Cancer – Workers

As of December 2006, 400 (1%) out of a total of 40,000 Ground Zero rescue and clean-up workers have been diagnosed with cancer. [REF=http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=5645]

The cancer-profile of WTC workers mimics the profile of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing victims [REF], nuclear power plant workers [REF], and Chernobyl workers [REF].

WTC workers are being struck down with blood cell cancers (leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma) in epidemic proportions. They are suffering from rare and strange disorders.

Leukemia cells

They are also developing solid tumors such as brain cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, thyroid cancer in alarming numbers.

The spike in cancers is a red flag that the WTC area was nuked. Even people who merely lived in the area or were in the area at the time of the 9/11 collapse are coming down with cancers.

“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.” [REF=http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=5645]

Acute white blood-cell cancers are rare in males under age 40 under normal circumstances. However when people are exposed to radioactive fallout such as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, these blood cell cancers are seen more often in a younger age group. [REF]

The survivors have suffered physically from cataracts, leukemia and other cancers, malformed offspring, and premature aging, and also emotionally, from social discrimination. Within a few months of the nuclear explosions, leukemia began to appear among the survivors at an abnormally high rate. Some leukemia victims were fetuses within their mothers’ wombs when exposed to radiation. One child who was born two days after the Hiroshima explosion eventually died of acute leukemia at the age of eighteen. The number of leukemia cases has declined with time, but the incidence of lung cancer, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, and cancers of other organs has increased among the survivors. [REF=http://library.thinkquest.org/3471/radiation_effects_body.html]

Leukemia is a cancer that is called the sentinel-disease for radiation exposure as it is one the first cancers to appear in such groups [REF] and the difference in rates between irradiated and non-irradiated is large. [REF]

“One in 150,000 white males under 40 would normally get the type of acute white blood-cell cancer” [REF=http://firechief.com/news/cancers06162006/]

But after 9/11, we have 75 workers out of a population of 50,000 rescue and cleanup workers with this type of cancer. This is equal to 245 people out of 150,000 getting blood cell cancer.
A cancer cluster has been identified among those who worked at the WTC site.

“Residents of southern Manhattan and rescue and clean-up workers involved in the recovery operations at the site of the former World Trade Center are experiencing an unusually high rate of non-Hodgkin lymphoma — a cancer that is common among individuals who have been exposed to extremely high levels of ionizing radiation, such as that from nuclear blasts and major nuclear reactor leaks.” [REF=http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2006/09/8763.php]

Dozens of WTC Ground Zero workers have brain cancer, a cancer associated with exposure to radiation. Out of a group of 7300 sick workers and family members who are suing the city, 41 have died as of 2006. [REF=http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=58487]

The cancer profile of the first responders is the same as the cancer profile of the victims of the Hiroshima bombing:

‘Ozonoff echoes all five of his colleagues when he draws parallels between the aftermath of 9-11 and that of another massive exposure: the atomic-bombs dropped on Japan. Bomb survivors experienced excessive spikes in leukemia rates within the first five years ….. For bomb survivors, leukemia appeared first, followed by breast and lung cancer. “That could happen with 9-11,” says [Jonathan] Samet, the Johns Hopkins epidemiology department chair. “It might be what we’re seeing today.”‘ [REF=http://www.nyctv.com/ny_emergency_workers_dying_of_cancer.htm]

‘Female responders also say they have suffered health problems including irregular periods and breast cancer that may be related to the attacks.” [REF=http://www.nyctv.com/ny_emergency_workers_dying_of_cancer.htm]

Infertility and breast cancer are known risks of extremely high radiation exposure. [REF=http://www.answers.com/radiation%20poisoning]

Seventy percent of workers screened are suffering from respiratory illnesses. This is a very high proportion of workers. There could be as high a number of civilians who are suffering the same but haven’t been reported on. Once radioactive fallout dust is inhaled it tracks to the lungs irradiating tissue along the way. Once in the lungs the radioactive particles emit radiation causing radiation pneumonitis and fibrosis.

“A newly released report showed that 7 out of 10 workers on the site that day are now suffering respiratory illness. Other reports show the regular civilian populations of Brooklyn and lower Manhattan are showing a vast increase in new cancers and scarring of the lungs.” [REF=http://www.nyctv.com/nyc_silverstein_culpable_911_toxins.htm]

“Exposure of normal lung tissue to irradiation has two well-recognized adverse effects: pneumonitis and fibrosis (1). Radiation pneumonitis occurs during the acute injury phase, typically within the first 6 months after treatment.” [REF=www.annieappleseedproject.org/luninfromion.html]

Rare cancer being found after 9/11:

• “..experts found there were many cases of multiple myeloma in young people that usually develops far later in life. The rare disease raised numerous concerns for researchers, fearing it might be a third wave of illnesses.”

[REF=http://www.infoniac.com/health-fitness/rarecancer911.html]

The cancer toll is increasing: in June 2006 it was reported that 283 people had cancer; the figure six months later is 400. Cancers are usually slow to develop except for blood cell cancers. Blood cell cancers are occurring at unprecedented rates. This fits the pattern of radiation exposure in high-energy nuclear events like atomic bombing or nuclear power plant meltdowns. First seen are blood cell cancers (appearing within 5 years) and then solid tumors show up. Many solid cancers are appearing now in WTC workers. The aggressive nature of these cancers showing up early indicate how great the radiation exposure must have been. Cancer rates are Hiroshima-like.

“Given the fact that some cancers are slower to develop than others, it seems likely to several doctors and epidemiologists that many more reports of cancer and serious lung illnesses will surface in the months and years to come. The fact that 8,500 recovery workers have already banded together to sue, only five years later—with 400 total cancer patients among their number—leads many experts to predict that these figures are likely to grow, meaning a possible death toll in the thousands.” [REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

Astute investigators cannot help noticing the similarities between the clinical picture of WTC workers and atomic-bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“In many ways, these illnesses suggest the slow but deteriorating health issues that faced the atomic-bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where thousands died in the years and decades that followed the United States’ use of nuclear weapons.” [REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

The doctors involved in the Mount Sinai Medical Center study overlooked the cancer issue. The cancer issue is the dominant health issue among WTC workers today. 400 have already developed cancer. It is highly likely that with time, many more people who suffer symptoms of chronic illnesses will eventually develop cancer too:

“No one has done a comprehensive study of the health consequences on the estimated 40,000 rescue and recovery workers who raced to ground zero after the attacks. A study by Mount Sinai Medical Center—one that received widespread media attention two months ago—released statistics on the five-year anniversary of 9-11 that focused almost exclusively on respiratory problems and bypassed any mention of cancer today.” [REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

This attorney does not overlook the cancer issue among his clients. But he attributes the main cause of cancer wrongly to benzene, asbestos and other chemical toxins. They may be involved in the development of cancer in a few of the workers or may have played a contributing role in the cancers, but radiation is more likely to be the principle causative agent in the majority of cases. Toxic chemicals was not considered a major factor in the increase in cancers of the atomic-bombing survivors although of course they were present at the atomic-bombing sites.

• “But David Worby has tracked the cancer patients among his growing client base for the last two years. Here are the latest tallies: Of the 8,500 people now suing the city, 400, or about 5 percent, have cancer. The biggest group by far consists of people like Vallebuona, who have blood cell cancers. Seventy-five clients suffer from lymphoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, and other blood cell cancers; most are men, aged 30 to 60, who appeared in perfect health just five years ago.”

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

Multiple myeloma occurring in this age group (30 -60) is a very rare event. It is a cancer of the elderly.

The incidence of cancer is described as shockingly high as the report below says, but the government is not investigating this aggressively. The ‘wave’ of blood cell cancers is particularly noticeable.

• “These doctors and epidemiologists agree that the incidence of cancer among this subset of workers sounds shockingly high, that they cannot and should not be dismissed as coincidence, and that the toxic dust cloud that hung over downtown Manhattan, and particularly the Pile, likely caused or promoted the diseases. Some even went so far as to say that the blood cancer cases, especially, indicate what could become a wave of cancer cases stemming from 9-11 over the next decades.

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

The numbers of workers getting cancer defies expectations.

• “Those numbers seem quite outrageous,” is how Hesdorffer puts it. Now at Johns Hopkins, Hesdorffer directed until last year the tumor immunotherapy program at Columbia University Medical Center, where he treated two recovery workers who got cancer post–9-11. He notes that the average healthy adult person has a 20 percent risk of having cancer over a lifetime. Calculate that risk over five years—the time frame from the events of 9-11 until today—and it drops to about 1 percent. Yet 5 percent of the suits’ workers—1 percent of the overall worker population—have already been diagnosed with malignancies. And these patients don’t include the thousands whose illnesses have yet to be recorded because they aren’t participating in the lawsuits or in the World Trade Center medical-monitoring programs.”

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

The numbers are indeed “outrageous” but no one in authority is tackling the obvious; radiation poisoning of WTC workers is a too-hot potato that no one wants to handle. The implications of a nuclear event at the Twin Towers is too explosive. It would mean that the whole scenario of Arab hijackers ambushing four planes and destroying the towers by ramming the planes into them has to be thrown out the window.

• “What the experts find most telling are the types of cancer now emerging. They say the blood cancer cases seem too disproportionate to be random.”

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

Clusters of cancers are being observed:

• ‘Samet, a worldwide expert on smoking and cancer, notes that when so many cases of related cancers emerge, it can signal a forming cluster. “It sounds like an impressive cluster of cancer cases, and I would want to study it,” he says.’

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

These clusters recall the clusters seen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The rapid development of cancers in workers exposed to the WTC dust is anomalous except if they occurred as a result of radiation exposure. Atomic bombing and similar phenomena are known for causing blood cell cancer spikes in the exposed population within five years of the event.

‘None of the cancers emerging now are the kinds that come only from toxic exposures—like, say, asbestosis, which is caused by asbestos and can take two decades to grow …. Meanwhile, the latency periods for most cancers from the time of a full-blown carcinogenic exposure to a full-blown malignancy can take years, if not decades. Says Thun, of the American Cancer Society: “It is the exception rather than the rule to have cancers develop this quickly.”‘ [REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

• ‘Francine Laden, who specializes in air pollution and cancer, agrees. Because so many of Worby’s clients have blood cancers—which have faster incubation periods than tumor cancers, forming in as little as five years—Laden confirms that it’s not a stretch to attribute their diseases to the dust cloud. “Blood cancers are different,” she says’

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

Blood cell cancers appear early after irradiation because they have a shorter latency period than solid cancers. They can appear as early as five years.

A cancer ‘explosion’ says the former director of a cancer registry:

• ‘Either way, Clapp [former director of Massachussetts Cancer Registry] adds, “It’s hard not to attribute these cancers to 9-11.” His gut, he says, is telling him one thing: “We’ll be seeing a cancer explosion from 9-11, and we’re starting to see it today.”‘

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

Dust that is orange-tinged and “twinkled” is reminiscent of radioactive dust. The dust cloud of a nuclear explosion has a brownish hue:

“Around this time, McCarthy was just beginning to report for recovery duty. When Verizon asked for volunteers to restore phone lines near ground zero, he didn’t hesitate…. The first thing he saw in the company terminals was the Trade Center dust, piled on top of consoles, crammed into corners. He had to wipe down the equipment with his bare hands to see the wires. The dust had an orange hue; at times, it twinkled. “[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

Nuclear energy vaporizes everything in its path in a matter of seconds. Two-thirds of the Twin Towers buildings were pulverized into dust.

• “Because Walcott was a detective, he ended up spending his five-month stint not just at ground zero, but also at Fresh Kills. As much as he choked on the Lower Manhattan air, he dreaded the Staten Island landfill. Walcott knew everything in the towers had fallen—desks, lights, computers. But apart from the occasional steel beam, the detritus that he sifted through there consisted of tiny grains of dust—no furniture pieces, no light fixtures, not even a computer mouse.”

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

The paucity of intact objects in the WTC debris point to a high-energy bomb having been deployed at the Twin Towers.

The fallout contained unusually high levels of radioisotopes such as strontium and barium – fission products. They were found in proportions that you would find after a nuclear bombing.

• “In reality, the 9-11 fallout was like nothing anyone had been exposed to before. Everything in the towers had been ground into dust—concrete, steel, glass, insulation, plastic, and computers. Dust analyses would detect glass shards, cement particles, cellulose fibers, asbestos, and a mixture of harmful components, including lead, titanium, barium, and gypsum. In all, the dust contained more than 100 different compounds, some of which have never been identified. And then there were the fires that smoldered for three months.”

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

• “Thomas Cahill, a physicist who sent a team to analyze the plume from a rooftop a mile away from ground zero, says he got worried once he noticed the color of the smoke had turned a fluorescent blue. That’s a sure sign that ultra-fine particles (which can go deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream) were coming off the Pile and permeating the air. When his team tested the plume, the scientists found higher levels of sulfuric acid, heavy metals, and other insoluble materials than anywhere else in the world, even in the Kuwaiti oil fields.”

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

And yet there were only 20,000 gallons of fuel at the most (each plane can carry a maximum of 10,000 gallons of fuel) spilled at the WTC, most of that consumed by the fireball that erupted after the planes crashed. The fires on some dozen floors had almost burned out by the time the buildings collapsed – at that point the smoke was black. Some of the fuel spilled onto the ground outside and was covered by the rubble after the towers fell. The quantity that remained to be vaporized when the towers collapsed aerosolizing into particles containing benzene would not produce enough benzene to cause this many number of cancers. On the other hand, fallout from a nuclear blast would easily account for the high number of cancers and the type of cancers seen among these workers. Radioactive particles in the burning pile can give off fluorescence.

• “In August, Acker was landscaping the backyard at his home, in Columbus, New Jersey, carrying two 50-pound buckets of stones, when his body buckled under a jolt of pain. It felt as if somebody had jabbed a fishhook into his rib cage and was slowly gutting him. He allowed for the possibility of a kidney stone and paid a trip to the doctor. Days later, he got a diagnosis that would stop his heart cold: multiple myeloma, a plasma cell cancer. Already, the super- advanced cancer had eaten its way through the bone marrow in his ribs, as well as many other bones in his body.”

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

Another victim of myeloma, a rare cancer that mainly strikes the elderly.

• ‘Look at the cancers my clients have,” he says, flipping through a dozen pages of a document entitled “Seriously Ill Clients.” It’s updated every month; this one is dated September 13, 2006. The document outlines what he calls his “cancer clusters” and lists rare cancers often associated with the 9-11 toxins, such as thyroid (30 people), tongue and throat (25), testicular (16), and brain (10). He keeps a separate document on the 75 people with blood cancers. Two dozen of them have various forms of leukemia; the remaining four dozen have various forms of lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and other blood cell cancers.’

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

The spate of cancers in WTC workers is appearing in clusters. There are people with thyroid cancer, tongue and throat cancers, testicular cancer and brain cancer. And then there is the cluster of blood cell cancers (75).

