Author Topic: Many 9/11 responders' lungs not improving (Read 532 times)

_noXiouS_ · « **on:** April 08, 2010, 01:01:41 PM »

Most of the New York City firefighters and medics whose lungs were damaged by pulverized masonry and glass from the World Trade Center attacks in 2001 are not improving as time goes by, according to a new study.

The results are based on breathing tests from nearly 11,000 firefighters who were at ground zero in first two weeks when the dust cloud was thickest. Of the firefighters who didn't smoke, 13 percent were still scoring below normal up to seven years later, the study found.

That number was down from 18 percent who initially tested below normal after the attacks, according to researchers at the New York City Fire Department and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Among emergency medical technicians, the numbers were worse. Of the nearly 2,000 EMTs included in the analysis, 22 percent of the nonsmokers scored below normal on their most recent breathing test.

The research, based on tests that measure how fast a person can exhale, is in today's New England Journal of Medicine.

The study dims hopes that workers who developed respiratory problems after being exposed to the trade center's powdery and smoking remnants would gradually return to normal.

Firefighters commonly suffer some lung damage after being exposed to heavy smoke, but the problem is not usually long term. Previous studies of firefighters who lost breathing capacity after battling chemical and forest fires found that they generally recovered within days or weeks.

That hasn't happened with 9/11 responders, said Dr. David Prezant, the Fire Department's chief medical officer and a lead author of the study.

In the immediate aftermath, they were exposed to "unprecedented density of dust, smoke, all kinds of materials that they don't encounter in a routine course of firefighting," said Dr. Thomas Aldrich, professor of medicine at Albert Einstein.

-This frustrated me, while I was reading through this, recalling back the whole incident. I'll hold my opinions.

Author Topic: Many 9/11 responders' lungs not improving (Read 532 times)

_noXiouS_

Many 9/11 responders' lungs not improving

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