WTC Toxin Related Death Confirmed

[Guest guest]

Awhile ago someone asked about the affects of toxic material on the

workers at Ground Zero. This article reports on the autopsy of NYPD

Detective Zadroga. It reports that his autopsy proved that his

death was a direct result of his exposure to WTC toxins.

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http://www.newsinferno.com/archives/1075

Autopsy Confirms NYPD Detective Died As A Result of Rescue and

Recovery Work at Ground Zero

Date Published: Wednesday, April 12th, 2006

Much the same way the U.S. government denied the chemical defoliant

Agent Orange was the cause of widespread deaths and cancer among

military personnel returning from Viet Nam, the City of New York and

the New York City Police Department have repeatedly refused to

recognize that hundreds, if not thousands, of rescue and recovery

workers, who toiled at Ground Zero, are now seriously ill or dying

from the effects of exposure to the toxic cloud that hung over the

area for weeks following the terrorist attacks 9/11.

Any such admission by the City and the NYPD would have far reaching

effects since it would potentially force the re-classification of

disability pensions and death benefits due to the injured police

officers or their survivors.

It would also seriously affect the ongoing litigation against the

City and other defendants that focuses on the negligent handling of

the cleanup efforts that exposed thousands of city and private-sector

workers and volunteers to the toxic hazards that were produced when

the twin towers collapsed.

In an effort to demonstrate the causal connection between exposure to

those toxins and the growing number of deaths, cancers, and other

diseases, the Detectives' Endowment Association (DEA) called a news

conference to announce that the results of an autopsy done on Det.

Zadroga by the Ocean County, New Jersey, Medical Examiner.

That autopsy found that Det. Zadroga died as a direct result of

respiratory failure brought on by the exposure to toxic substances

and fine particles that he inhaled while working for some 470 hours

at Ground Zero.

Det. Zadroga's wife died of a stress-related heart attack only last

year. His death earlier this year left his daughter an orphan.

The DEA wants Det. Zadroga's death re-classified as having been in

the " line of duty " so that his daughter will be able to receive a

larger pension (100% instead of 75%) for at least seven additional years.

A number of other detectives appeared at the news conference. Each is

suffering from serious respiratory problems or cancers that have left

them totally disabled or terminally ill.

These NYPD officers are but a small number of the thousands of rescue

workers and other responders who are claiming that the toxic cloud of

airborne chemicals and solid particles that hung over the WTC site

for weeks has killed and permanently injured many of them.

Shortly after Det, Zadroga's death in January, the New York Daily

News reported that 22 other relatively young men may also have died

from respiratory-related illnesses caused or accelerated by their

exposure to the same toxic environment while aiding in the post-9/11 cleanup.

Like Zadroga, most of the 22 men were only in their 30s and 40s.

According to their families, they have died as a result of the deadly

mixture of chemicals they were exposed to as they searched for

survivors in the ruins of the World Trade Center or aided in the

clean-up efforts in the days and weeks following the terrorist attack.

While the attack was immediately responsible for killing almost 3,000

innocent victims who were in and around the WTC, it now appears 9/11

has had, and will continue to have, far reaching effects on possibly

thousands of other individuals who responded to the catastrophe that

day and in the weeks that followed as part of the massive rescue,

recovery, and cleanup efforts, without any regard to their own personal safety.

Many medical experts have already expressed serious concern that the

first responders, rescue and recovery workers, volunteers of all

kinds, and construction workers at the scene will inevitably suffer

significant, if not fatal, health consequences as a result of their

protracted exposure to all types of dust, debris, toxins, and other

dangerous substances that polluted the WTC disaster site for several

months following the collapse of the WTC buildings.

Among the additional 22 who have died are private employees, a

sanitation worker, a correction officer, a utility worker, transit

workers, firefighters, and police officers. Some, like Zadroga,

suffered from black lung disease, while others died from cancers of

the esophagus and pancreas.

Knecht, a Lucent Technologies employee, worked for two months

to re-establish communications at businesses near Ground Zero. At 35

he was diagnosed with lung cancer and died in March 2005, leaving

behind two girls, now ages 3 and 4.

His wife Cathleen Knecht, 38, of Berkeley Heights, N.J. said " He was

a nonsmoker and a swimmer. "

Knecht was one of many who have claimed to have been sickened with

debilitating and potentially deadly ailments related to their

presence at the WTC site. Thousands are sick and suffering from

respiratory illnesses. Nearly 400 firefighters and paramedics have

left the job because of career-ending illnesses that followed their

work at Ground Zero.

Worry, the attorney for approximately 7,300 Ground Zero workers

says that rescue and clean-up workers were not properly protected for

the dangerous job they had to perform. " This was a toxic waste site.

People should have been walking around in moon suits. "

He anticipates there will be many more deaths and illnesses from

worker's exposure to deadly waste at Ground Zero. It is estimated

that as many as 40,000 people worked at the site in the months after 9/11.

Worry's firm has filed a class-action lawsuit, which is pending in

United States District Court in Manhattan. The suit alleges that

government officials and construction contractors negligently exposed

workers to dangerous levels of toxins at the cleanup site.

Presently, attorneys for the City of New York deny any direct medical

link between exposure to debris and the respiratory illnesses and

cancers. Doctors treating Ground Zero workers are also skeptical

because cancers resulting from toxic exposure can take up to 15 to 20

years to develop.

They are disturbed, however, by the substantial number of young

people who have died or become ill following similar exposure to the

same environmental conditions.

" It's still too early to say if WTC responders are at increased risk

for cancer, " said Dr. Robin Herbert, director of the World Trade

Center Health Effects Treatment Program at Mount Sinai School of

Medicine. " But we remain very concerned. "

Another death involved Bob Shore, a city correction officer, who

worked at the makeshift morgue at Ground Zero for at least two weeks,

wearing only a paper mask. At the end of his first day handling body

parts, Shore climbed into the shower fully dressed and cried for two hours.

Shore, a 53-year-old father of two died last August from pancreatic

cancer. His doctor attributes his disease, which caused the once

300-pound bodybuilder to waste away to 110 pounds and to have his

gallbladder, spleen and pancreas removed, to his work at Ground Zero.

Shore's widow, like many families of 9/11 recovery and rescue

workers, says she now faces the impossibility of paying the medical

bills, as much $200,000 for all her husband's treatments.

Nevertheless, Shore remembers her husband's selfless

contribution to the recovery efforts: " He never regretted doing it, "

she said " He was my hero, the city's hero. "

Among the 7,300 plaintiffs in the class-action are several cancer

cases including at least eleven for what is normally a rare, and

often deadly, form of brain cancer. Three of the victims have already

died and many of the others are seriously ill or dying. In all, 41

deaths are now alleged to have been caused by toxic exposure.

The police union and the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the

class-action have pointed to police officers, firemen, a Red Cross

worker, an EMS technician, an EPA employee, a construction worker,

and other responders as examples of what appears to be an alarming

(and growing) number of brain cancer victims.

Regardless of whether some degree of liability is found on the part

of the City of New York or any governmental agency, there seems to be

little doubt that the number of victims of 9/11 will continue to

climb for years or decades to come and that the full extent of the

injuries and deaths caused to those who lived, worked, responded to,

or were born near Ground Zero may never be known. The Zadroga autopsy

may have supplied the first hard evidence of the connection.