“Over the past year, the police union has fielded a steady increase in calls from members who have developed cancer since working at ground zero. Last July, the PBA started its own World Trade Center health registry for its members, listing seven cancer cases at the time. Today, there are 20 cases; they include the 35-year-old who worked on the Pile and at Fresh Kills and now has multiple myeloma, the 45-year-old who surveyed the Trade Center site for two years and now has leukemia, and the 41-year-old who manned the landfill morgue for three weeks and now has myeloma.”
[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

Federally-funded WTC programs that investigate the health of WTC workers are ignoring the spectacular rates of cancer among the workers.

• ‘But the WTC programs—funded by the federal government—have their share of critics, who wonder how interested the doctors are in the 9-11 and cancer issue. Al O’Leary, the spokesperson for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, says that many of its members feel as if the doctors are ignoring the signs of a growing cancer cluster. “It was our impression that no one in the medical-monitoring programs believed the cancers could be happening this early,” he explains.’

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

The only plausible reason for so many cancers showing up this early in WTC workers is that they received radiation from nuclear fallout.

This man got multiple myeloma even though he didn’t work in the Pile. He was exposed by living across the river from Ground Zero. He was only 43 when he was diagnosed. It is likely that studies on populations living and working close to Ground Zero will show an increased incidence of cancer and a cancer profile like Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

• “I lived in dumbo across the river from ground zero. not only did the air get raided by the seemingly endless cloud, but the city parked piles of the crashed vehicles from ground zero a block from my home. the air smelled like ground zero for weeks on end. in 2004, at age 43, i was diagnosed with multiple myeloma (an extraordinarily young age for this highly rare cancer), a blood cell cancer that has been linked to benzene, a predominant burn element from the “pile”. has anyone else in brooklyn gotten this/a blood cell cancer?”Posted by: Mike at June 2, 2007 8:54 PM

[REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/runninscared/archives/003123.php]

• “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 [attorney representing some 8,500 workers]. “We have nearly 35 [50 workers with blood cell cancers as of December 2006] of these cancers in the family of 50,000 Ground Zero workers. The odds of that occurring are one in hundreds of millions.”

[REF=http://firechief.com/news/cancers06162006/]

Perhaps Worby the attorney who leads the team of lawyers suing the city of NY on behalf of some 8500 workers, is leading his clients down the wrong track. He blames the ‘toxins’ – the cocktail mixture of benzene, asbestos, plastics etc., for the spike in cancers. But the EPA measured the benzene level in the atmosphere some two weeks after 9/11 and found it to be safe. This type of toxin exposure does not cause an explosion of early-appearing cancers. Only one thing does that – radiation. It seems that not many people including doctors involved in investigating the cases of cancer under government-funded programs and lawyers suing New York City for their clients’ illnesses are prepared to confront reality. For them the implications of doing so are too enormous.

Babies born to mothers who were pregnant at the time of the WTC attacks have significantly lower birth weight than infants born to mothers who were further away from the attacks in 44% of cases in a study of 300 non-smoking pregnant women who lived or worked in the New York Metropolitan area. Nanoparticles such as those created in a nuclear detonation can cross the placental barrier and affect the fetus.

“According to Sally Ann Lederman, Ph.D., of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, who studied 300 non-smoking pregnant women in the New York Metropolitan area, pregnant at the time of the disaster, about 44% of the women who lived or worked within two miles of the World Trade Canter had babies who were smaller and with significantly lower birth weight than infants born to those further away. Infants born to those mothers who were in their first three months of pregnancy during the terrorist attack were born significantly earlier than infants whose mothers were at a later stage of pregnancy during the attacks. The authors say the studies suggest that there may be health and developmental implications for children exposed to the World Trade Center disaster [Ref 8.]. It is known that nano particles can cross the placental barrier.” [REF=http://www.iicph.org/docs/du_update_2_3.htm]

Elevated levels of fission products at the WTC site

The US Geological Survey (USGS) found ridiculously high levels of strontium and barium in the WTC dust as well as other products of nuclear fission. [REF=http://dchakalov.googlepages.com/] Strontium was the most abundant radionuclide. Strontium and barium are the main fission products of uranium. Concentrations of strontium and barium were found to be in lockstep with each other. You do not find them anywhere except in nuclear explosions. Concentrations will be directly proportional to each other in different sample locations as was found in the WTC dust. [REF=http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2001/ofr-01-0429/chem1/index.html]

Elevated levels of tritium at the WTC

From [REF=http://www.osti.gov/bridge/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=15002340] or PDF form [REF=www.llnl.gov/tid/lof/documents/pdf/241096.pdf]

QUOTE

Elevated tritium foundLawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryWTC storm sewer: 0.174
water, WTC, Building 6: 3.53
water same: 2.83.As a comparison,
water Brooklyn, Paerdegat Basin 0.09

The tritium was diluted by 30 million gallons of water.

‘Th[is] water met and combine[d] with the estimated 26 million gallons of water that leaked from the Hudson River, as well as broken mains, during the same period of 10 days after the attack. The combined 30 million gallons of water {were} collect[ed] in the PATH train tunnel and [were] continuously {being} pumped out to prevent flooding.”

The sample sizes were 10ml. So the true tritium level at the WTC site can be calculated by estimating the dilution factor of adding 30 million gallons of water.

WTC sewer: 0.174
water, WTC, Building 6: 3.53
water, same: 2.83.

Government scientists say the tritium comes from three sources:

1) gun sights in weapons kept in towers

2) special brands of wrist watches that contain tritium

3) 8 airplane EXIT signs.

[REF=http://www.osti.gov/bridge/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=15002340]

They say the amount of tritium cannot be explained by only one source and that the tritium must have come from all 3 sources with a minimum of 150 weapons contributing to the tritium found in the Bathtub.

“34 Ci of tritium were released from the emergency tritium RL signs onboard the two Boeing 767s, on impact with the Twin Towers at the WTC….. the source term from the airplanes alone is too small explain the measured concentrations, and another missing source is needed. There is evidence that weapons belonging to federal and law-enforcement agencies were present and destroyed at the WTC. Such weapons contain tritium sights by design…… Our modeling suggests that such a scenario require a minimum of 120 equipped weapons destroyed and a quantitative capturing of tritium, which is too high, since many weapons were found only minor damage and tritium sights are shielded in a metal. Therefore, mechanism alone is not sufficient to account for the measured concentrations. This indicates that the weapons/watches are consistent with missing source, which would have complemented the airplane source.”

[REF=http://www.osti.gov/bridge/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=15002340]

But the government scientists who made these conclusions have not taken into account the extensive ‘dustification’ that occurred in the 9/11 event. There was dust three feet high in some places anecdotally. About 2/3 of the Twin Towers and WTC 7 was completely pulverized. The government assumes that the planes’ EXIT signs were only at risk of fire damage. This introduces error into their calculations. Ignoring the factor of dustification means they overestimate the contribution of the planes’ EXIT signs to the total amount of tritium calculated from the box model of the Bathtub.
The tritium that was in the dust would have drifted into the atmosphere and settled over a much wider area than the Bathtub. The direction and the force of the winds would have determined where the tritium was deposited. Rainfall would also affect deposition. There was rainfall within days of 9/11 and the rainfall was not localized to the Bathtub area. It is hard to believe that the planes’ tritium that remained after the fire settled directly into the basement and did not partially dustify and float away and scatter.

The government scientists make careful calculations when they calculate the dilution factor of the tritium found in the Bathtub (basement of the WTC complex), creating a complex box model that takes into account rates of inflow and outflow of water, but they don’t apply the same care when it comes to calculating how much of the plane’s tritium and gun sight tritium would have settled in the basement. They use a faulty model based on past experience with tritium-containing signs and fire. A model based on explosion and subsequent dustification should have been included as well as a model based on fire.

A Finnish military expert refutes the idea that the 8 EXIT signs contributed significantly to the elevated tritium levels. He points out that tritium evaporates into hydrogen and tritiated water vapor. These easily escape into the atmosphere and would not all collect onto the ground in an area the size of the Bathtub.

• 12. Elevated Tritium values measured in the WTC area but not elsewhere in New York. Official studies stated that 8 EXIT signs from two commercial Boeing jets were responsible. The tritium in those EXIT signs is insufficient to explain the measurements (very little tritium is available for measuring after evaporation into air as hydrogen and as tritiated water vapour. This can provide conclusive proof of fusion devices and therefore US/Israeli military involvement.

[REF=http://www.saunalahti.fi/wtc2001/evidence.htm]

Another researcher points out the impossibility of the tritium from the airplane EXIT signs that remained after fire all collecting in the Basement to be conveniently measured.

• When planes and passengers and their entire luggage vaporize in a fireball, the hydrogen (tritium is a form of hydrogen) of the EXIT signs vaporizes together with the rest, and is gone through the atmosphere. Why would tritiated water trickle down into the basement for measurement but not a single trace of any passenger blood, of which millions of times more was shed than tritiated water could have been created??

[REF=http://www.cloakanddagger.de/media/Grossmann/WTC_Elevated_Tritium_Levels.htm]

Also see MMC’s (a physicist) post on WTC tritium here:
[ref = http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=4418&st=15%5D

Strontium

Strontium-90 is a radioisotope that is produced in nuclear fission. It is a low-energy emitter but has a long half-life of 28 years. Its decay product is yttrium-90, also an emitter of radiation.

Metabolically it is an analog of calcium. After absorption in the gastrointestinal tract, it is deposited in bone.

Oral ingestion of high levels results in irradiation of target organs (bone marrow) and nearby tissues. At very high exposures, death results from hemorrhagic syndrome. At lower exposures, death results from bone marrow failure.

Acute pulmonary effects were observed in animals as well as bone hypoplasia. Radiation and pneumonitis and pulmonary fibrosis were seen in mice exposed to high activity levels of insoluble strontium-90. (Scott et al., 1987) [REF=http://rais.ornl.gov/tox/profiles/strontium_90_f_V1.shtml]

The primary diseases seen in animals exposed to high activity strontium-90 are bone neoplasias. Soft tissue carcinomas in tissues near the bone were also observed. Other effects observed in animals were myeloproliferative disease, including frank leukemia (Hobbs and McClellan, 1986) [REF=http://rais.ornl.gov/tox/profiles/strontium_90_f_V1.shtml] and bone sarcomas.

Also see this link: [LINK OF BETA TO 1. FISSION PRODUCTS AND 2. TRITIUM AND 3. RADIATION AND FALLOUT]

Ionizing radiation and cancer

From http://www.answers.com/topic/ionizing-radiation

Short wavelength rays (X-rays and gamma rays) and accelerated atomic particles (electrons, protons, neutrons, and alpha particles) are absorbed by a medium and enough energy is deposited to knock electrons from atoms, with which they interact, and to disrupt chemical bonds. The loss of electrons create ‘ions’ and hence these types of radiation are called ‘ionizing radiation’.

Radionuclides emit beta (electron) radiation and gamma (photon) radiation. There is a cascade of events after tissue is exposed to radiation. Atoms are ionized by removal of weakly bonded electrons. Radiation damages DNA by either directly interacting with it and causing ionization damage or by creating highly reactive chemical species that damage DNA. [REF=http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/48543?fulltext=true&print=yes

Tritium is radioactive hydrogen, which binds where normal hydrogen would. Hydrogen is the most abundant element on the earth, and is a component of water, which cushions our genetic material (DNA). Tritium can bond in this water, irradiating our DNA at very close range. [REF=http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_power_plants/healthimpact/articles.cfm?ID=5875

Radiation Basics [prepared by NIRS)]

——————————————————————————————————————

http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_…les.cfm?ID=5875

Radiation Basics (prepared by NIRS)

“There is no safe level of exposure and there is no dose of (ionizing) radiation so low that the risk of a malignancy is zero”–Dr. Karl Morgan, the father of Health Physics

Different types of ionizing radiation

Ionizing radiation is given off during the stage when an unstable atom decays and reaches a ground state. The energy is released in the form of subatomic particles or waves (see above). Alpha particles are large subatomic structures and are high energy. They can be easily stopped by skin or paper. However when they penetrate a human body, for example through a cut in the skin or by ingestion, they can do a great deal of damage to the cells. They tear through cells in organs and in blood and can leave much damage in their wake. Each track of a single alpha particle can deliver a large dose of radiation to a cell. An example of an alpha emitter is plutonium.

Beta particles are basically electrons. They are more penetrating than alpha particles. The risk they pose depends on their energy level, and they can cause radiation damage from outside and from within the body. Inhalation and ingestion of beta particles pose the greatest risk. Strontium-90 and tritium are beta-emitting radionuclides. Our bodies often mistake strontium-90 for calcium as strontium-90 is an analog of calcium (see above). Once inside the body, strontium-90 collects in the bone marrow (where blood cells are manufactured) and cortex of the bone. Once it inhabits there, it emits radiation increasing the risk of bone and blood cancers like leukemia developing. Tritium is a radioisotope of hydrogen, the most abundant element on earth, and is a component of water. Water cushions our DNA, and hydrogen can bond to this water causing irradiation damage to the DNA.

Lymphoma cells

Gamma rays are the most penetrating type of radiation and can only be blocked by lead. Cesium-137 is a gamma emitter. It mimics potassium and hence has a predilection for muscle tissue. It often causes radiation damage to muscle and other soft tissues of the body.

Iodine-131 and iodine-129 are also gamma-emitters. They collect in the thyroid releasing radiation in that gland and can cause thyroid cancer.

Half-lives and Decay Chains

Different radionuclides have different half-lives. Uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, about the age of the Earth. Polonium-214 has a very short half-life (.00016 seconds) and iodine-131 a half-life of 8 days.

Bioaccumulation

Bioaccumulation means that further up the food chain, the more radiation is accumulated in the body. Hence humans have high levels of bioaccumulation. The elderly and children (rapid cell turnover during development) and those with immune disorders are more susceptible than others to ionizing radiation.

Cancers that are linked to ionizing radiation are blood cell cancers (leukemias, lymphomas, myelomas), lung cancer, and many solid tumors. Ionizing radiation is also associated with birth defects such as downs syndrome, cleft palate or lip, congenital malformations, spinal defects, kidney and liver damage and more.

Prepared by:

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

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Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests and Cancer Risks

Any damage to DNA that remains unrepaired or is improperly repaired may result in a mutation or chromosome aberration. A cell with damaged DNA may reproduce more rapidly, forming a colony of abnormal cells, and ultimately give rise to cancer. [REF=From http://www.answers.com/topic/ionizing-radiation%5D

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Depleted Uranium and Cancer Risks

Nano-pathologies or the pathologies caused by nano-sized particles appears to be responsible for the high incidence of morbidity and mortality associated with the explosion of DU artillery. These small particles are created in a DU explosion by the high heat that is produced 3000 to 6000 degrees Centigrade. The particles of uranium may form a ceramic with metals and other particles and then enter the body through many possible routes. Once in the human body the radioactive particles can initiate cancers or promote cancers (pre-existing cancers that have been initiated by another carcinogen. These cancers do not require a latency period). These events can mean cancers appear early (within five years) in this exposed population. In the study of soldiers and civilians exposed to DU in the Balkans area, soldiers were found to have an unusually high incidence of Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (white blood cell cancers) and children showed an increased rate of leukemia. Given that there were similarly sized particles in the WTC event, as small as 0.9 micron in size in one study, it can be hypothesized that the people exposed to the WTC dust are coming down with cancer in the same way.

