News article on WTC health risks uncertainty, Oct 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document The Groups: ol parents, at several lower Manhattan schools hires consultants and lawyers, who pushed the Board of Education to expand environmental tests. Despite EPA assurances, rests in Nevember outside Stuyvesant High Schoolfound asbestos well above Tederal standards. In memos that leaked out, an who i sidlit EPA chemist crucized the agen ey for applying less standards to the Trade • area than to asbestos-probiems elsewhere. "The cleanup around Ground Tero was uncoordinated and man, an industrial hygienist fors the New York Committee foi Oc9 cupational Safety and Health HP Environmental; a Reston; Vaibased company, determined: that the chrysotile asbestos fi, bers in the dust were more likely to be small — meaning they might more easily work their way into the lungs, even though larger tibers are generally. cas- sidered inore dangerous. HP also found that the materi- al that once beld the asbestos to gether had been so pulverized that the fibers became easily air- borne when disturbed. HP scientist Hugh Granger suspects that in the days after the attacks, EPA scientists were silenced by political conceros. The people at EPA are 10 tiraes brighter than I am," said Granger "I think some people who really know the answers to al this are nEаHUECOу! un; a pul monary specialist and director of intensive care at NYU Down- towm Hospitai, said he has seen 160 WTC cough" patients at his -Tribeca office, many with no his- tory of respiratory problems. He in the the coidition on irritants singlé, with lumg onoblemis got worse," Suku- marA in said"Fortunately, all the peoPifA undergoing treatment •атеже provne AgAi, gealth experts are crifi- calrot, eariy assurances by the DPA that dust from concrete and nberglass insuiațion was withit acceptable safety standards sim- ply because particles were small NYUs Thurston said it was. the larger particles that proved must irntating. "People got the signal frone te bpatandothers that the ley. els of tine particles were not a sigmificant, threat," hé said. NYC-WTC_000141798 ASBESTOS AT GROUND ZERO USE A fre-resistant fbrous min- RISK$ Breathing high levels of eral, asbestos was used in parts asbestos fibers for long perlods of the World Trade:Center to - usually years- may result in insulate steel structural beams asbestosis, a scarring of lung before it was banned in 1971 tissue that can lead to cancer. during construction of the twin towers. TYPES Like 90% of asbestos contained in U.S. buildings, nearly all the substance found at the disaster site was chrysotile - among the least harmful of the six types of asbestos. The most danger. ous are amosite and crocidolite asbestos. LIMITS The Environmental Protection Agency sets a safety limit for asbestos at" 70-fibers, or clumps of fibers, per square millimeter of indoór or outdoor air. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration workplace standard is.1 fiber per.cubic centimeter. of air over an eight-hour period. 165 ...i.. 160 Пвотs/80р, пета. 132 Moasurements of outdoor alrbomne asbastos found at West Broadway and Barclay St., one block north of the World Trade Conter. EPA safeiy limit: 70 fibers / Sept. 14 "Meanwhite,. theyre having syraptoms: Those two things didnit adçt up." The big question A huge unknown remains: the long term effects of brief,but in- tense exposure to a toxic cock- tail of. PCBs, dioxin, benzene and other known carcinogers. Could they have combined to cause. assault on the body Pbefare?. notmextensive re- search on the question said Pa- taca Clact regional admmnistra- tor of the Occupationa! Safety and Health Adinmistration. She said OSHA plugged sampie num- bers from the site into formulas that ain to predict the "additive •effect" of multiple toxins, but +fourd nothing of concera And whạt about pregnast women and unbora babies, older people and. those with weakened inmune systeras? **That's where there Sagoan lesge real SBIC Frederica Perëra, who is hend- ing a study at Cohmabia's Center for Children's Environsaenital Health of pregnant women who were in the area. "If all these' chemicals that were found before didnt go up in the air, they had to go down, said Joel Kupferman; director of the New York Environmenta Lawand Justice Project We be lieve that they're sitting there in pools of water below surface." In the meantime, many scien tists believe the relative risk to most who live and work in the. area should be kept in persper- tive. "J've heard people who. were covered with dust are living in fear of lung cancer, and it's abso lutely ridiculous.to be that. con- cerned," Santella said: "Bat, of .course you cant prove that peo ole arers gowg to get sics That'sitbe other probiemn. Yoi can't prove a negative." page20f2