New York Times article on health effects of Sept 11

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document Ale Air Testing After Sept..11 Attack: Is Both Perplexing and Reassuring NYC-WTC_000143152 By KIRK JOHNSON The. ground-level atmosphere of Lower Manhattan has become one of the most intensely studied and sam- pled environments on the planet. Air monitors have been hung from trees and strapped to the belts of truck drivers. At least 11,000 people who worked at ground zero have. had chest X-rays. Thousands more have been. interviewed by researchers. What has‘ been learned, scientists’ _ say; Will Ha¥é @ far-reaching effect on- urban disasters in the future. Whether the Sept. 11 attack contin- ' yes,to have seridus repercussions on ’ the éfivironment and public health, though, temains an open question as the cleanup of the World Trade Cen- ter site.nears completion. . Mahy. scientists and physicians _ say the at¢uroulated evidence so far suggests a glancing blow: thousands of people developed coughs from the firés and dust, or were nauseated by the smells, Hut, most have fully rev covered, The exposures, eveh to things like asbestos, those experts say, weré ‘ted short to cause wide- spread cancer or other lung diseasés. Ona scale of 1 ta 20, if a 10 is an event like thé poisons gas release in , India, that killed thousanids in 1984, anything over 5 leaves permanent health consequences, aiid al has no effect at all, then the trade center attack appears to have been a 3 or a 4, according to an informal survey by The New York Times of scientists, doctors and researchers involved in the health assessments. Others say it is too soon to tell. . What they agrée on is that he many’ scientific and medical investi- gations into the effects of Sept. 11 a revealing an linforeseen complexity -~ in the nature and.consequences of the disasten, as well’ ag ii the under- lying environment in a part of } York that they say has never regily re yhem investigators fromthe fink versity pf calierniay at. Davis ere studying the smoke near ground Zero in October, for. example, they were Surprised to find that other pollution ‘Was getting in the wa}. One distineyive pattern that kept slowing up was later tracked, by aaa analysis to an oil-burning lectricity plant on Staten Island. The plant’s distinctive fihgerprint of . hydrecarbon parti¢les onereed like |: a ghost in the data, the researchers said, unbidden and, until then, un- Continued on Page B4 — — == I-34