[REF=http://www.iicph.org/docs/du_update_2_3.htm]

Professor Gatti participated in the investigation, after the war in the Balkans, sponsored by UNEP (The United Nations Environment Program) [Ref 4.]. The diseased tissues of soldiers and civilians affected by the war in the Balkans, was submitted to Dr. Gatti for analysis. The soldiers, who served in the former Yugoslavian Territory, had an unusually high incidence of Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas. The civilians, and staffs of the Humanitarian Missions, were suffering from the same diseases. Moreover, the Head of the Pediatric Clinic of Sarajevo, Professor Edo Hasanbegovich, reported an increase of leukemia among children, especially in towns located close to the Croatian border.Although many strict followers of the ICRP methodology protested that there was not sufficient latency period for these cancers to be radiation related, they failed to consider the classic paper on the formation of clonal tumors, by Peter C. Nowell. Radiation can initiate cancers, and also promote cancers which are hereditary or have been initiated by some other carcinogen. Promotion of cancers already initiated requires no latency period. This exposition has been strengthened recently through the research into the many stages of cancer development, and genome instability of these various stages after exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation [Ref 5.].

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Lung damage in 9/11 workers and cancer

The lungs are particularly susceptible to irradiation damage as this is the organ that airborne radionuclides reach first after inhalation after they pass through the upper respiratory tract. These radioactive particles of dust such as in nuclear fallout can cause pulmonary diseases such as fibrosis as well as lung cancer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5295158.stm

Clean-up workers feel effects of 9/11

• By Sarah Dale

BBC News, New YorkNearly seven out of 10 Ground Zero workers have suffered lung problems during or after their work at the site, according to a study of health effects related to the 11 September 2001 attacks.

Depleted uranium dust from exploded depleted uranium shells can be inhaled and release radiation in the lungs. Uranium has a half-life that is the same as the earth’s age.

http://members.shaw.ca/rolfwitzsche/canada/depleted_uranium.html

Depleted Uranium – In the human lung tissue alpha-damaged cells typically appear in star like clusters as shown on one of the websites. The damaged (altered) cells are subsequently replicated. They typically spread throughout the body since they don’t belong to any specific function and multiply without control as no function controls them. If the DU gets into the blood stream and subsequently gets stuck in some of the most sensitive parts of the body, almost anything can thereby become effected. The end result is the development of a large array of biologic failures including diabetes, leukemia, lung cancers, teen age breast cancers, and stomach cancers in boys, and so on. Over 90 different diseases have so far been attributed to DU-radiation (both Alpha and Beta Radiation).

The following shows the alpha rays that are emitted by a single particle of radioactive plutonium in the lung tissue of an ape in a 24-hour period. The image changes to a close-up.

http://www.ccnr.org/alpha_in_lung.html

Alpha Rays from a Radioactive Particle in Lung Tissue

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The black star shows the tracks made over a 48 hour period by alpha rays emitted from a radioactive particle of plutonium lodged in the lung tissue of an ape (the particle itself is invisible). In living lung tissue, if one of the cells adjacent to the particle is damaged in a certain way, it can become a cancer cell later on, spreading rapidly through the lung, causing almost certain death.

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photo by Robert Del Tredici from his book entitled At Work In The Fields Of The Bomb (Harper and Row, 1987)

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Answers.com.http://www.answers.com/radiation%20poisoning

Table of exposure levels and symptoms Dose-equivalents are presently stated in sieverts:0.05–0.2 Sv (5–20 REM)No symptoms. Potential for cancer and mutation of genetic material, according to the LNT model.No noticeable symptoms. Red blood cell count decreases temporarily.0.5–1 Sv (50–100 REM)Mild radiation sickness with headache and increased risk of infection due to disruption of immunity cells. Temporary male sterility is possible.1–2 Sv (100–200 REM)Light radiation poisoning, 10% fatality after 30 days (LD 10/30). Typical symptoms include mild to moderate nausea and vomiting. This is followed by a latent phase after which symptoms of general illness and fatigue appear. The immune system is depressed with increased risk of infection. Temporary male sterility is common. Spontaneous abortion or stillbirth will occur in pregnant women.2–3 Sv (200–300 REM)Severe radiation poisoning, 35% fatality after 30 days (LD 35/30). Nausea and vomiting is common. Symptoms onset at 1 to 6 hours after irradiation and last for 1 to 2 days. After that, there is a 7 to 14 day latent phase, after which the following symptoms appear: loss of hair all over the body, fatigue and general illness. There is a massive loss of leukocytes (white blood cells), greatly increasing the risk of infection. Permanent female sterility is possible.3–4 Sv (300–400 REM)Severe radiation poisoning, 50% fatality after 30 days (LD 50/30). Other symptoms are similar to the 2–3 Sv dose, with uncontrollable bleeding in the mouth, under the skin and in the kidneys after the latent phase.4–6 Sv (400–600 REM)Acute radiation poisoning, 60% fatality after 30 days (LD 60/30). Fatality increases from 60% at 4.5 Sv to 90% at 6 Sv (unless there is intense medical care). Female sterility is common in those who survive the acute stage. Convalescence takes several months to a year. The primary causes of death (in general 2 to 12 weeks) are infections and internal bleeding.6–10 Sv (600–1,000 REM)Acute radiation poisoning, near 100% fatality after 14 days (LD 100/14). Survival depends on intense medical care. Bone marrow is nearly or completely destroyed, so a bone marrow transplant is required. Recovery would take several years and probably would never be complete.Devair Alves Ferreira received a dose of approximately 7.0 Sv (700 REM) during the Goiânia accident and survived, partially due to his fractionated exposure.10–50 Sv (1,000–5,000 REM)Acute radiation poisoning, 100% fatality after 7 days (LD 100/7). Death is currently inevitable; the only treatment that can be offered is pain therapy.50–80 Sv (5,000–8,000 REM)Immediate disorientation and coma in seconds or minutes. Death occurs after a few hours by total collapse of nervous system.More than 80 Sv (>8,000 REM)U.S. military forces expect immediate death.——————————————————————————————–

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/…=true&print=yes

Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests and Cancer Risks
Steven L. Simon, André Bouville, Charles E. Land

Increase in cancer rates is a signature of nuclear testing. Radioactive debris in the atmosphere or fallout has adversely affected public health.

Earlier studies focused on the health effects on the offspring of those exposed to radiation. But while these effects have not been observed, studies have demonstrated radiation-related risks of leukemia and thyroid cancer within a decade after exposure followed by solid tumors in later years.

Cancer risk is an ongoing risk after exposure continuing into later years. As studies on biological samples have been undertaken, it is becoming clear that specific radioncuclides are implicated in certain cancers.

Nuclear Explosions: The Basics

In a nuclear explosion, there is an initial fireball within which everything vaporizes. The fireball rises rapidly incorporating soil and water. As it cools it loses buoyancy. Radioactive debris within this cloud will be deposited according to the direction and strength of prevailing winds. Rainfall can cause local deposition.

There was rainfall the day after 9/11.

Hence fallout consists of radioactive microscopic particles deposited on the ground.

How People Are Exposed to Fallout

The radioactive cloud takes the shape of a mushroom, the familiar mushroom cloud of nuclear explosions. After the cloud reaches maximum height, it moves downwind in a vertical and lateral direction. Larger particles are deposited locally, whereas smaller particles settle further out and may travel right around the globe.

Large explosions aimed at the stratosphere may inject radioactive material high up in the atmosphere where it can remain for years and when it does finally settle, deposit the fallout quite homogenously (‘global’ fallout).

However fallout is usually the greatest locally where the explosion took place.

Once the fallout deposits, exposure of humans to internal and external irradiation may take place. External radiation usually occurs from gamma rays emitted by particles on the ground. Shielding (placing a barrier between the radiation source and the body) and fractionation (interrupting the radiation into periods with the body able to repair damage to itself during the breaks) can reduce exposure. In the case of fallout, those who spend more time outdoors may receive a greater degree of irradiation.

Internal irradiation results from the inhalation, ingestion or absorption through broken or injured skin of fallout particles. The main route however is through the intake of contaminated food. Vegetation can become contaminated by direct deposition of fallout on it or by the uptake via the roots. People can ingest fallout by eating meat and milk of animals grazing on contaminated vegetation.

The activity of fallout is measured by becquerels (Bq) which is the number of radioactive disintegrations per second.

In a typical nuclear explosion, the activity of short-lived radionuclides is greater but because they decay substantially by the time, the fallout cloud starts to settle, long-lived radionuclides at that point become more important.

Iodine-131 has a half-life of 8 days, long enough to enter the food chain and be ingested by humans through their consumption of dairy foods.

The two nuclear weapons dropped on Japan produced minimal fallout. The majority of the injuries to the population within 5 km was due to heat and blast waves.

Fallout and Cancer Risk

The main longterm risk of fallout is cancer.

Thyroid cancer is a rare disease. It is rarely seen in those younger than 25. Thyroid cancer due to external radiation is most often seen in women exposed to radiation as young children.

External gamma radiation is highly penetrating and can affect all organs. Leukemia which is thought to originate in the bone marrow where blood cells are manufactured is regarded as a ‘sentinel’ radiation effect as some types appear relatively soon after exposure especially in children, and also because high rates occur in the exposed relative to the unexposed.

Although fallout exposures from the atomic bombings in Nagasaki and Hiroshima occurred 50-60 years ago, only about half the predicted total number of cancers has been expressed so far in those exposed. Many more cancers are expected to appear in the following decades as they can occur at any time over the entire lifetime following exposure.

http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q340.html

Answer to Question #340 Submitted to “Ask the Experts”

Category: Radiation Effects — Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Cancers in Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings

Individuals who survived the acute effects of the atomic bombs were later found to suffer increased rates of cancer of essentially all organs. The cancers appeared years to decades after exposure. Excess cancers in radiation victims are still appearing now, more than 60 years after the bombing.

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Chernobyl

http://www.iarc.fr/chernobyl/q_a.php

IARC and the Cancer Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident

Cancer burden in Europe following Chernobyl

* By 2065, these models predict that about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident and that about 16,000 deaths from these cancers may occur. About two-thirds of the thyroid cancer cases and at least one half of the other cancers are expected to occur in Belarus, Ukraine and the most contaminated territories of the Russian Federation.

* The number of cancer cases in Europe possibly resulting from radiation exposure from the Chernobyl accident up to now, and in the lifetime of the exposed populations, is therefore expected to be large in absolute terms.

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CANCERS SEEN IN THOSE EXPOSED TO THE FALLOUT AT THE WTC

We have 400 cases of cancer among those who worked at the WTC site at Ground Zero five years after the event. This is an explosion of cancer cases. The number of cases is growing with time. Seventy-five of the cancer victims suffer from cancers of blood cells such as leukemias and lymphomas, cancers that are normally rarely seen but frequently observed in populations exposed to radiation such as in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Leukemia is a sentinel disease of radiation exposure. Blood cell cancers are usually one the earlier cancers to manifest in those exposed to irradiation. This is the same pattern that is being observed in those exposed to ‘toxic’ dust at the WTC. Blood cell cancers are occurring with alarming frequency.

• http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=5645WTC CANCER CLUSTER LIKE HIROSHIMA

• Total 911 Info – December 6, 2006Plaintiffs suing New York City for cancer spawned by destruction of the World Trade Center towers are subscribing to an “interacting toxins” theory of their illness. This is because NYC is liable for approving the building materials of the towers, but would not be liable if mercenary teams placed advanced micronukes in the towers.Nevertheless, the report excerpted below does compare the cancer rate in post-9/11 Southern Manhattan to that of Hiroshima following the nuclear device detonated there.From Village Voice November 28, 2006:”This is the story of 9-11 and cancer.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. […]Given the fact that some cancers are slower to develop than others, it seems likely to several doctors and epidemiologists that many more reports of cancer and serious lung illnesses will surface in the months and years to come. The fact that 8,500 recovery workers have already banded together to sue, only five years later—with 400 total cancer patients among their number—leads many experts to predict that these figures are likely to grow, meaning a possible death toll in the thousands.In many ways, these illnesses suggest the slow but deteriorating health issues that faced the atomic-bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where thousands died in the years and decades that followed the United States’ use of nuclear weapons. […]The biggest group by far consists of people like Vallebuona, who have blood cell cancers. Seventy-five clients suffer from lymphoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, and other blood cell cancers; most are men, aged 30 to 60, who appeared in perfect health just five years ago.[…]The blood cancer cases seem too disproportionate to be random. Two percent of these workers have been diagnosed with what amounts to related diseases, none of which fall into the “high-frequency” category, which includes prostate cancer. One out of 9,000 people nationwide gets lymphoma a year; for myeloma, it’s one out of 30,000. By contrast, the 75 blood cancer patients translate into several dozen new cases a year.[…][Boston University’s Dr. David] Ozonoff echoes all five of his colleagues when he draws parallels between the aftermath of 9-11 and that of another massive exposure: the atomic-bombs dropped on Japan. Bomb survivors experienced excessive spikes in leukemia rates within the first five years, a surprising discovery for epidemiologists in the mid 20th century. While this outbreak resulted from radiation, both it and 9-11 involved a sudden and intense blast of carcinogens. For bomb survivors, leukemia appeared first, followed by breast and lung cancer. “That could happen with 9-11,” says [Jonathan] Samet, the Johns Hopkins epidemiology department chair. “It might be what we’re seeing today.”

http://www.total411.info/2006/12/wtc-cancer-cluster-like-hiroshima.html

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Since the report below dated June 2006, there have been additional 117 cases of cancer diagnosed in Ground Zero cleanup and rescue workers as of December 2006. In this report, 33 have already died from cancer.

The cases involve blood cell cancers like leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s, and myelomas, cancers that are red flags for radiation exposure.

These blood cell cancers are extremely rare in the young and the middle-aged populations; the incidence of acute blood cell cancers in white males under the age of 40 is 1 in 150,000 per year. The incidence of blood cell cancers in the population of WTC workers estimated to number 45,000 – 50,000 in total is 150 cases per 150,000. Most of these workers were aged 20-60 years at the time of the WTC disaster and were relatively fit and healthy.

As the physician below says the odds of seeing that kind of frequency of blood cell cancers in a normal population is “one in hundreds of millions”.

Other cancers that are seen include cancers of the tongue, throat, testicles, breast, bladder, kidney, colon, intestines, brain and lung.

Most of the sufferers were healthy before they were stricken with cancer.

http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/wtc/grou…ncerhits283.htm

CANCER HITS 283 RESCUERS OF 9/11June 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.David 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 John 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 Ronald Weintraub, 43 (bile-duct cancer); and Stephen “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.”susan.edelman@nypost.com

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In the Wayne Madsen Report on 9/12/06, a lymphoma cluster among WTC Ground Zero workers has been identified. Non-Hodgkin’s cancer occurs with much greater frequency among those exposed to excessive radiation (such as in atomic bombings) than those not exposed to radiation.

