75 Ground Zero Workers To Date Confirmed With Blood Cell Cancers Likely Linked To Dust

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To date, 75 recovery workers on or around what is now known as "the Pile"—the rubble that remained after the World Trade Center towers collapsed on the morning of September 11, 2001—have been diagnosed with blood cell cancers that a half-dozen top doctors and epidemiologists have confirmed as having been likely caused by that exposure. Those 75 cases have come to light in joint-action lawsuits filed against New York City on behalf of at least 8,500 recovery workers who suffer from various forms of lung illnesses and respiratory diseases—and suggest a pattern too distinct to ignore. While some cancers take years, if not decades, to develop, the blood cancers in otherwise healthy and young individuals represent a pattern that experts believe will likely prove to be more than circumstantial. The suits seek to prove that these 8,500 workers—approximately 20 percent of the total estimated recovery force that cleared the rubble from ground zero—all suffer from the debilitating effects of those events.

The basis for the suits stems from the plaintiffs' argument that the government—in a desperate attempt to revive downtown in the wake of the catastrophic events on 9-11—failed to protect workers from cancer-causing benzene, dioxin, and other hazardous chemicals that permeated the air for months. Officials made these failures worse by falsely reassuring New Yorkers that they faced no long-term dangers from exposure to the air lingering over ground zero.

"We are very encouraged that the results from our monitoring of air-quality and drinking-water conditions in both New York and near the Pentagon show that the public in these areas is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances," Christine Todd Whitman, the then administrator of the EPA, told the citizens of New York City in a press release on September 18—only seven days after the attacks. "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York . . . that their air is safe to breathe and the water is safe to drink."

Those statements were not only false and misleading, but may even play into the basis for the city's liability for millions of dollars in the recovery workers' lawsuits. Last February, U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts cited Whitman's false statements as the basis for allowing a different class-action lawsuit to proceed—this one, against the EPA and Whitman, is on behalf of residents, office workers, and students from Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, many of whom suffer from respiratory illnesses as a result of 9-11.

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http://villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html

I had a friend who went down to Ground Zero to volunteer - wonder how he and other volunteers are?

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nywhit0908,0,1959307.story?coll=ny-top-headlines




Yet another reason Rudy doesn't have a chance in 08

... white gritty stuff was still swirling around in the air.

It got all over the car and on my clothes, and it wouldn't just dissolve
when you brushed it off.

It was truly weird.

Bush, Cheney, Guiliani, Christine Todd Whitman (the bitch from hell, so nasty even Mother Nature hates her!)

All of them allowed innocent men and women to risk their own personal health. They were lied to. They must pay for their actions. How many more people will die because of this irresponsible man in the White House?

knew that it was not safe unfortunately the rest of the people around the area did not and they were not warned.my wish is that the people who were responsible for not protecting the workers and the rest of the people of new york pay the price for their lies

It's easy to track the emergency workers but I wonder what the rise in health problems are for people who live and work there?

Clearly not enough was done to protect the FDNY and other workers on the Pile. But what effect may be found in the general public in the "Public" areas in the areas around Ground Zero is another story.