While the shock of the World Trade Center attack might be over for some, the World Trade Center Dust and asbestos make the events of that day the catalyst for a very real threat that more than ten thousand city workers and civilians who lived near the attack site are very much fighting with this very day. A major problem that has surfaced after the cleanup in our day, can actually be traced back to the beginning of the construction of the Twin Towers in 1966. Many of the building materials used in the construction of the World Trade Center contained significant amounts of the very harmful substance called asbestos.
The inhalation of these very fine(microscopic) particle fibers can cause great illness, one of the main diseases associated with asbestos-exposure is a cancer called mesothelioma. This is why the World Trade Center dust and asbestos is of such a grave concern.
A fact sheet, produced by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health puts it this way:
"Asbestos was a major material used in the construction of the World Trade Center. That asbestos is a constituent of the dust and debris."
An advisor was provided for the emergency workers at ground zero of the Trade Center, that advisor stated that the workers/volunteers should wear protective clothing and change out of those work clothes before leaving for their homes. Also stated, was that work clothes should be bagged at work and washed separately from other laundry to prevent asbestos contamination.
When you add in all of the disastrous chemical effects of the attack that day, it truly caused an epidemic. On top of all of that, the use and supply of respirator masks was not up to par. The question has been though, whose fault is the lack or misuse of respirator face masks? Immediately after the attack, respirators were not available early on and were not used consistently even when the face mask were available.
One of the issues with the respirator face masks is that the respirator masks require fit-testing and prior health clearance which is not often immediately available for disaster rescue workers. So who is to blame for this? Can anyone be truly blamed? Everyone has their own opinion on the matter. But one thing cannot be argued, the effects of the World Trade Center dust and asbestos are having a terrible effect on the heroes and citizens who were there.
The World Trade Center dust and asbestos has caused a condition that has become known as The WTC Cough Syndrome. This cough is the product of a poisonous concoction created by the disaster.Pulverized building materials predominated in the initial time period after the collapse, while combustion-derived pollutants increased as rescue, recovery and cleanup progressed and continued. The fires at Ground Zero created toxic combustion products, such as dioxins, volatile organic compounds, and various other known carcinogenic compounds. Contaminants such as asbestos, silica, PCBs, hydrochloric acid and heavy metals were also found in the dust and ash resulting from the fallen Towers.
The World Trade Center Cough Syndrome (a chronic cough syndrome, thought to be a consequence of lower and upper respiratory disease typically including asthmatic bronchitis, gastroesophageal reflux, rhinosinusitis, or any combo of the 3 conditions) has been reported by a significant number of the people exposed. This type of chronic coughing is very much in line with a symptom of mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is considered to be a rare type of cancer with nearly 2,000 to 3,000 new cases reported each year. Mesothelioma is a slow killer, it can take anywhere from 15 to 50 years to make its presence known. In most cases of the disease it occurs in the lining of the victim's lungs, but it can also develop in the lining of the heart or abdomen.
After a long and drawn out battle in the courts, city officials in New York have agreed to pay up to $657,500,000 to thousands of New Yorkers who served as rescue and clean-up workers at the Ground Zero site of the horrible September 11th attacks.Some workers are expected to receive payments of only a few thousand dollars, while others could be in line to receive more than a million, based on the severity of injuries. Lawyers for the city of New York had claimed it did its best to provide respiratory equipment for workers, such as respirator face masks and more and challenged some claims as being based on shaky and/or questionable medical evidence. But in a statement,(current at the time of the court decision) New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg referred to the settlement as "a fair and reasonable resolution to a complex set of circumstances". -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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