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• http://phys4.harvard.edu/~wilson/radiation/Si2002/Chapter_1.htmMEDICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE ACCIDENT AT THE CHERNOBYL NPP:

FORECAST AND COMPARISON WITH ACTUAL DATA IN THE NATIONAL REGISTRYWhat major results have been obtained in Japan? There are two major results directly related with the rate of radiation-induced cancer diseases among hibakusha’s (atomic bomb survivors). An epidemiological observation of a cohort of 86.5 thousand people in 1950-1990 has shown that (Table 1):· there is a definite excess of the cancer morbidity and mortality over respective spontaneous levels;· there exists a dependence of cancer morbidity and mortality on dose in the range of the so-called medium and high exposure doses (above 0.3 Sv); the radiation risk of leukemia is 5-7 times higher than the radiation risk for solid cancers.

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• [REF=http://www.chernobyl-international.org/facts.html] Chernobyl: The Facts

Approximately 134 power station workers were exposed to extremely high doses of radiation directly after the accident. About 31 of these people died within 3 months. Another 25,000 “liquidators” – the soldiers and firefighters who were involved in clean up operations – have died since the disaster of diseases such as lung cancer, leukemia, and cardiovascular disease.

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• http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2006/09/8763.phpWayne Madsen Report for 9/12/06 on

Lymphoma cluster points to nuke event at WTC

• Wayne Madsen Report, Sept. 12, 2006:

“According to sources who worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at Ground Zero on and after 911, residents of southern Manhattan and rescue and clean-up workers involved in the recovery operations at the site of the former World Trade Center are experiencing an unusually high rate of non-Hodgkin lymphoma — a cancer that is common among individuals who have been exposed to extremely high levels of ionizing radiation, such as that from nuclear blasts and major nuclear reactor leaks. In addition to the respiratory problems among rescue workers at Ground Zero who breathed toxic “pulverized” concrete and other debris into their lungs, the radiation cancer is of extreme interest to researchers who suspect that the World Trade Center towers and Building 7 were brought down with the help of high energy releases. WMR spoke to a number of individuals who were at Ground Zero on 911 who are now experiencing symptoms resulting from severe damage to their immune systems — a condition that is common among those exposed to high levels of radiation. Sources close to FEMA in New York confirmed to WMR that the lymphoma cases are believed to be the result of a release of extremely high levels of radiation from a series of nuclear events on the morning of 911. They believe that explains the reason for the “pulverization” of concrete, molten metals, pyroclastic surges and fallout, and other anomalies resulting from the catastrophe. It was also pointed out that some vehicles parked on the west side of the World Trade Center were “fused” on the sides facing the towers — the doors being melted into the body frames. Other cars parked nearby were not similarly affected. There is also evidence of explosions and fires on top of the Woolworth Building, three blocks away from the World Trade Center, during the attack on the towers.FEMA officials from Washington, DC were quick to ban any unofficial photography in southern Manhattan in the weeks following 911. Any photographers who had not received prior permission from FEMA to be in southern Manhattan found their photographic and filming equipment confiscated by the government.

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Multiple myeloma, a rare blood cell cancer that is found in elderly people, is showing up in younger Ground Zero workers exposed. The many cases of multiple myeloma has set off alarm bells among physicians treating the workers.

 

 

 

 

 

IMAGE: Multiple myeloma cells

The increased frequency of this strange and unusual cancer can be explained by radiation exposure. Radiation that penetrates to the bone marrow such as that from strontium-90, a fission product, can cause these changes in the bone marrow and malignancy to develop.

Radioactive dust can also cause chronic respiratory diseases and 70% of those who worked on the Pile complain of pulmonary problems.

http://www.infoniac.com/health-fitness/rarecancer911.html

• FROM: IFONIAC.COM

• Friday, 01 Jun 2007, 12:00

Rare Cancer After Collapsing Twin Towers 9/11 Tragedy

The head of Medical Monitoring Program taking the responsibility of post-traumatic treatment of World Trade Center workers who were on September 11, noticed they had a rare and strange cancer form.Dr. Robin Herbert the head of this program claimed that workers had a rare blood and lymphatic cancer. More than 20,000 people were examined after experts found there were many cases of multiple myeloma in young people that usually develops far later in life. The rare disease raised numerous concerns for researchers, fearing it might be a third wave of illnesses.Although no final conclusions on the reasons of the rare cancer were made, many doctors suppose that exposure to toxic dust might be the answer. Last year research showed that about 70 % of workers had respiratory diseases.It will be hard to estimate the risk of the new-found cancer for decades. All the workers will be monitored for about 20 years by a New York City-based health registry.Experts are revising all the cancer cases that were found by doctors of Medical Monitoring Program. Earlier, the workers of the September 11 tragedy were found to suffer from chronic coughs, chronic lung disease and had other serious after-effects.However, there is no threat for public health, the sickness is a death danger for those who worked at World Trade Center and saved the lives of others.Powered by http://www.infoniac.com.

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Another rare cancer that was above-average in frequency among the WTC workers is pancreatic cancer. Encountering four cases of it personally alerted this clinician to the special hazards at the WTC site.

Charles Hesdorffer, the director of the bone-marrow transplant and tumor immunotherapy program at Columbia Presbyterian, provided testimony to the federal government’s Victim Compensation Fund. He consented because he found it odd that two of his own patients at Columbia Presbyterian were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer after working at the World Trade Center pile, and one of those patients knew of two others. Four cases in 40,000—that was a much higher incidence than in the population at large. [REF=http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/sept11/features/9875/index2.html. NY News and Features. “Is 9/11 to blame for the ailments of cops, firefighters and those working and living near Ground Zero?”]

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Radiation-induced cancers may not only affect workers at Ground Zero but also people who lived, worked or went to school nearby. A former student (now 22 years old) who attended Stuyvesant High School, 5 blocks away from the WTC, has developed lymphoma according to this poster.

• [URL=http://invanddis.proboards29.com/index.cgi?board=sharenewsstories&action=display&thread=1159538465&page=1#1161423448]

Post from a forum:

There is a very bright, intense, yellowish massive glow extending thousands of feet, and in the smoke of the WTC that is seen in photos of the WTC smoke and ruins just after the controlled demolitions. Yellow as in uranium, and as in nuclear weapons. There are now many cases of lymphoma cancer being reported in people who were near there at the time of the detonations, including the former student body president of Stuyvesant High School, who is part of a lawsuit about the WTC toxins, and is now 22 years old with lymphoma cancer (nuclear radiation is one cause) and bald from chemotherapy. Stuyvesant High School and its thousands of students and teachers were (and still are) located just 5 blocks north of the WTC on September 11.

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We are seeing a familiar scenario. Like Nagasaki and Hiroshima, where there was intense release of radiation, there is a spike in blood cell cancers initially. Blood cell cancers have a relatively short “incubation” or latency period compared to other cancers and hence appear earlier than other cancers. After these blood cell cancers come the solid tissue cancers like breast, lung and brain cancers. Only radiation causes such a dramatic increase in cancers. The dust cloud that settled on Manhattan that day was radioactive fallout.

• http://www.nyctv.com/ny_emergency_workers_dying_of_cancer.htmNY Emergency Workers Now

Dying from 9/11 Cancers

• By: Randy PennNew York, NYNYC Reports Radiation Cancer Rate Same as HiroshimaOn that fateful day when the World Trade Center demolitions destroyed the lives and dreams of millions of people around the world one Christine Todd Whitman made a proclamation that is spreading the disease of that day further.”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.”In the meantime more than 20 percent of those working at ground zero have numerous debilitating diseases related to the destruction of the towers on 9/11. Recently 75 workers have brought a joint-action lawsuit against New York City and have included at least the other 8500 workers struck with similar disorders. Over half dozen top doctors and epidemiologist have studied the workers and they concur that the likely cause was exposure to the toxins at Ground Zero.In a recent article the Village Voice reports:

http://villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html”The blood cancer cases seem too disproportionate to be random. Two percent of these workers have been diagnosed with what amounts to related diseases, none of which fall into the “high-frequency” category, which includes prostate cancer. One out of 9,000 people nationwide gets lymphoma a year; for myeloma, it’s one out of 30,000. By contrast, the 75 blood cancer patients translate into several dozen new cases a year.”[Boston University’s Dr. David] Ozonoff echoes all five of his colleagues when he draws parallels between the aftermath of 9-11 and that of another massive exposure: the atomic-bombs dropped on Japan. Bomb survivors experienced excessive spikes in leukemia rates within the first five years, a surprising discovery for epidemiologists in the mid 20th century. While this outbreak resulted from radiation, both it and 9-11 involved a sudden and intense blast of carcinogens. For bomb survivors, leukemia appeared first, followed by breast and lung cancer. “That could happen with 9-11,” says [Jonathan] Samet, the Johns Hopkins epidemiology department chair. “It might be what we’re seeing today.”NYC TV has been reporting on the radioactive fallout following 9/11 as well as the recent discovery of radioactivity at the Fresh Kills Landfill where the 911 debris was taken and much of what is left still there.NYC TV wrote in September about the lack of prosecutions on many matters surrounding 9/11 by then AG Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer accomplishments as Attorney General were to ignore the indictments for these lies and frauds by Christine Todd Whitman and to ignore the complicity of Rudolph Giuliani in destroying the crime scene of 3000+ murders.As these 10,000’s die NYCTV predicts there still will be no indictments for the criminal actions of representatives in governance. They will all grow old and rich as they continue to do the same over and over. For destroying the murder scene and secretly getting rid of all the forensic evidence Giuliani was rewarded by large security contracts and after his help in the UK events is now going to try to grab the wheel of the US military as Chief.A reward for such crime should not be a run for the presidency of the US Corporation, he should be on trial and put behind bars for his part in covering up the crimes.

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It is criminal that the 9/11 workers were allowed to work in the WTC area without basic precautions being taken. They should have measured the radiation levels at the WTC Ground Zero site from the beginning and if it was elevated as it no doubt was, workers should have either been banned from approaching that site, or fitted out with the proper nuclear hazard protective clothing and respirator masks. The area should have been declared a radiation hazard zone and evacuated.

None of these precautions were taken and in fact the first formal radiation survey of the NYC area by the government was undertaken five years after 9/11. [REF=http://www.nyctv.com/Survey_Finds_Radioactive_Waste_at_Fresh_Kills_911_Dump.htm

NYC TV Report: Federal Security Survey Shows Fresh Kills Hot Spot Contaminated
Site of 911 Debris!]

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Clean-up crews feel the effects

• http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5295158.stm9/11

Clean-up teams file lawsuit

• Workers that cleared the debris say they were not protected enough.Hundreds of workers who helped clean up after the 9/11 attacks on New York have filed a lawsuit alleging they were not protected against toxic chemicals.They want compensation – said to be billions of dollars – from the World Trade Center’s leaseholder and four companies that helped remove debris.The lawsuit also calls for the health of all those allegedly exposed to the toxins to be monitored for 20 years.The defendants have yet to comment on the lawsuit, which was filed on Friday.

Rubble risk

A new report shows many who worked at the site of the attacks later suffered respiratory problems.Afflictions such as asthma, sinusitis and shortness of breath were recorded amongst many of those involved in the clean-up, according to the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Many others who worked at the site have said they suffered no adverse symptoms but are filing the lawsuit because they fear they could develop dangerous diseases in the future.The lawsuit alleges many workers were not given equipment to protect them from toxins in the rubble while others were not taught how to use it properly, the Associated Press news agency reports.

The study shows that chronic diseases can occur as a result of radiation damage to the lungs. In fact lung tissue shows two well-recognized adverse effects in response to radiation: radiation pneumonitis and fibrosis. Seventy percent of WTC workers monitored have lung diseases.

• http://www.annieappleseedproject.org/luninfromion.html

Can ICAM Modulation Prevent Lung Injury From Ionizing Radiation?

Lisa A. Kachnic, Simon N. Powell Affiliations of authors: L. A. Kachnic, Department of Radiation Oncology, Boston Medical Center, Boston, MA; S. N. Powell, Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.Pulmonary fibrosis can develop as a consequence of a multitude of causes, including radiation therapy and chemotherapy, all of which have common physiologic and pathologic responses in the lung.Exposure of normal lung tissue to irradiation has two well-recognized adverse effects: pneumonitis and fibrosis (1). Radiation pneumonitis occurs during the acute injury phase, typically within the first 6 months after treatment.

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Brain cancer and nuclear radiation

Brain cancer is a cancer that is found in higher frequency among those who work in nuclear power plants. There seems to be an association between excess brain cancer rates and radiation.

• http://www.thecancerblog.com/2006/04/09/9-11-first-responders-suffering-with-cancer-sue-city/9/11

First responders suffering with cancer sue city

Posted Apr 9th 2006 6:44PM by Dalene EntenmannAccording to an attorney representing a group of 9/11 first responders who have been diagnosed with brain cancer and other illness — out of the 7,300 sick workers and family members involved in the case — 41 have now died. The group states that the toxic dust that filled the air immediately following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers is responsible for their illnesses.In a related post, WTC Ground Zero: FDNY paramedic dies of lung cancer, we shared the story of Debbie Reeve, a FDNY paramedic, who spent several months at Ground Zero working in the morgue. Reeve was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer. Mesothelioma is a malignant lung cancer linked to asbestos exposure. Reeve was exposed to asbestos particles in the air caused by the collapsing Twin Towers. According to her physician and her family, her work at Ground Zero is the direct link to the cancer that took her life. She died in mid-March, leaving behind her husband, David Reeve, 45, a FDNY paramedic, and two children, a daughter Elizabeth, who is ten years old, and a son Mark, who is only six years old. Her family said she suffered greatly leading up to her death, as the cancer consumed her body.In another news story that came out today, a survey completed by the Centers for Disease Control states that people trapped in the dust and debris cloud were nearly three times more likely to experience respiratory symptoms than other building survivors not bathed by the cloud. “That was most surprising to us – the impact of the dust cloud,” noted Dr. Lorna Thorpe, deputy commissioner of the city Health Department and head of the World Trade Center Health Registry, which has been tracking the health of more than 71,000 people who worked at or were near Ground Zero on 9/11.As a nation, we owe these brave men and women whatever they need. Government, state and city agencies should step up and do what is right for our heroes, who ran upstairs into harm’s way while everyone was passing them on the way down escaping danger. Who stood in the middle of dense choking dust and debris, to help the injured. Who stayed, and sifted through the heartbreak of destruction to find the lost loved ones of others. This should never have gotten so bad for them they have to go to court to see that right is done.

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These group of responders believe their brain illness is linked to toxic air and dust from 9/11. Dozens of people who worked at the WTC site have developed brain cancer. 41 workers out of 7300 workers and family members involved in a group action have died as of 2006.

