New York Times article on health effects of Sept 11

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O o o c 3 Air Testing After Sept. 11 Is Both Perplexing and Reassuring o Z!

I Continued From Page Al acknowledged. Idling trucks were sure of the collapse, and those mist lined up near one of their air moni- particles then bonded with larger tors on Varick Street, waiting to haul pieces of concrete, creating billions known. debris from the site. Dr. Chillrud, of tiny hybrid fragments, each coat­ That was only the start of the meanwhile, has received a federal ed with a sheath created from the story. grant to compile a database that elements of destruction. Asbestos When a research scientist from might be called “the air before was pulverized into pieces so tiny Columbia University, Dr. Steven 9/11,” to ascertain as much as possi- that ordinary tests devised to track Chillrud, read the results from die ble what was -normal downtown so the fibers missed them. Davis research, he saw a pattern, that results like the Davis study and What those discoveries really too. The Davis team’s range of con- others can be put into context. mean, however, will be the subject of centrations for two pollutants, sulfur This has, of course, always been the next round of study. Larger parti- and nickel, looked remarkably simi- the way of science. Through fits and. cles of concrete have generally been . lar to findings from a study in 1999 starts, challenge and reassessment, considered an irritant to the lungs and 2000 in northern Manhattan. The it haltingly proceeds, at least in the- but not a grave threat A predomi- earlier study attributed those emis- ory, to some firmer truth. Still, many nance of super-tiny asbestos, some sions to heating oil and diesel com- researchers and physicians looking researchers say, may have in fact bustion. into the health effects of the trade been a partial blessing — larger fi- “The numbers they were getting center collapse say they often feel bers are the ones most directly were comparable to what I already that they are starting from scratch, linked to lung disease, according to had on my computer,” said Dr. Chill- Llke the power plant plume, they decades of medical research. Others . rud, who works at the university's say, every new fact reveals a dozen say that smaller fibers and hybrid- ' Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. more questions that the scientists iz^ dust particles are not sufficient- . . “That put out a warning flag.” had never thought to ask. ly understood. The research team at Davis, which Some compounds that were creat- “That’s what’s most striking to me is about to publish its findings in a ed in the fires of the trade center, for — that I can’t begin to answer these peer-reviewed paper, is now re-ana- instance, have never been seen in questions,” said Prof. Steven B. lyzing its numbers to distinguish die- nature or in the laboratory. Metals Markowitz, the director of the Center sei emissions from the compounds and glass from windows and comput- for the Biology of Natural Systems at and particles already identified. On ers and girders were turned into Queens College. “For all the thou­ some nights last October, they have mist by the intense heat and pres- sands of air quaUty samples, here we

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