New York Times article on health effects of Sept 11

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

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are eight naonths out and there’s such limited health data.” In some cases, the difficulty of re­ search is not the science, but the wrinkles of human behavior. Earlier this year, for example. Dr. Markowitz and his team examined 415 laborers who worked cleaning the Interiors of buildings near ground zero. and he said that part of the problem in assessing their long­ term health outlook was that unlike the workers clearing the twin towers debris, they were rarely given respi­ rators to protect their lungs. In some instances. Dr. Markowitz said, the workers told him their employers directly discouraged them from wearing respirators, even if they al­ ready bed them. EastRiver ' “They were told it might scare the Other workers,” Dr. Markowitz said. “These .workers were looking down on ground zero, seeing people wear­ ing respirators, and they’re working ’ -i-i I indoors in a confined space, and they don’t have them. There’s no excuse for that” Environmental Many health experts say the fed­ eral Environmental Protection Monitoring Sites Agency’s announcement last week Since Sept. 11. the U.S. that it would lead a program to clean Environmental Protection Agency has up and test 15,000 or more residential • Air sampling site used dozens of monitoring stations to apartments south of Canal Street gauge levels of dust, water and air ywill also create a broad new base of A Dust sampling site pollution in Lower Manhattan and to knowledge about downtown. Some of ■ Water sampling site look for pollutants such as asbestos, the experts are already saying, true Source: Environmental Protection Agency lead and byproducts from combustion. to the form of the disaster’s after­ math, that entirely new lines of sci­ Ite New York Ttees entific inquiry will probably be opened a$ a result. other researdiers and public ofli- search program he is directing, fl- Because the government has no cials say the flood of downtown re- nanced by the federal Centers for established standards for the search will result in a health portrait Disease Control and Prevention and amount of asbestos allowable in resl- of New York City that goes far be- the city’s Department of Health, a dential air, many researchers 'are yond assessing the effects of Sept 11. team of six interviewers, including not sure what the government’s tests Especially in places like Chinatown, four who are fluent in the major will reveaL figures about asthma and other dialects of Chinatown, have begun Some investigators, like Dr. Mar­ jorie j. Clarke, a scientist in resi­ chronic illnesses were almost non- fanning out to reach the parents of dence at Lehman College in the existent, researchers say. 2,000 children in preschool and day Bronx who has persistently criti­ “We realized that there was no care centers south of 14th Street cized the environmental agency base line — if you wanted to see what So far, he said, the response has since Sept. 11, said she also plaimed the consequences of the attack were, been better than he had hoped, but to press the agency to conduct a there was a serious data gap,” said the research is definitely made more broader array of testing for things Dr. Sebastian Bonner, an investiga- difficult by the fact that his inter­ like dioxins and heavy metals in ad­ ior at the Center for Urban Epidemi- viewers are working in a somewhat dition to asbestos. ologic Studies at the New York Acad- crowded field. “I have a whole raft of questions emy of Medicine. “These parents are being sur- for them,” she said. Dr. Bonner said that under a re- veyed to death,’’ he said.

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