9/11 First Responders With Cancer Sue City

A group of first responders say their brain illness is linked to toxic air and dust from 9/11.A lawyer for several of those affected says the group is seeking immediate action by the city along with monetary damages. Dozens of people, including six NYPD officers, developed brain cancer after September 11th. Many are blaming the illness on their rescue and recovery work at the Trade Center site.Their attorney claims that out of the 7,300 sick workers and family members involved in the case, 41 have now died.The city’s lawyers say they will not comment on the case, because they have not yet seen the lawsuit. [REF=http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=58487]

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In this study of US nuclear workers, this researcher found that there was an increased risk of developing brain cancer. There appears to be an association between exposure to ionizing radiation and this type of cancer.

• http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5943245

Brain tumor risk among United States nuclear workers

Creator/Author Alexander, V. (Enviro-Medicine Associates, New Orleans, LA (United States)”….Overall, these index studies of more than 78,000 workers followed for an average of 21 years, with more than 1.6 million person years of observation, establish that there is a statistically significant 15% excess risk of brain cancer for workers in the U.S. nuclear industry who have low-dose average cumulative radiation exposures.55 references.”

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There is a cancer cluster of blood cell cancers among 9/11 workers. Some 75 out of a group of 40,000 to 50,000 workers have developed blood cell cancers.

• http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/runninscared/archives/003123.php

Is 9-11 Causing Cancer?

• posted: 5:45 PM, November 28, 2006 by Laura ConawayYou didn’t have to be in New York City on 9-11 to know how bad the air was for your body. The acrid smoke and dust, in shades of gray, brown and yellow, poured out from the rubble and covered vast tracts of the city. People in Brooklyn would later report finding high levels of asbestos in their apartments. You could hardly be surprised that the dust created chronic respiratory problems for those with prolonged exposure.But what Kristen Lombardi writes about in this week’s cover story is another matter. Some 75 recovery workers—people who spent weeks and months around the pile of rubble—have developed cancers of the blood. Enough people have gotten sick that scientists are beginning to suspect we may be looking at a cancer cluster—a 9-11 cancer cluster.Jonathan Harr, author of A Civil Action, reported on a cancer cluster in Woburn, Massachusetts, which many believed was caused by industrial pollutants in the water. Harr says that it’s hard to prove what causes a cluster, and that you have to approach them with a measure of caution. “The criticism is that you wait for proof and meanwhile people are dying,” he argues. “But proceeding on the basis of alarm is also the wrong thing to do.”How about you? Need more evidence? Ready to sound the alarm? Wondering whether it’s too late?SELECTED COMMENTS BELOW:I am most surprised that there has not been further outcry from the management and owners of companies with workers in the area. I worked 4 blocks from the pile for months, until the fires were out. I also went to classes at BMCC. 6 days a week. I got bloody noses every-day, and needed a combivent inhaler for two years. I know for a fact that many of my coworkers and classmates are in the same boat. I know the first responders deserve all of the care and attention they are getting, and much more, but what about the rest of NYC. The pollutants didn’t stop at the fences.Posted by: Matthew Sherian at November 29, 2006 5:14 PMI’ve been sentenced to Death Row by going to do what I was trained to do as a Rescue Worker on 9/11 at the WTC. Who can help me explain to my young children that because I went to help others, I am slowly dying from lung disease and other ailments?There is no accountability for the EPA lies. What is worse, Workers Comp denies my claims and wont pay the bills but they recognize I have lung disease from 9/11 and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.Is there anyone out there listening?

• WE NEED HELP!Posted by: Reggie Cervantes at November 29, 2006 7:32 PMI’m Australian – but was living in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn at the time of 9/11 – when I returned that day – my entire neighbourhood was covered in ash – my apartment was filled also. In the summer of 2002 I developed a severe pain in my back, which I thought was a pulled muscle. The doctor gave me some muscle relaxants and told me to rest for a couple of days. Two days later I found it difficult to breathe – it was my lung – I was rushed to Lennox Hill hospital with bacterial pneumonia – here I had an operation to have my lung drained. As it turns out, last night I had some pain in my lung and now found this article in my in box….very concerned…just wondering if there are any other people in the Carroll Gardens area with lung issues…?Posted by: Kim at November 30, 2006 6:46 PMI was a Chaplin at Ground O 1 month after i returned to Ohio i noticed a white spot on my tongue watched it for 1 year and found out it was precancer they had to remove a large portion of the tongue also suffer from lung problems a leg weakness and pain i have been not abel to work since 2003 and receive no compensation at all.Dr’s in Ohio have no clue how to even treat 911 responders thank god you live in NYC the cost to travel there from here for medical treatment is not possible .PLEASE get checked at once.for me it is to later my time is very short on this earth we did our best to answer the call for help and now they will not help us who are dieing.

• GOD bless all who are suffering from 911.you are all in my prayers.

• Fr.Stephen

OhioPosted by: Fr.Stephen at May 12, 2007 4:58 PMi lived in dumbo across the river from ground zero. not only did the air get raided by the seemingly endless cloud, but the city parked piles of the crashed vehicles from ground zero a block from my home. the air smelled like ground zero for weeks on end. in 2004, at age 43, i was diagnosed with multiple myeloma (an extraordinarily young age for this highly rare cancer), a blood cell cancer that has been linked to benzene, a predominant burn element from the “pile”. has anyone else in brooklyn gotten this/a blood cell cancer?Posted by: Mike at June 2, 2007 8:54 PM

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Here is a personal account of a WTC worker who developed acute myelogous leukemia, a white cell cancer. The person concerned attributes his cancer to benzene exposure but benzene levels were measured and declared to be in the safe range by the EPA at the time of the cleanup. Further discussion below. The other major risk factor for this kind of cancer is radiation exposure.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/sept11/features/9875/

• From: New York News and Features

Fallout

Three years after the World Trade Center attacks, thousands of cops, firefighters, and people who worked and lived near ground zero are sick with respiratory problems. Some have cancer. Is 9/11 to blame? And how safe are the rest of us?* By Jennifer SeniorWhen cops are ailing, they are not, as a rule, especially noisy about it. Two springs ago, John Walcott noticed his energy deserting him, but he blamed it on the sorts of things that any man who’s six-foot-two and built like a barge would blame it on—his newborn daughter, his hockey coaching, the daily strains of working in the NYPD narcotics unit, where he’d finally returned full-time after months of World Trade Center recovery work. As his energy continued to drain away, Walcott allowed for the possibility of stress, even an illness—Lyme disease, maybe? He contemplated going to the doctor, even though, as he puts it, he’s not a “go-to-the-doctor kind of guy.”Then came Mother’s Day, an occasion he and his wife would celebrate for the first time as parents—their daughter, Colleen, was born the previous June. Walcott spent that Sunday morning as he always did, running a local hockey clinic. His head swam. He tore through three Gatorades. He couldn’t catch his breath. He left practice early, stopped at ShopRite for groceries, and then pulled into his driveway. As he walked up the stairs to his home, his arms draped to the biceps in shopping bags (“I don’t like making more than one trip from the car to the house,” he says), he lost his breath again. And then Walcott, all 225 pounds of him, fell to his knees.Two weeks later, Walcott was in the hematologist’s office with a two-foot needle plunged into his tailbone, trying to keep still as the doctor scraped out samples of his bone marrow. It took just minutes to deliver the diagnosis: acute myelogenous leukemia, a white-blood-cell cancer. The doctor ordered Walcott straight to the hospital, where he stayed for 22 days undergoing chemotherapy. He lost his hair, coughed up dark chunks of blood, and watched the whites of his eyes turn red. His immune system was so compromised he was allowed only one visit with Colleen, then 11 months old, who stayed in her stroller under a plastic veil.“When I got diagnosed,” says Walcott, “I was going crazy. I’d never been sick. But I’ll never forget: I had a variety of doctors and nurses, and a question they all asked—which I found crazy at the time—was, ‘Were you ever exposed to radiation or benzene?’ They wanted to know if I worked in an airport or if I delivered airline fuel. And I was like, ‘No.’ ”“We were dumbfounded by how many people were sick, and how sick they were, and how sick they still are,” says a Mount Sinai doctor. “I’m frankly very concerned about cancer.”Later, a nurse explained that Walcott’s form of leukemia was sometimes associated with benzene exposure, a fact he mentioned to his sister the next time they spoke. She gingerly pointed out that of course he’d been exposed: What on earth did he think was stoking the flames of the World Trade Center if not jet fuel? The connection had never occurred to him. But when he thought about it, he was strangely relieved. “I sat back and said, ‘At least I know how I got this.’ In medical terms, I don’t know. But in my mind, I was sure.”Three years after September 11, it’s clear that the dust and fumes from the World Trade Center wreaked silent havoc on the lungs of thousands of rescue workers. But people like John Walcott raise a far graver question: What if it isn’t just their lungs? What if it’s their kidneys, their hearts? What if 9/11 gave them cancer? And if rescue workers are already this ill, what does that mean for the rest of us? What if the first responders aren’t the only ones to get sick, but the first in a mutely expanding ring?By Monday, lawyers for Walcott and a group of at least 600 other workers associated with the World Trade Center cleanup—cops, firefighters, sanitation workers, Transportation Department workers, Con Ed and Verizon employees, and independent day laborers, among others—are expected to file a class-action lawsuit in federal court against World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein and a number of ground-zero cleanup contractors. The same attorneys are also filing suit against the City of New York, the Port Authority, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The suits allege that dust from the 9/11 attacks made the plaintiffs sick, and seek billions of dollars in funding for medical screening and treatment and billions more in damages. (Other law firms already have similar, if more modest, cases pending against the city on behalf of similar plaintiffs.) The majority of the plaintiffs are suffering from the respiratory problems we’ve all heard so much about: asthma, sinusitis, chronic bronchitis. But others have kidney and heart problems. And at least twenty have cancers, says Walcott’s attorney David Worby, including leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, and esophageal and thyroid cancer. Two have died.If it seems a bit surprising to be talking about cancer so soon after the attacks, consider what we’re now learning about the people who helped clean up the pile: In a study of first responders released last Thursday, doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital’s WTC Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program found that nearly three-quarters of the 1,138 subjects they surveyed experienced new or exacerbated respiratory problems while working at ground zero; half had respiratory ailments that persisted for an average of eight months after their cleanup work had ended. The doctors have seen persistent sinusitis, chronic throat irritation, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), reactive-airways syndrome, and asthma. Then there’s “the Cough,” that infamous World Trade Center cough, which rescue workers once wore like a badge of honor, because it proved they were there. Few of them probably imagined they’d still be stuck with it today. “My tonsils look like strawberries—that’s a quote from my doctor,” says John Graham, an EMT and one of the screening program’s first patients. “They’re red and pitted with burns.”“We were dumbfounded by how many people were sick, and how sick they were, and how sick they still are,” says Robin Herbert, co-director of the screening program. The Sinai doctors haven’t seen an uptick in cancer rates, she says. “But given that we’ve been surprised by how sick people are—badly surprised—and given that people sustained massive exposures to a mix of toxins with unknown health effects, I’m frankly very concerned about cancer.”

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If benzene was such a hazard on 9/11 it would have caused toxicity symptoms, not cancer, exposure to benzene in the minute quantities for a few days would not cause cancer. It is like saying there will be an epidemic of cancers in people who worked for a week at a petrol station.

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Benzene – wrongly blamed for cancers

It is impossible for benzene to be responsible for the huge numbers of cancers now being seen among the WTC workers. The amount of benzene that was released on 9/11 was too small to cause such a toxic response in workers.

Ed Ward, an MD, has this to say about the cancers at the WTC. He refutes the idea that benzene contributed significantly to the spike in cancer rates, particularly blood cell cancers.

http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/06/09/25/ward.htmEd Ward – The Price of Liberty

In less than 1 hour, the first WTC building had collapsed and covered Manhattan, in at least 1/3 of a Million Tons of particulate debris. Unless the jet fuel makes a final appearance and is again resurrected by NIST in it’s 3rd miracle, benzene is buried under 1/3 of a million tons of particulate debris after 56 minutes of exposure. Benzene is also a component of gasoline. The assertion that cancer was the result of 56 minutes of exposure to minimal amounts of benzene is ludicrous. If that was true, everyone in the US would be suffering from cancers. As the 3rd WTC building falls, Manhattan is covered in two billion pounds of pulverized and aerosolized building.

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The report below shows that benzene levels at the WTC were not at hazardous levels. There had to be something else with greater carcinogenic potential than benzene and each plane that crashed carried 10,000 gallons of fuel, most of which was consumed in the fire at the WTC or spilled out at the time of the crash to be buried by the debris that fell on it when the towers blew apart and collapsed.

Radiation can produce these responses, the elevated incidence of cancers overall, the spikes in blood cell cancers, the chronic pulmonary diseases.

• http://oaspub.epa.gov/nyr/benzene_air_monitoring?p_addr_id=0360610262

EPA RESPONSE TO SEPT 11Monitoring Data:Albany & South EndBenzene Air Monitoring Data

• Benzene is a Volatile Organic Compound, or VOC, found in emissions from burning coal, oil and gasoline and in evaporation at gasoline service stations. These and other sources all contribute to the baseline level of benzene found in outdoor air. Benzene is also released from tobacco smoke.Benzene levels in urban areas like New York City fluctuate widely, across locations (near idling cars or trucks vs. on the waterfront) and across time (rush hour vs. middle of the night). Routine monitoring involves sampling over a 24-hour period to obtain an average concentration during that day.Data from routine monitoring sites in New York City collected prior to September 11 find some 24-hour average samples ranging up to approximately 4 parts per billion (ppb). In response to these urban area levels, EPA has adopted several programs to reduce benzene emissions from large urban sources such as motor vehicles. More information on these programs can be found at http://www.epa.gov/otaq.Measurements of benzene from World Trade Center smoke and associated cleanup activities (vehicles and equipment) included background levels from other more routine sources such as city traffic. Nearly all of these measurements were “grab” samples, lasting but a few minutes; they were intended to quickly compare levels at the work site with those found in the surrounding streets.To protect workers at the site, EPA attempted to identify the highest concentration levels of benzene by taking grab samples where smoke plumes had been sighted at the work site. Some of the results were dramatically higher (up to 4000 times) than those taken in the surrounding streets. EPA urged workers to wear respirators and other protective gear, which the Agency and others provided. Used properly, respirators can protect workers from exposure to benzene and other contaminants at the levels we have found. Benzene dissipates quickly and grab samples outside the work zone were drastically lower, indicating dramatic drop-offs in levels as you moved away from the debris pile. Full day air samples were also taken at eight sites, mainly along the outer edge of the work zone. These measurements, which were comparable to levels seen prior to September 11 in New York City, confirmed the rapid dissipation of benzene as you moved away from the debris pile and illustrated that over a full day, average levels were much lower than many of the levels captured in the grab samples. The full day air samples were all below EPA’s screening level, which was set to be protective against significantly increased risks of cancer and other adverse health effects. This screening level assumes continuous exposure for a year to an average concentration of 20 ppb.The table below shows the results of EPA monitoring for benzene since September 11.Full Day SamplesDate: 28-SEP-01Measurement*: Not DetectedUnits: ppb—————–

[REF=http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_1_3X_Benzene.asp?sitearea=PED]

[Note short-term exposure is not what causes cancer it is long term exposure which causes cancer. ]

Environmental exposures. Sources of benzene in the environment include gasoline, automobile exhaust fumes, cigarette smoke, emissions from coke ovens and other industrial processes, and waste water from certain industries. While benzene is commonly found in air in both urban and rural areas, the levels are usually very low. Areas of heavy vehicular traffic, gasoline stations, and areas near industrial sources may have higher air levels. Cigarettes have been found to release between 50 and 150 micrograms of benzene per cigarette, so smoking and second-hand smoke are important sources of exposure to benzene. Cigarette smoke accounts for about half of the US national exposure to benzene and for about 89% of benzene exposure among smokers. Secondhand smoke accounts for 10% of benzene exposure among nonsmokers. Benzene has also been identified in contaminated water and food.

