Doctors Monitoring 16,000 WTC Volunteers Fear Major Health Crisis Looming

[hatrack]

EDIT

Shaw was one of 40,000 people who helped with the cleanup and investigation of the attack. For three months, the 51-year-old sorted through the rubble from the World Trade Center at a landfill on nearby Staten Island. "We would have to sift through it for any kind of identification of any kind of human remains," she says. "For the purpose of doing DNA — no matter how small it is." Even though she was not actually at ground zero, her work exposed her to the same toxic stew: building dust mixed with jet fuel and human remains.

Now she suffers from a long list of ailments: asthma, reflux, lesions in her vocal chords, muscle inflammation, and the most severe: pulmonary fibrosis. "It's a scarring they said of the lungs. They said I have 50 percent capacity," she says.

Daniel Arrigo was at ground zero. A construction worker who's also 51, he's lost 44 percent of his lung capacity. "Hopefully, there'll be something for me when I get to the point that I can't work," he says. Arrigo and others hold federal officials responsible for their illnesses, because they assured the public that the air at ground zero was not dangerous. "We have not seen any reason — any readings that have indicated any health hazard," said then Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman at a press conference soon after 9/11.

"They threw us all a curve ball," says Arrigo. "And I think as a result of them not being up front with everybody that was down there, they damn well should step up to the plate." The ground zero workers want help meeting soaring medical bills and more disability coverage. That could be costly. Doctors who've been monitoring 16,000 of the 40,000 who responded in the days after 9/11 fear a major health crisis is looming. "We're looking potentially at an iceberg and we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg right now unfortunately," says Dr. Robin Herbert of Mount Sinai Medical Center.

EDIT

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/03/eveningnews/main1963900.shtml

[Crazy Dave]

1. My cousin who was working across the street...

....now has severe respiratory problems and believes she's not going to be around much longer. She's only 45 and just became a grandmother. She used to go jogging she told me (she's moved to Florida) but can't even walk a half mile outdoors now.

[momzno1]

3. has she tried chelation treatments?

I can't remember where I heard that this process can leach a lot of the poisons, and toxins out of the bodies of those exposed at the WTC

[Crazy Dave]

4. I'm not sure what treatment she's on now....

...but for over two years her condition got worse as her doctors incorrectly diagnosed her for other respiratory problems and only gave her antibiotics. Once they discovered one wasn't working they just prescribed a different one, then a different one, then a different one, etc., etc. They never even took chest x-rays until she almost did die and it was then that a different doctor decided to investigate further instead of just prescribing something different and see if it works as the others had previously done. Her lungs are now so permanently scarred and damaged because the correct treatment was delayed and was not applied for over two years.

[peacebird]

2. and what of the families who live nearby and were told it was safe?

What of the folks who vacuumed the dust out of the furniture and curtains and went back to "life as usual"? Everyone in the govt SAID it was safe - what about the mercury vaporized from thermostats? The asbestos dust? This will affect all who lived near the towers and who remained in NYC.

"Thanks" Christy Todd Whitmann - you whitehouse whore. May this one rest heavy on your heart every waking moment for the rest of your life. And may it dog your dreams as well.

[ramapo]

5. She was a whore for the Bush admin....

Whitman was bad as NJ gov but she really sold her soul to go to work for the Bushies. She epitomized the gutless, lap dog. Even after she "resigned", she didn't have the guts to really criticize the Bush admin. Of course, her part in 9/11 is unforgivable.

I don't see how anybody can be surprised at the major health problems that we see developing. Common sense tells you that breathing in fine dust and smoke for weeks at a time is a surefire way to clog up your lungs.

[bananas]

8. Now she's a whore for the nuclear power industry (and Hill & Knowlton)

The PR firm Hill & Knowlton is "working behind the scenes".
(see http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html for info on them,
they gave us the fake "babies torn from incubators" story to sell Gulf War I).


http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news/114578149582040.xml&coll=2

Nuclear industry sets up coalition to be advocate
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Stephen Koff
Plain Dealer Bureau Chief

<snip>

The industry's lobbying group, the Nuclear Energy Institute, did not back away from its connection when asked.

"It is an NEI-backed initiative," said Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the lobby. "As the industry advances toward a new era of nuclear power plant construction, we're looking to take support to a new level, and to do that as broadly as we can do."

<snip>

Funding will come entirely from NEI, he said, and Whitman and Moore will be paid.

<snip>

The public relations firm Hill and Knowlton, working behind the scenes on the coalition and its launch, said more information, including interviews with leaders, would be available on Monday. Separately, Moore's office said he was traveling and would not be available until Monday.

<snip>

[Xithras]

6. Anyone who's worked concrete knew they were lying.

Most of the white ashy powder you saw everywhere on 9/11 was pulverized concrete dust. While the exact ratio varies by type, a substantial portion of concrete mix is actually lime (the stone, not the fruit). Lime removes the water from flesh, killing it...every time they breathed the dust in, it killed more lung cells.

On top of that, concrete has an interesting ability. If you take a block of concrete, grind it to dust, and get it wet again, it will reform into a weak form of concrete (much softer than the original, but still hard). As these people were breathing this dust, it was collecting in their lungs. As it did that, it got wet. Once it got wet, you can imagine what it formed inside of them.

I can understand the neccessity of rushing so many people to the scene during the first day, but after that? There was no excuse for those involved in the cleanup not to have been issued proper respirators. I remember watching the cleanup on TV and noticing that most of the workers were wearing cheap air filters that could be picked up for a buck at WalMart. I knew then that those weren't going to protect the workers.

[mikita]

7. do ya think...

do you just think that MAYBE some of the sleepy American people who think our trusty government who would never "kill our own people" just MIGHT have done that again here??? Do ya think??

What will it take to wake folks up? The dots are so connectable, it's a Rorschach.

[skids]

9. There are some people...

...who will never, ever allow themselves to step through the looking glass into the world where chemicals do not have to be weaponised in order to kill you. Their minds just cannot take it.

[ramapo]

10. Look at the Bushies rush to help

Do you think amid his 9/11 propaganda trip that he'll slip in a 9/11 workers' benefit bill?