Guest guest Posted June 14, 2006 Report Share Posted June 14, 2006 *4.* *NEW YORK POST: CANCER HITS 283 RESCUERS OF 9/11* http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/cancer_hits_283_rescuers_of_9_11_regiona\ lnews_susan_edelman.htm /susan.edelman@... <mailto:susan.edelman@...> NYPOST/ /June 11, 2006/ -- Since 9/11, 283 World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers have been diagnosed with cancer, and 33 of them have died of cancer, says a lawyer for the ailing responders Worby, a lawyer for 8,000 World Trade Center responders, including cops, firefighters and construction workers, said the cases include blood-cell cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's and myeloma. Doctors say the cancers can strike three to five years after exposure to toxins such as benzene, a cancer-causing chemical that permeated the WTC site from burning jet fuel. " One in 150,000 white males under 40 would normally get the type of acute white blood-cell cancer that strikes a healthy detective, " said Worby, whose first client was NYPD narcotics cop Walcott, now 41. Walcott spent months at Ground Zero and the Fresh Kills landfill. The father of three is fighting leukemia. " We have nearly 35 of these cancers in the family of 50,000 Ground Zero workers. The odds of that occurring are one in hundreds of millions, " Worby said. Others suffer tumors of the tongue, throat, testicles, breast, bladder, kidney, colon, intestines, and lung, said Worby, of Worby, Groner, Edelman, & Napoli, Bern, which filed the class-action suit. WTC workers who have died of cancer include paramedic Deborah Reeve, 41 (mesothelioma); NYPD Officer Weintraub, 43 (bile-duct cancer); and " Rak " Yurek, 46, a Port Authority emergency technician (brain cancer). The families say they were healthy before 9/11. Dr. Robin Herbert, a director of WTC medical monitoring at Mount Sinai Hospital, said some of the nearly 16,000 responders screened to date are getting cancer. " We do not know at this point if they are WTC-related, but some are unusual cancers we see as red flags, " Herbert said. Dr. Iris Udasin, principal investigator for the Mount Sinai screening of 500 in New Jersey, said the 9/11 link is " certainly a possibility, " she said. " It's what we worry about, and what we fear. " // Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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