Consumer products. Some consumer household products, such as glues, cleaning products, detergents, art supplies, and paint strippers, contain benzene.

Does Benzene Cause Any Other Health Problems?

Short-term effects. Short-term exposure (less than one year) to high doses (700-3,000 ppm) of benzene may cause drowsiness, dizziness, headaches, tremors, confusion, and/or unconsciousness. Consuming foods or fluids contaminated with high levels of benzene can cause vomiting, irritation of the stomach, dizziness, sleepiness, convulsions, and rapid heart rate. In extreme cases, death may occur after oral ingestion or inhalation of very high concentrations (approximately 10,000-20,000 ppm) of benzene.

Long-term effects. Long-term and/or high level exposure (one year or longer) to benzene may interfere with normal blood cell production by hematopoietic (blood forming) cells in the b one marrow. This may result in anemia (decreased ability of blood to transport oxygen) and low white blood cell counts (decreased ability of blood to fight infections), and can even be life-threatening. There is some evidence that benzene may also be harmful to reproductive organs.

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• [REF=http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGkwE9lnRGt1EAqohXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE3YmljMTR0BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMTAEY29sbwN3BHZ0aWQDRjc1NV83MwRsA1dTMQ–/SIG=11tgkl7ep/EXP=1182132157/**http%3a//www.epa.gov/NCEA/pdfs/benzenef.pdf]”Also, almost all of the 9 leukemia victims in the Pliofilm cohort received long intervals of exposure and 7 experienced latent periods of 15 years or longer.”

Table 1. Relative risk as a function of cumulative exposure
Cumulative exposure
(ppm-years) Relative risk
0-40 1.1
40-200 3.2
200-400 11.9
More than 400 66.4

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• [REF=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0648,lombardi,75156,2.html]

FROM: THE VILLAGE VOICE

Death by DustThe frightening link between the 9-11 toxic cloud and cancerby Kristen Lombardi
November 28th, 2006 5:22 PMTo date, 75 recovery workers at ground zero 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. Ernie Vallabuona is one of them.It was October 6, 2004, three years after Ernie Vallebuona’s three-month stint as a rescue and recovery worker at ground zero in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, and he was hunched over and trembling, racked by a pain like nothing he had experienced in his 40 years of sound health. He had just returned to his Rockland County home after finishing the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift in the NYPD vice unit, where he’d reported to work for the last six years. Vallebuona had bought some fish from a street vendor near his office, on the Lower East Side. And as he drove the 35 miles from Manhattan to New City, he chalked up a searing stomachache to food poisoning. Maybe the vendor had filleted that fish with a dirty machete?By the time he pulled into his driveway, the pain had grown excruciating, too horrible for him to even lie in bed that day. The chills swept over his body; so did the shakes. He called his doctor, who suggested ulcer medication. His mother advised him to forget that diagnosis and consult a specialist instead, but like a lot of young, healthy men, he didn’t listen right away.Vallebuona isn’t much for complaining; what ailing cop is? But for six months, he had noticed his body betraying him. His toes had reddened; his joints had stiffened. They throbbed in prickly pangs, as if glass shards were wedged underneath his skin. When his own heartbeat began to hurt, he had visited the family doctor, who diagnosed him with gout. He was told to drink cherry juice and take anti-inflammatory medicine. Neither worked.Now as his stomach convulsed, Vallebuona listened to his mother at last. Later that day, he found himself at a gastroenterologist’s office in Pomona, lying on a table, watching a nurse poke at his abdomen. She felt a lump and ordered tests. It would take a month to reach a definitive diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphoid tissue. Evidently, Vallebuona had developed a golf-ball-sized mass in his abdomen that had grown so fast and so quick that pieces of it were dying and depositing into his blood, causing gout-like symptoms.One week after that, he was at a Manhattan hospital, meeting his oncologist, hearing about the heavy-duty chemotherapy he would have to undergo over the next four months. At the visit, a nurse explained he had an aggressive cancer—a rare stage-three—and asked a battery of questions.Did he ever do modeling with glue?
Did he ever handle insecticides?
Did he ever work with chemicals like benzene?Vallebuona answered no to all the questions. He had led a clean life; before becoming a cop, he’d worked in a bank.Sitting in the examining room with him, Vallebuona’s wife, Amy, finally spoke up.”What about 9-11?” she asked. “What about all that smoke and dust?”Only then did Ernie Vallebuona first consider the possibility that the events of September 11 could be the cause of his cancer.This is not the story of rescue and recovery workers at ground zero getting sick with respiratory illnesses from their exposure; you have read those stories, and you have heard those cases.This is the story of 9-11 and cancer.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.”No reasonable person would have thought that telling thousands of people that it was safe to return to Lower Manhattan, while knowing that such return could pose long-term health risks and other dire consequences, was conduct sanctioned by our laws,” Batts wrote in her February 2 ruling. “Whitman’s deliberate and misleading statements made to the press, where she reassured the public that the air was safe to breathe around Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, and that there would be no health risk presented to those returning to the areas, shocks the conscience.”And that was before anyone knew of the apparent cancer link, first reported in the New York news media in the spring of 2004. Even more shocking is the incidence of cancer and other life-threatening illnesses that have developed among those participating in the recovery workers’ lawsuits. Given the fact that some cancers are slower to develop than others, it seems likely to several doctors and epidemiologists that many more reports of cancer and serious lung illnesses will surface in the months and years to come. The fact that 8,500 recovery workers have already banded together to sue, only five years later—with 400 total cancer patients among their number—leads many experts to predict that these figures are likely to grow, meaning a possible death toll in the thousands.In many ways, these illnesses suggest the slow but deteriorating health issues that faced the atomic-bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where thousands died in the years and decades that followed the United States’ use of nuclear weapons. And that similarity has not been lost on David Worby, the 53-year-old attorney leading the joint-action suits on behalf of those workers who are already sick, and even dying.

“In the end,” Worby declares, “our officials might be responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden on 9-11.”

In the five years since the attacks, much of the focus on the 9-11 health crisis has missed a broader question, the one that every ground zero worker fears most and the one that Ernie Vallebuona has already had to ponder: What about cancer? What if all that pulverized concrete and ground glass and caustic mist that Vallebuona inhaled while on the Pile didn’t attack his lungs but instead went straight for his lymph nodes? Could this noxious mix have caused his lymphoma?

No one has done a comprehensive study of the health consequences on the estimated 40,000 rescue and recovery workers who raced to ground zero after the attacks. A study by Mount Sinai Medical Center—one that received widespread media attention two months ago—released statistics on the five-year anniversary of 9-11 that focused almost exclusively on respiratory problems and bypassed any mention of cancer today.

But David Worby has tracked the cancer patients among his growing client base for the last two years. Here are the latest tallies: Of the 8,500 people now suing the city, 400, or about 5 percent, have cancer. The biggest group by far consists of people like Vallebuona, who have blood cell cancers. Seventy-five clients suffer from lymphoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, and other blood cell cancers; most are men, aged 30 to 60, who appeared in perfect health just five years ago.

The field of cancer research is not known for consensus. But six prominent specialists on cancer and the link to toxins—on the faculty of the nation’s top medical schools and public health institutions—all come to the same conclusions when told these statistics. They are Richard Clapp and David Ozonoff, professors of environmental health at Boston University School of Public Health; Michael Thun, director of epidemiological research at the American Cancer Society; Francine Laden, assistant professor of environmental epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health; Jonathan Samet, chairman of the epidemiology department at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; and Charles Hesdorffer, associate professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. These doctors and epidemiologists agree that the incidence of cancer among this subset of workers sounds shockingly high, that they cannot and should not be dismissed as coincidence, and that the toxic dust cloud that hung over downtown Manhattan, and particularly the Pile, likely caused or promoted the diseases. Some even went so far as to say that the blood cancer cases, especially, indicate what could become a wave of cancer cases stemming from 9-11 over the next decades.

“Those numbers seem quite outrageous,” is how Hesdorffer puts it. Now at Johns Hopkins, Hesdorffer directed until last year the tumor immunotherapy program at Columbia University Medical Center, where he treated two recovery workers who got cancer post–9-11. He notes that the average healthy adult person has a 20 percent risk of having cancer over a lifetime. Calculate that risk over five years—the time frame from the events of 9-11 until today—and it drops to about 1 percent. Yet 5 percent of the suits’ workers—1 percent of the overall worker population—have already been diagnosed with malignancies. And these patients don’t include the thousands whose illnesses have yet to be recorded because they aren’t participating in the lawsuits or in the World Trade Center medical-monitoring programs.

What the experts find most telling are the types of cancer now emerging. They say the blood cancer cases seem too disproportionate to be random. Two percent of these workers have been diagnosed with what amounts to related diseases, none of which fall into the “high-frequency” category, which includes prostate cancer. One out of 9,000 people nationwide gets lymphoma a year; for myeloma, it’s one out of 30,000. By contrast, the 75 blood cancer patients translate into several dozen new cases a year.

“That’s not just a fluke,” says Ozonoff, who studies cancer clusters and toxic waste sites.

Samet, a worldwide expert on smoking and cancer, notes that when so many cases of related cancers emerge, it can signal a forming cluster. “It sounds like an impressive cluster of cancer cases, and I would want to study it,” he says.

To be sure, the experts advise caution until more evidence is collected. They acknowledge that the data needed to draw a definite link between 9-11 and cancer don’t exist. None of the cancers emerging now are the kinds that come only from toxic exposures—like, say, asbestosis, which is caused by asbestos and can take two decades to grow. This sentinel cancer would go a long way toward proving a 9-11 connection. Absent that, scientists would want to determine whether a higher proportion of cancer patients exists among the workers than in the general public. But because there are no independent data on the 40,000-strong group, they can’t make this calculation yet. Meanwhile, the latency periods for most cancers from the time of a full-blown carcinogenic exposure to a full-blown malignancy can take years, if not decades. Says Thun, of the American Cancer Society: “It is the exception rather than the rule to have cancers develop this quickly.”

Despite the lack of definitive data, we may still be in the midst of a cancer epidemic. Indeed, according to these experts, traditional data don’t help much here because 9-11 represents such a singular exposure. No one can deny that the workers were exposed to a blend of pulverized and aerosolized toxins that had never existed in any occupational setting before. And this mix of toxins alone is enough to cause more aggressive cancers.

“It’s also enough to throw out prescriptions on timing,” Hesdorffer adds.

Back in May 2004, before most doctors even contemplated a 9-11 link to cancer, Hesdorffer provided testimony to the federal government’s September 11 Victim Compensation Fund on behalf of one police officer who had developed pancreatic cancer within a year after his recovery stint. Hesdorffer finds it odd that two of his patients had been diagnosed with the rare cancer after working on the Pile. “It’s strange to have two people who were subjected to the same exposure,” he says, “developing the same cancer in the same time frame.” Now that he has learned of Worby’s statistics, he is convinced that “there is definitely more than a likely link between the 9-11 exposures and cancer.”

Francine Laden, who specializes in air pollution and cancer, agrees. Because so many of Worby’s clients have blood cancers—which have faster incubation periods than tumor cancers, forming in as little as five years—Laden confirms that it’s not a stretch to attribute their diseases to the dust cloud. “Blood cancers are different,” she says, noting the tie between benzene and leukemia, as well as dioxin and lymphoma. “It’s not beyond the realm of feasibility that these chemicals caused these cancers.”

Ozonoff puts it more firmly: “For an acute episode like this, it’s definitely possible these blood cancers were caused by 9-11.”

Ozonoff echoes all five of his colleagues when he draws parallels between the aftermath of 9-11 and that of another massive exposure: the atomic-bombs dropped on Japan. Bomb survivors experienced excessive spikes in leukemia rates within the first five years, a surprising discovery for epidemiologists in the mid 20th century. While this outbreak resulted from radiation, both it and 9-11 involved a sudden and intense blast of carcinogens. For bomb survivors, leukemia appeared first, followed by breast and lung cancer. “That could happen with 9-11,” says Samet, the Johns Hopkins epidemiology department chair. “It might be what we’re seeing today.”

It’s also possible that the carcinogens in the Trade Center dust accelerated cancers already dormant or developing in the recovery workers, epidemiologists say. According to Richard Clapp, who directed the Massachusetts Cancer Registry from 1980 to 1989, toxins can not only instigate the genes that cause cancerous cells to divide, but also hasten their dividing. That means that a person with an undetected cancer will develop it faster and in a more virulent manner. He calls this the “promotional effect” and says some toxins associated with 9-11 have been known to speed up lymphomas and leukemias. “The promotional effect could have happened already,” he says.

Either way, Clapp adds, “It’s hard not to attribute these cancers to 9-11.” His gut, he says, is telling him one thing: “We’ll be seeing a cancer explosion from 9-11, and we’re starting to see it today.”

A nurse would ask John Walcott about possible causes of his acute myelogenous leukemia. Like Vallebuona, Walcott answered no to all the questions. And like Vallebuona, he didn’t connect the dots between his time at ground zero and the cancer growing in his body.
photo: Scott McDermott

At 8:30 on the morning of the terrorist attacks, Ernie Vallebuona was driving with his three-year-old son, also named Ernie, to a nearby Home Depot in search of the perfect paint color for the family bathroom. Vallebuona always listens to 1010 WINS in the car, so he turned on the radio. He soon heard the incredible news that a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers. Instantly, he got the call to respond.

“We’re all mobilizing,” his NYPD supervisor told him via cell phone. “Get to work as fast as you can.”

Over in Pomona, some 36 miles away from Manhattan, 37-year-old NYPD detective John Walcott was at his suburban home, killing time before a midnight tour on the narcotics unit, where he’d worked for a dozen years. He was relaxing on the couch when a friend from St. Louis called.

“What the hell is going on in New York?” the friend asked, incredulously. Walcott had no idea what his friend meant. He flipped on the TV, only to see flames raging from the twin towers. Minutes later, he was behind the wheel of his minivan, speeding down the highway toward the World Trade Center.

Some 200 miles southeast of the Trade Center site, 49-year-old Gary Acker was working in a bomb shelter dubbed the “earth station,” an undisclosed location where AT&T keeps its large satellite dishes. At the time, Acker was managing the company’s disaster recovery team, which restores critical communications after catastrophes. He had long viewed the post as the crowning achievement in his 31-year career, one that suited his desire to make a difference.

