 | | | | | | | | | | |  |  | | | | Top Stories: Good news and fears in ground zero studies">Archive of stories pre April 2007 | | | | | | | 
Archive of stories pre April 2007 | News submitted by: MIB
By MATTHEW P. BLANCHARD -
GLENSIDE - Preliminary research into chemical exposure suffered by ground-zero recovery workers suggests they may have little to fear from certain heavy metals and dangerous chemical compounds, according to two studies presented at Arcadia University yesterday.
But researchers expressed fears about asbestos, a hard-to-detect carcinogen whose effects may not emerge for two decades.
The two studies, one by the Willow Grove research firm National Medical Services, encompassed more than 10,000 firefighters, ironworkers and Manhattan residents.
They provide some of the first results of a massive research effort into the consequences of working inside the billowing cloud of ash, fumes, smoke and pulverized building material that lingered over ground zero for weeks as workers dismantled what was called "the pile." Many had no access to breathing masks. Others let their masks dangle, useless, around their necks.
"Whatever was in that cloud, unfortunately, is now in their respiratory tract," said Elizabeth Wilk-Revard of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, which presented the second study.
Yesterday's symposium represented a small part of an unprecedented effort by environmental scientists. Pregnant women, immigrant cleanup workers and even search-and-rescue dogs are the subjects of separate health studies.
And despite the gravity of Sept. 11, the event was made buoyant by the excitement of a field confronting a new challenge.
"We've seen similar contamination in combat when building are blown up, or in earthquakes... but nothing really compares to two jumbo jets crashing into the twin towers and the whole thing collapsing into a heavily populated area," said Michael F. Rieders. "That's totally unprecedented."
His research team presented the good news.
Rieders, a forensic toxicologist for National Medical Services, studied blood and urine samples from 10,000 police officers, firefighters, ironworkers and other "first responders," looking for traces of PCBs and heavy metals vaporized in the burning of computers, electrical equipment, plastic office furniture and jet fuel.
These substances can cause cancer, liver damage, anemia and other ailments.
"The vast majority of people showed no evidence of over-exposure to what was in the air," Rieders said of his study, which was paid for by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A few workers did show elevated levels of cadmium, probably ingested while operating metal-cutting saws, he said.
More troubling findings came from Wilk-Revard's Mount Sinai Hospital team, which analyzed 500 firefighters, police officers, office workers and children, finding increased rates of asthma, breathing trouble, and nasal tissues irritated to an angry scarlet she called "incredible."
She illustrated ground-zero working conditions with slides of workers covered in thick black dust and without respirators.
"See this?" she said pointing to a snowdrift of gray powder. "That's asbestos."
Some of those asbestos fears may be allayed by a Centers for Disease Control study released June 17 that found no hazardous levels of asbestos during weeks 2, 3, and 4 of the cleanup, which officially ended May 30. But that study began Sept. 18, a week after much of the cloud had settled.
Sixty-four percent of the Mount Sinai patients reported what firefighters have come to call "WTC cough." Others had asthma attacks when subjected to cigarette smoke, cold air or other lung irritants.
Most symptoms lasted an average of five months, but Wilk-Revard said the lingering threat of lung cancer concerned her. Asbestos fibers lodged in lung tissue do not show up on X-rays, Wilk-Revard said, but can trigger cancer in 10 or 20 years.
Both research teams said they would continue to monitor workers for up to 25 years.
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/nation/3563366.htm
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