Breathing problems (from exploded asbestos dust?) persist in September 11 rescuers

[happy_liberal]

Breathing problems among New York Fire Department employees, caused by dust, smoke and other toxic chemicals, became apparent one year after the twin towers collapsed. Their lung capacity typically diminished as if they had aged 12 years.

Doctors had hoped their lungs would gradually rebound, as they often do from routine smoke exposure.

But over the next six years, their lungs continued to worsen, Dr. David Prezant of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

Firefighters who had never smoked tobacco lost about 25 milliliters of lung volume annually, as measured by the amount of air they could rapidly blow out in one second. Emergency medical services personnel lost about 40 milliliters, Prezant and colleagues reported in the New England Journal of Medicine...


"This was different from a regular fire in that it included not just the combustion byproducts you would see in a normal house fire, but the combustion byproducts of thousands and thousands of gallons of jet fuel from the two planes that collided, and the incredibly dense nature of the exposure to particulate matter that you don't see in a fire," Prezant said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6365V420100408

[Canuckistanian]

1. Deadliest Shirt in the World - a DU repost

DEADLIEST SHIRT IN THE WORLD
9/11 survivor's toxic clothing sparks cancer fear

THIS deadly 9/11 shirt contains so much asbestos it is feared thousands of the disaster's survivors could be hit with cancer.

The garment worn by survivor Yehuda Kaploun, 39, has 93,000 times higher levels of asbestos than normal - 47 TIMES the safety limit.

It is also saturated with toxic zinc, mercury, antimony, barium, chromium, cobalt, copper, lead and molybdenum.

More than a million tonnes of dust containing chemicals and 400,000 tonnes of asbestos choked the skies after New York's World Trade Center was hit by two hijacked planes.

Now there are fears that Yehuda's shirt is grim evidence that rescuers and survivors could face lethal health problems in decades to come.

Yehuda, who spent two days battling to save lives at Ground Zero, said: "I saw thousands of people covered in the dust. We were told there was no danger. Obviously, this isn't the case.

"It goes to show how wrong these people were who we trusted.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x987124

Note: The original Daily mirror link no longer works. Only the DU post survives.

[lovuian]

3. Dust to Dust

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B2WBD-F-7I

I knew this was coming
the NYC people were so lied to by Guiliani and others of the EPA
the Deaths of 911 are going to skyrocket

[NotThisTime]

6. They already have, they just aren't reported. We've already lost many 911 responders who at the time

were not even being paid for being sick... at least the City now accepts some culpability... Five years ago it was a different story for these people afflicted.... it's horrendously sad and could have been avoided....

[midnight]

2. K&R

[madrchsod]

4. just the fumes of burning or smoldering electrical wires...

will knock you on your ass.we had a habit of throwing stuff in our scrap tub full of hot steel flashings. oil, grease,and wood were just for kicks but when someone threw in a bunch of wire it almost made us pass out..

god only knows the chemical mixtures were created in that fire and the smoldering remains of the building. those people deserve everything they deserve and unfortunately they would`t get it.

[Jamastiene]

5. K&R

OMG, the horror they must be going through. :(