When the first plane hit the north tower, he was sitting in an equipment room, four floors below ground, running emergency drills. No one had turned on the TV, so he remained oblivious to the events unfolding in Manhattan. His wife, Alison, called him.

“Look at the TV,” she said, just as the second plane hit the south tower. Acker knew that New York City officials would be calling AT&T for help. “Pack up your equipment,” he heard his wife say, “and get ready to ride.”

Back in Manhattan, Jessy McCarthy was not about to roll anywhere. The Verizon field technician was sitting in his office on East 91st Street, listening to the news on the radio, when he heard about the planes hitting the towers. He froze in place, unable to pull himself away from the broadcast for hours that day. Only that afternoon did he manage to go to a nearby work site to repair phone lines. Sitting in his truck, he stared in disbelief at all the people doused in gray dust walking up Third Avenue from downtown. His eyes locked on the caravan of people who’d been caught in that cloud.

By the time McCarthy was taking in this ghostly scene, Vallebuona and Walcott had joined thousands of first responders at the World Trade Center. Both arrived at the site shortly after the 110-story twin towers came crashing down, and they spent the next 15 hours sifting through the wreckage. Racing to the scene from the Seventh Precinct, on Pitt Street, Vallebuona encountered a giant cloud of dust and smoke so hazy and dense, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. He circled the periphery of what he thought was the scene, following the blaring sirens and running past pumper trucks and police cruisers twisted up like discarded tin cans. The dust caked his eyes and coated his lips. It filled his nostrils with a horrible smell, like burned plastic and flesh. Vallebuona happened to have a bandanna in his pants pocket, which he wrapped across his face. It did little to ward off the rancid odor.

Walcott was also experiencing the noxious effects of the chemical brew. While the massive cloud had dissipated, the crystalline particles hung in the air like speckles in a snow globe. He waded though mounds of pulverized dust, knee-deep, tasting it on his lips, spitting it out of his mouth. Without a mask, he was coughing immediately. First came the black mucus and ashen chunks, then the dry heaves and blood. For hours, he wiped away dark gunk dripping from his eyes. He couldn’t help but think that something was wrong. But he focused on the mission at hand, on the faint hope of discovering survivors. That day, he stepped over the only human body that he would find intact—a female, burned beyond recognition, a charred bra over her face.

Acker arrived on the scene 24 hours later, after driving with 11 team members up the East Coast in a company trailer equipped with satellite transmission consoles and multiplex cables. He would spend the next 33 days in and around ground zero—first setting up a satellite at 1 Police Plaza, then manning phone lines across the street from what came to be known as the Pile. The plume enveloped the area from the moment he set foot there until he left. Many nights, he’d oversee the satellite atop 1 Police Plaza, just east of ground zero, and watch as the prevailing winds subsided and the bright-blue smoke settled in. It hung so heavily on the city that he couldn’t see the guards stationed across the street.

In these early days, Acker, Vallebuona, and Walcott all struggled to protect themselves from the toxic dust. The foul odor clogged the air for the three months that Vallebuona ended up working at the site—first on the Pile, hauling rubble with buckets, then around the perimeter, providing security and escorting residents to their dust-laden homes. When he and Walcott searched the rubble as part of the initial bucket brigade, they wore nothing over their faces but surgical masks. Respirator masks came weeks into their months-long recovery work; sometimes they came with the wrong filters.

Because Walcott was a detective, he ended up spending his five-month stint not just at ground zero, but also at Fresh Kills. As much as he choked on the Lower Manhattan air, he dreaded the Staten Island landfill. Walcott knew everything in the towers had fallen—desks, lights, computers. But apart from the occasional steel beam, the detritus that he sifted through there consisted of tiny grains of dust—no furniture pieces, no light fixtures, not even a computer mouse.

At times, the detectives would take shelter in wooden sheds, in an attempt to get away from what Walcott likes to call “all that freaking bad air.” One day, he was sitting in the shed with his colleagues, eating candy bars and drinking sodas, when some FBI agents entered. They were dressed in full haz-mat suits, complete with head masks, which they had sealed shut with duct tape to ward off the fumes. As Walcott took in the scene, contrasting the well-protected FBI agents with the New York cops wearing respirator masks, one thought entered his mind: What is wrong with this picture?

The same thought would cross Acker’s mind only fleetingly, and only after weeks of working near ground zero, while he was hacking so hard he vomited something akin to chewed-up licorice. During his first days at the site, he wore the painter’s mask that an NYPD lieutenant had given him, but it soon became too filthy from debris. By October, he was spitting up so much gunk that he called his doctor for an antibiotics prescription. But he wouldn’t leave the site; when the fumes got bad, he’d sit in the company trailer and flip on the air conditioner. That had a filter, at least. AT&T had stocked its disaster trailers with almost everything—rubber boots, hard hats, rope, a first aid kit. Funny, Acker thought, staring at the shelves. All this stuff, yet no one had ever considered respirators.

Around this time, McCarthy was just beginning to report for recovery duty. When Verizon asked for volunteers to restore phone lines near ground zero, he didn’t hesitate. He arrived for his first assignment in early October and wound up staying downtown for the next 13 months, going from basement to basement, moving from Wall Street skyscrapers to Chinatown walk-ups. The first thing he saw in the company terminals was the Trade Center dust, piled on top of consoles, crammed into corners. He had to wipe down the equipment with his bare hands to see the wires. The dust had an orange hue; at times, it twinkled. And it always stunk, an unforgettable smell he struggled to get past every time. Invariably, he’d find it in his hair, on his eyelashes, in his tool belt, even under his fingernails. Sometimes, he’d gaze at the ceiling and get the sense of standing in the middle of a meadow thick with pollen. He could see the soot and dust floating in the air.

When it occurred to these responders that they might be sacrificing their health for the sake of the cleanup—as it did to anyone who came in contact with the foul-smelling smoke and dust—they took comfort in the official word at the time. In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, the EPA issued multiple statements on the air quality downtown. All were reassuring in nature. On September 18, the day after the New York Stock Exchange reopened for business, the EPA’s Whitman said the air was safe to breathe.

It has turned out those words were, in fact, false. In August 2003, the EPA inspector general issued a scathing 155-page report concluding that the agency hadn’t had the data to make such blanket declarations at that time. By then, more than a quarter of EPA samples showed unsafe levels of asbestos, and the agency had yet to complete tests for mercury, cadmium, lead, dioxin, and PCBs. The inspector general’s report went on to disclose another disconcerting fact—that the White House had pressured the EPA to sanitize its warnings about ground zero. The inspector general revealed that the White House Council on Environmental Quality had taken a red pen to the agency’s press releases, adding reassuring statements and deleting cautionary ones, creating the overly rosy picture that the air was clean.

In reality, the 9-11 fallout was like nothing anyone had been exposed to before. Everything in the towers had been ground into dust—concrete, steel, glass, insulation, plastic, and computers. Dust analyses would detect glass shards, cement particles, cellulose fibers, asbestos, and a mixture of harmful components, including lead, titanium, barium, and gypsum. In all, the dust contained more than 100 different compounds, some of which have never been identified. And then there were the fires that smoldered for three months. They gave off not only the putrid plume, but also a blast of carcinogens—asbestos, dioxin, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. They also emitted benzene.

In one disturbing analysis done by the U.S. Geological Survey, the dust had such high alkalinity levels it rivaled liquid Drano.

Thomas Cahill, a physicist who sent a team to analyze the plume from a rooftop a mile away from ground zero, says he got worried once he noticed the color of the smoke had turned a fluorescent blue. That’s a sure sign that ultra-fine particles (which can go deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream) were coming off the Pile and permeating the air. When his team tested the plume, the scientists found higher levels of sulfuric acid, heavy metals, and other insoluble materials than anywhere else in the world, even in the Kuwaiti oil fields. “Not nice stuff,” says Cahill, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California at Davis, who has published three papers on the 9-11 plume, “and it was all being liberated by that smoldering pile, so those people got the full force of it.”

Today, Cahill is trying to identify what exactly the recovery workers were inhaling, but the data are incomplete. He does know one thing for certain: “You’d have to stand by a busy highway for eight years to get what these people on the site got in just four weeks.” He then adds, “These poor people are part of an enormous experiment, I think.”

In May 2003, John Walcott was 39 years old. He had just become a first-time father—of his daughter, Colleen—and had proudly coached a Bedford high school hockey team to the state regionals. That spring, he had noticed his energy fade. But he figured his 16-hour days juggling the narcotics beat, hockey practice, and parenthood were finally catching up to him. Still, the fatigue would consume him for weeks. He’d fall asleep at his desk or behind the wheel. Often he’d nod off in the middle of a conversation.

Then he got the diagnosis: acute myelogenous leukemia, a white-blood-cell cancer. He was ordered straight to the hospital, where he underwent chemotherapy for the next 28 days.

Eventually, a nurse would ask Walcott questions similar to those put to Valle-buona, the ones meant to pinpoint the possible causes for his cancer. Like Vallebuona, Walcott answered no to all the questions. And like Vallebuona, he didn’t connect the dots between his time at ground zero and the cancer growing in his body.

Visiting him in the hospital later, his sister, Debbie, did.

“John,” she said, “what the hell do you think you were around at ground zero?”

It was a question that Gary Acker would also have to confront that summer, in a visit to his own doctor’s office. The AT&T manager had never shaken that World Trade Center cough, struggling with sore throats and lung infections for 18 months after completing his recovery work, suffering through all kinds of inhalers and antibiotic regimens. At one point, his doctor diagnosed him with sleep apnea and ordered him to wear a pilot-like mask strapped over his face at night, so as to reduce his roaring snores. It didn’t work.

A perennial optimist, Acker ignored any hint that his health problems were 9-11 related. In September 2002, he got the first warning that his health was deteriorating from exposure to the dust cloud when he underwent a pulmonary test for the company. He was stunned by the doctor’s response.

“How many packs of cigarettes do you smoke a day?” the doctor asked Acker.

“I don’t smoke. I never have in my life.”

“Well, you have a real breathing problem,” the doctor informed him.

His second warning came in the summer of 2003, as Walcott was getting chemotherapy. In August, Acker was landscaping the backyard at his home, in Columbus, New Jersey, carrying two 50-pound buckets of stones, when his body buckled under a jolt of pain. It felt as if somebody had jabbed a fishhook into his rib cage and was slowly gutting him. He allowed for the possibility of a kidney stone and paid a trip to the doctor. Days later, he got a diagnosis that would stop his heart cold: multiple myeloma, a plasma cell cancer. Already, the super- advanced cancer had eaten its way through the bone marrow in his ribs, as well as many other bones in his body.

For a fleeting moment, Acker thought about that thick and foul plume hanging over the Pile; could it have caused his cancer? But his optimism flooded back and he focused on his treatment instead—on the chemotherapy pills that he would take twice a day for the next 28 days. Only days later, after his oncologist confirmed that his myeloma likely formed in the last two years, did he finally make the tie-in to 9-11.

By the spring of 2004, Acker and Walcott had endured not only months of chemotherapy, but also stem cell transplants. They experienced a series of life-threatening infections and trips in and out of the hospital before beating their cancers into remission.

For a fleeting moment, Gary Acker thought about that thick and foul plume hanging over the Pile; could it have caused his multiple myeloma?

Meanwhile, Vallebuona had just begun noticing gout-like symptoms. They started in his big toes, which doubled in size and became hot to the touch, and then moved to his knees, joints, and chest. For six months, he went back and forth to the doctor, getting more medicine, seeking more remedies. He wouldn’t doubt that diagnosis until October 2004, when the searing stomachache tipped him off to what had really been causing pain in his abdomen.

When he got the cancer diagnosis, Valle-buona was relieved about one thing. His doctor had been wrong about the gout. If nothing else, at least he wouldn’t have to live with that excruciating pain for the rest of his life.

As Vallebuona was coming to grips with his cancer in the fall of 2004, Jessy McCarthy was still feeling healthy. The Verizon technician had managed to evade the kinds of respiratory problems that have afflicted so many ground zero workers—the cough, the sinusitis, the asthma—in the two years since his recovery assignment had ended. He would experience nothing to suggest the grave disease that would sneak up on him.

At least not until one day in October 2004, while taking a shower, when he saw a swelling around the glands under his arm, about the size of a marble. He thought: This is not right.

In March 2005, after a biopsy of one of his lymph nodes, Jessy McCarthy finally was given the definitive diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. By then, the recovery workers’ lawsuits had been more than a year in the making.
photo: Scott McDermott

But McCarthy didn’t feel sick; there were no dizzy spells or nausea. A trip to the family doctor to ask about the lump yielded little information, just something questionable about his blood. So McCarthy plodded on with his life, holding down his full-time job, taking care of his teenage son.

Suddenly, within weeks, he noticed the lump had grown, and more had developed. His lymph nodes swelled all over his body, underneath his arms, in his groin, around his neck and chest. The lumps just seemed to sprout; they grew so big that they looked like mini-baseballs. Suddenly, McCarthy found himself undergoing a battery of medical exams—CAT scans, PET scans, blood tests, and anything else that would help narrow down the possibilities. It took six months to rule out every type of lymphatic infection. In March 2005, after a biopsy of one of his lymph nodes, McCarthy finally was given the definitive diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

By then, the recovery workers’ lawsuits had been more than a year in the making. Back in the winter of 2004, Walcott had just survived the worst of his hospital stays, a 17-day stretch of 106-degree fevers, and was confined to his home. Months had passed since he learned that his leukemia likely resulted from his exposure to benzene while on the Pile, but he went in search of legal advice. He started with a lawyer friend, who encouraged him to keep looking. One attorney offered to take Walcott’s case, as long as he put up his modest house to cover the fees. “Forget it,” he said.

Eventually, parents of the kids on his high school hockey team heard about his plight. During a visit, Walcott told some parents about his fruitless search. They had an idea. They could contact a trial lawyer whose son went to the same high school; his name was David Worby.

“I took the case as a favor,” the lead attorney in the recovery workers’ lawsuits says, sitting in his spacious penthouse office in White Plains. A trim man whose brown hair is graying at the temples, David Worby exudes confidence as he reclines in his chair and recalls the early days of what has become his greatest legal crusade. Long before the 9-11 suits, he had built a reputation as a gladiator lawyer on personal-injury cases; in 1989, he set a Westchester record by winning $18 million for a construction worker run down by a car. Fifteen years later, he was settling into early retirement when one of the Bedford parents told him about the ailing Walcott.

“What was I supposed to do?” Worby asks.

What started out as a case for one sick recovery worker quickly snowballed. Today, a team of 20 attorneys at his firm of Worby Groner Edelman Napoli & Bern is handling the suits, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, for the thousands of workers associated with the Trade Center cleanup—police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers, iron workers, and Latino day workers. Last month, Federal District Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected the city’s claim for immunity in the Worby lawsuits and recently capped its liability at $1 billion. The judge is expected to appoint a special master to settle the workers’ claims.

