/reports/02q4earn.htm


http://www.asbestos.org/news/wtc_02_newfinding.html
When the World Trade Center went down, the EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration rushed teams to the site. They have gathered thousands of samples of the dust that blanketed lower Manhattan, but they used 20-year-old methods for collecting and counting asbestos fibers to assess the health risks. The agencies and their state counterparts said only low levels of asbestos were found in the air outside.

"The public faces little or no danger from asbestos," numerous agency heads echoed.

Civilian scientists and physicians hired by unions, tenant groups, contractors and New York political leaders found just the opposite. Taking hundreds of samples, many inside apartments, offices and condos, these experts used the newest electron microscope technology and fiber-counting protocols. They found far more asbestos fibers than did government investigators. These private experts -- all regularly used by the government as consultants -- found levels in the dwellings that alarmed many assessing the health risk faced by New Yorkers.