ABC News article on firefighter health, Jan 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

1010 WINS http://101Owins.com/topstories/StoryFolder/story 1507984568_htnil...

Manley, who was at the trade center when the towers collapsed, also continues to be nagged by the so-called World Trade Center cough.

"In the mornings it's heavy," he said. "It feels like a powder on the back of your throat."

Apart from the cough, "you can't take a deep breath sometimes," he said. He said he has been helped by an inhaler and medication. Gribbon said many firefighters with persistent cough are on the job and improving with treatment.

Michael Barasch, the attorney who has filed the legal notices on behalf of firefighters, said one fireman who used to run marathons now finds he can't even carry his 3-year-old daughter up the stairs because of lung disease.

"We have guys who are waking up every morning with horrible coughs, spitting up blood," Barasch said.

The notices he has filed are intended to preserve the firefighters' right to sue the city later on, under the claim that the city failed to follow federal regulations and provide protective respirators soon after the attack, the attorney said. Besides the 700 firefighters, he said he has also filed on behalf of about 300 police officers, fire marshals and emergency medical technicians.

Researchers who are studying the health effects of Sept. 11 say the failure of many rescue workers to wear respirators is a major factor in their health. The firefighter on medical leave said he didn't wear one for the first few days because "there was none around."

Manley said that with so many off-duty firefighters and volunteers pouring in to help, there simply weren't enough to go around early on. Some used surgical masks, he said, but those can't keep all the potentially hazardous materials out of the lungs.

Gribbon said that even when respirators were available, some firefighters chose not to wear them. The equipment is uncomfortable, he said, and makes communication difficult.

Respirator use by workers at ground zero improved after the first few days but "could certainly be better," said Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, chair of the department of community and preventive medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

Noting that the trade center disaster is "bigger than anything we've seen before," Landrigan said nobody can predict completely what the long-term consequences will be for worker health.

Among the substances that escaped fi-om the 1.2 million tons of debris at ground zero are asbestos, benzene, dioxin, and polychlorinated biphenyls, known as PCBs. These are linked to cancer, although experts said in many cases the exposures were low enough that the risk appears to be small.

Private researchers who examined the interiors of apartments and offices near ground zero have found considerably higher levels of asbestos contamination than those reported by state and federal officials whose tests involved outdoor air samples, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in its Sunday editions.

The private tests found nine asbestos fibers for every one detected by the Environmental Protection Agency, said Cate Jenkins, a senior chemist in the EPA's hazardous waste division.

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