Worby’s client list continues to grow. It now includes Vallebuona, Acker, and McCarthy, all of whom came to him after he filed the first suits in September 2004. They found out about him as most of his clients do—by word of mouth, one sick recovery worker to another, one worried spouse to another. Others have called him after hearing about the cases on TV or the radio or in the papers. Most of the clients have grown ill from respiratory problems like asthma, sinusitis, and bronchitis. But some have kidney failure, and 400 people have developed cancer. So far, 83 clients have died.

The number of cancer patients has multiplied at a rate that Worby says he never anticipated. Back in 2004, he represented only 20 workers who had cancer. But by last March, he had watched that number soar to 200, and within six months after that, it had doubled. Now he gets at least several calls a week from clients who have just been diagnosed with some cancer. Or from new clients who have had the cancer for weeks or months.

Like many trial lawyers, Worby has a penchant for talking in fervent, breathless tones, as though his words were writ large, in bright, blinking letters. Convinced that the 9-11 fallout has made for a cancer explosion, he doesn’t hesitate to say so. “There is going to be a cancer catastrophe the likes of which we’ve never seen in this country,” he says. “The numbers are going to be staggering.”

Perhaps it’d be easy to dismiss him as another hot-aired plaintiffs’ attorney were it not for his own command of numbers. He has become something of a gumshoe epidemiologist, compiling the data on his cancer patients that are lacking in the larger worker population, tracking their diseases, ages, diagnosis dates, and their 9-11 exposures. “Look at the cancers my clients have,” he says, flipping through a dozen pages of a document entitled “Seriously Ill Clients.” It’s updated every month; this one is dated September 13, 2006. The document outlines what he calls his “cancer clusters” and lists rare cancers often associated with the 9-11 toxins, such as thyroid (30 people), tongue and throat (25), testicular (16), and brain (10). He keeps a separate document on the 75 people with blood cancers. Two dozen of them have various forms of leukemia; the remaining four dozen have various forms of lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and other blood cell cancers.

“If I had two blood cancers, it’d be a strong coincidence,” Worby argues. “But 70? That defies coincidence. The word coincidence should not be in anyone’s vocabulary.”

Worby contends that it wasn’t just the unprecedented amount of toxins in the air that caused his clients to develop cancer; it was that the toxins worked together. Worby calls it a “synergistic effect,” and cancer specialists say there is such a thing as toxic synergy, which occurs when chemicals combine. They can enhance the damage that the other ones would cause. Think of it this way: The benzene at ground zero may have caused Walcott’s acute leukemia; the dioxin probably sped up its development.

“This amount of toxicological exposure is going to speed up normal latency periods,” Worby argues. He makes this assertion with the same zeal that he exhibits in the courtroom, citing medical studies on animals, rattling off the findings as if they were second nature. Why would the doctors monitoring the effects of 9-11 on people’s health not understand this connection, he wonders. “Why would people not make this link?”

Five years after September 11, there’s no doubt that the toxic dust cloud has devastated the lungs of those who participated in the Trade Center cleanup. In September, the Mount Sinai Medical Center released data from its WTC Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program, which has tested 17,500 recovery workers to date. In that analysis, doctors found that nearly 70 percent of the 9,500 subjects they surveyed experienced new or worsened respiratory symptoms at ground zero; close to 60 percent saw those symptoms persist for years. Doctors have seen chronic sinusitis, laryngitis, asthma, gastroesophageal reflux disorder, and disabling musculoskeletal conditions. Even the famous World Trade Center cough has lasted much longer than anticipated.

“All of us have been badly surprised by the persistence and the chronicity of the World Trade Center diseases,” says Robin Herbert, the director of the screening program.

But at the Mount Sinai program (and at the WTC program of the FDNY, which declined to comment for this article), the link between the dust cloud and cancer is discussed more as a possibility than a reality. It’s not that doctors aren’t extremely concerned about the connection, Herbert says, given the cancer-causing agents and other toxins in the mix. While individual cancer cases may be attributed to 9-11 toxins, she says, the doctors, so far, lack full epidemiological proof linking the two.

“We don’t know if we’re seeing a spike in cancer rates,” Herbert says, as they have in the rates of respiratory illnesses. Herbert confirms that the Mount Sinai doctors have seen some workers with cancer, including unusual cancers, but says they’d expect some workers to develop malignancies over the last five years anyway. Is there more incidence of cancer among Pile workers than among those who didn’t toil on the Pile? “That’s the key question,” she says. The Mount Sinai epidemiologists have just begun to try to answer that by launching an initiative to update medical records, document new diagnoses, and track less-com mon diseases like cancer. It’s a slow process, with no timeline. Still, she says, “We are now aggressively investigating every case of cancer that has been reported to us.”

But the WTC programs—funded by the federal government—have their share of critics, who wonder how interested the doctors are in the 9-11 and cancer issue. Al O’Leary, the spokesperson for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, says that many of its members feel as if the doctors are ignoring the signs of a growing cancer cluster. “It was our impression that no one in the medical-monitoring programs believed the cancers could be happening this early,” he explains.

Over the past year, the police union has fielded a steady increase in calls from members who have developed cancer since working at ground zero. Last July, the PBA started its own World Trade Center health registry for its members, listing seven cancer cases at the time. Today, there are 20 cases; they include the 35-year-old who worked on the Pile and at Fresh Kills and now has multiple myeloma, the 45-year-old who surveyed the Trade Center site for two years and now has leukemia, and the 41-year-old who manned the landfill morgue for three weeks and now has myeloma.

“Now, don’t you think this is all very suspicious?” O’Leary asks. “The medical community needs to be more open-minded about what diseases can be caused by 9-11.”

Some cancer specialists agree. Hesdorffer, of Johns Hopkins, still remembers the reaction to his testimony before the Victim Compensation Fund, back in 2004. He was called back about a half-dozen times to explain why he would attribute the pancreatic cancer in his two patients to the dust cloud so soon after 9-11. It was as if no one wanted to make the connection; one patient lost his claim despite the doctor’s opinion.

“We’re in this period where no one wants to accept the link,” Hesdorffer observes. Maybe the official denial stems from economics, from a desire to limit the amount of money owed to the thousands who have lost their health. Or maybe it has to do with politics. Admitting a link, as he points out, “would mean that the fallout from 9-11 was a lot bigger than we’d thought.”

What it would mean is that people got cancer from government decisions. From the decision of Whitman to lie about the air quality in Lower Manhattan, which gave the recovery workers and many other New Yorkers a false sense of security. From the decision of the White House to put Wall Street ahead of public health, which the EPA inspector general found had influenced all those rosy statements. And from the decision to let workers toil without proper respirators for weeks, or without any respirators at all.

For Gary Acker, now 54 and still undergoing monthly chemical drips to heal his bones, gone are the annual trips hunting for caribou in Canada and fishing for trout in the Adirondacks. Those years in the late ’90s when he threw the javelin and shot put in the New York version of the Olympics seem like an adolescent memory. No longer working at AT&T, he devotes his time to trying to relax, watching mindless sitcoms on TV, anything to make himself laugh. “If I’m laughing, I’m not stressed,” he says. His doctors tell him that no stress means less chance of a cancer relapse.

Last year, Jessy McCarthy, now 48, had to work through his chemotherapy treatment, juggling the 72-hour drips with his job and his son for six months. He didn’t have much choice; otherwise he’d lose his medical benefits. He could never afford the medical bills on his $65,000 salary; some of his medications cost $5,000 a dose. Now in remission, he continues to fix phone lines, though he knows the day will come when he can’t anymore. Already, he has had to call for help on assignments he used to do alone. He also knows, in the back of his mind, that his cancer is the kind that will likely return, and possibly kill him.

Walcott and Vallebuona, both retired from the force because of their cancer, continue to live with the side effects of their treatments—the lost feeling in their hands and feet and the extreme fatigue. While Vallebuona has undergone chemotherapy, radiation, and a stem cell transplant, he still hasn’t been able to beat his lymphoma into remission. They also grapple with what they both like to call “chemo brain.” The drugs left Walcott, now 42, too incoherent to witness or recall the first time his daughter learned to walk or talk. For Vallebuona, now 41, the littler things seem to escape him, like the weekend plans his wife mentioned earlier in the day. But even their foggy minds have not erased the memories of two planes hitting the World Trade Center on that sunny September morning, when they had woken up healthy and happy to be alive.

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Symptoms of WTC workers similar to DU poisoning

The symptoms and diseases that the WTC workers are experiencing are very similar to that of the people exposed to depleted uranium in Iraq and former Yugoslavia. The similarities are striking. Like the WTC workers, the soldiers and civilians in the wartorn areas are suffering from cancers, lung diseases and overall poor health.

[PICTURE]

Like the WTC workers who worked at the Pile and at the Staten Island landfill site where the WTC debris was deposited, the people studied are getting injury from fine particles, some as small as 0.09 microns. The particles in the WTC dust were as small as 0.09 microns and averaged 0.3 microns in some locations.

When a depleted uranium weapon is fired, high temperatures are created in the explosion, as high as 3000 degrees centigrade.

As a comparison:

Hazardous Waste Incinerators operate at 980 to 1,200 degrees Centigrade

The Twin Tower 9/11 fire was estimated to be 2,000 degrees Centigrade [fires raged at the WTC site for 3 months, workers reported seeing molten metal flowing in channels. REF]

Nuclear explosion outer shock front is about 60,000 degrees Centigrade

Core of a nuclear fireball is about 400,000 degrees Centigrade [REF=http://www.iicph.org/docs/du_update_2_3.htm. Depleted uranium and other toxic exposures]

Uranium particles are ceramified, and the high temperatures vaporizes metals into ultra-fine particles, called ‘nanoparticles’.

“Astonishingly, all samples contained micro- and nano- size inorganic particles. She did not find DU or uranium, but that is understandable since samples were of soft tissue and were small. She reported finding compounds of: iron and selenium; copper, chlorine and zinc; selenium, titanium, iron and aluminum; silicon and bismuth; silicon and lead; iron, copper and zinc; chromium, iron and nickel; iron and manganese, and one sample of zinc alone.” [REF=Depleted uranium]

These fine particles which are irradiated by the uranium enter the body through the airways or the mouth. As they spread into the body, they cause irritation of the tissues they come into contact with as well as cause radiation injury and other pathologies.

“Animal experiments have demonstrated that uranium exposure results in damage to the entrance portals: namely, respiratory and gastro-intestinal systems; and to the exit portals: the lower intestine and renal systems. Uranium oxide was associated with fibrosis and other degenerative changes in the lungs, proteinuria, and increased non-protein nitrogen and slightly degenerative changes in the kidney tubules, in animals. Uranium oxide is associated with focal necrosis of the liver, and with hematological changes, lymph node fibrosis, severe muscle weakness and lassitude at doses inhaled in polluted air” [REF=Depleted uranium]

This might manifest as granulomatous diseases such as sarcoidosis, a disease that was reported to be occurring at a high frequency in WTC workers [REF].

“The body’s reaction to inorganic nano-particles starts with a mild irritation, which, if it becomes chronic, can lead to granulomatosis, a fibrosis and later, in some cases, a cancer. In the pathology of granulomatosis and sarcoidosis, the tissue often (always for granulomatosis) contains minute particles encapsulated, or even within a cell or nucleus, surrounded by inflammatory tissue.” [Depleted uranium]

12 year old child with leukemia

The high frequency of sarcoidosis in WTC workers and those exposed to depleted uranium may be dues to exposure to the various metals in the dust and fumes.

“Occupational exposures to various metal dusts and fumes (e.g., aluminum, barium, beryllium, cobalt, copper, gold, titanium, and zirconium) have been associated with granulomatous lung disease that mimics sarcoidosis (Newman 1998).” [REF=http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sites3/Documents/568/ATSDRfinalenglish.pdf, Public Health Investigations at the Nant-y-Gwyddon Landfill Site, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales]

This is the reason for the high incidence of oesophagitis, “heartburn” complaints (oro-gastrointestinal route of entry of pathogenic particles) and the high incidence of respiratory symptoms (the “WTC cough”, asthmatic conditions, sinusitis).

“Nearly all of the first responders at the World Trade Center towers have had respiratory problems, namely, wheezing, shortness of breath, sinusitis and asthma. Now, three or four years after the disaster, many are suffering from a new syndrome called «WTC cough», a persistent cough with severe respiratory symptoms. Hundreds on the fire fighters have had to end their careers because of this syndrome according to a new U.S. Government Accountability Office Study.” [REF=Depleted uranium]

PBA Registry is a registry kept by the a policeman’s association of the conditions suffered by the police who worked at the WTC site. Note the frequent appearance of cancer in the list.

http://www.nycpba.org/wtc/registry.html, PBA Registry – World Trade Center

Deformed Iraqi baby

These particles are so fine they can cross the alveolar barrier (alveolae are air sacs) into the blood stream. From there they can enter all sorts of tissues and cause disease including cancer. They also cross the placental barrier and cause effects in the fetus. They also can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause neurological problems including brain cancer.

A Belgian group, at the University of Louvain, has demonstrated the inorganic particles of a size less than 100 nanometers (0.1 micron) can cross the alveolar barrier in the lung and enter the blood within one minute of inhalation. An hour later, that material was found in the liver [Ref 9.] [REF=depleted uranium.

Deformed Iraqi baby

Kidneys and the liver and the colon are the routes of excretion and as the particles pass through these organs they cause concomitant damage resulting in nephropathy, kidney cancer, kidney stones, bladder cancer, bowel cancer, and liver cancer, all of which are common cancers among the workers at the WTC and Staten Island landfill as well as among the military personnel who served in Iraq and former Yugoslavia and among the civilian populations in these areas.

“All of the isotopes of uranium are chemically toxic, especially to the kidney.” [REF=Depleted uranium]

«Uranium poisoning is characterized by generalized health impairment. The element and its compounds produce changes in the kidneys, liver, lungs and cardiovascular, nervous and haemopoietic systems, and cause disorders of proteins and carbohydrate metabolism……Chronic poisoning results from prolonged exposure to low concentrations of insoluble compounds and presents a clinical picture different from acute poisoning» [Ref 12.]. [REF=Depleted uranium]

Researchers have found high levels of cancers and associated diseases among the people of Iraq. The rates of cancer in the population are comparable to that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

“Kammas reported on a substantial rise in leukemia, lymphoma and bone cancer in Iraq. He noted that the relative risk for other diseases was elevated significantly, including infertility, congenital abnormalities, and kidney failure.” [REF=Depleted uranium]

Iraqi baby born deformed

High rates of cancer affect the first responders and other workers involved in clean up and recovery work at the WTC and Staten Island landfill. In one report, 1.5% of the people studied had cancer. It was the second most common non-respiratory condition after hypertension in WTC workers.

Sick boy in Belgrade

Sick in Manhattan

“At the time of interview, hypertension was the most frequently reported new diagnosis of a nonrespiratory condition among survivors (4.9%), followed by cancer or malignancy of any kind (1.4%) and diabetes (1.1%).” [REF=http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5502a1.htm. Surveillance for World Trade Center Disaster Health Effects Among Survivors of Collapsed and Damaged Buildings (CDC)]