Zac’s Rocky Mountain High
By Bersch, Carren
“I knew he wasn’t real pilot material – he had actually studied his manuals and didn’t talk about girls,” said Right Instructor Clancy Prevost about Zacarias Moussaoui. Conspiring to kill Americans in 9/11′s terrorist events won him a life sentence at the Florence, CO, federal supermax prison, a vantage point from which he can watch his evil plans continue to come to fruition. How so? Within the last few months, another name – Felicia Dunn- Jones – was added to the list of “official” WTC victims of 9/11, bringing the toll to 2,750. Dunn-Jones, a 42-year-old civil rights attorney, fled her office a block away from the collapsing towers and died of lung disease months after the attack. David Reeve would like his late wife, Deborah, recognized as an attack victim; she died last year of asbestos-related cancer after working for months around Ground Zero and at its morgue. A police union leader says first responders – like 34-year-old James Zadroga, a police detective who died of respiratory disease after working at die WTC clean-up site – should be added to the list. A medical examiner ruled Zadroga’ s 2006 death “directly related” to his exposure to Ground Zero dust.
Other fallen first responders include a hospice volunteer, a communications worker (age 41), and an NYPD detective (age 46, pancreatic and lung cancer). Two more NYPD officers died – one from lung disease after working WTC traffic and security posts 12 hours a day, and the other from kidney cancer at age 46 after only two months on site. In November of last year, the Village Voice reported that, up to that time, 75 Ground Zero recovery workers had been diagnosed with blood-cell cancers that a half-dozen top doctors and epidemiologists have confirmed as likely having been caused by their exposure. Attorney David Worby represents 10,000 plaintiffs in a lawsuit accusing the city of negligence for failing to protect workers and residents from toxic air at the site. At least five of his clients recently died of sarcoidosis, the same disease that killed Dunn- Jones. Recent figures say the rate of this disease in that area is five times higher than before 9/11.
Sarcoidosis (i.e., Besnier-Boeck disease, an immune-system disorder) usually starts in the lungs or chest-cavity lymph nodes. No direct cause has been identified, although reports exist of cell- wall-deficient bacteria that may be possible pathogens. Research has not yet confirmed any hereditary factor. Since its identification in the 1860s, no way to prevent sarcoidosis has been discovered. The disease inflammation produces microscopic lumps of cells, which collect together in body organs and can eventually cause symptoms. In serious cases, the disease can result in death; in others, symptoms never surface.
To me, it would not be surprising to learn that scores of people present for any length of time adjacent to or in the area of the collapsed towers on and after 9/11 have since been randomly marked for sarcoidosis and/or other diseases from breathing the WTCs toxic dust. Tests in that locale over time have shown that street dust varies in composition from block to block and from day to day.
In this 99-day-long commercial building fire – the longest in U.S. history – tons of furnishings, carpets, and computers from some 430 WTC businesses smoldered at Ground Zero. In me 220 collapsed towers’ floors were 600,000 square feet of pulverized glass, 425,000 cubic yards of concrete, 200,000 tons of steel, and – at 60,000 tons – the world’s largest refrigeration plant. Also in this enormous toxic mix were some 2,500 contaminants: asbestos, fiberglass, drywall dust, and vinyl-coated wiring, along with hydraulic oil and many other fuels and combustion product chemicals involving polyvinyl chloride, PCBs, dioxins, and other polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, as well as lead, copper, iron oxide, and cadmium.
Disputes about deaths caused by inhalation of twin-towers’ dust subsequent to the 9/11 attack likely will be waged for years. Tracking workers, students, residents, and first responders in that vicinity over time may prove (or disprove) die belief that the poison WTC dust is the culprit. Either way, people exposed to Ground Zero continue to suffer.
As we prepare next month to again recall the horror of 9/11 and mourn the ongoing carnage, Prisoner Moussaoui – hearing this news – breathes deeply of the fresh mountain air and smiles.
Carren Bersch
cbersch@nelsonpub.com
Copyright Nelson Publishing Aug 2007
(c) 2007 Medical Laboratory Observer; MLO. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.