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-Anyone who watched television, who saw the cloud
of dust and debris that was generated by the collapse of
those towers, and saw rescue and recovery workers being
dragged off the pile with their eyes streaming, their
nose running, and gasping and choking for breath, knew that
there was at least the potential risk that people
were going to be suffering problems with their upper
airways, problems like sinusitis, and problems of the
lower airways like asthma and bronchitis as a result of
those exposures.
-Dr. Stephen Levin is the medical director for Mount
Sinai's Selikoff Center for Occupational and
Environmental Medicine.
He has treated thousands of ground zero's first responders
and has been monitoring the effects of 9/11 on workers and
volunteers for the past five years.
-Worse?
About the same?
OK, close your eyes for a second.
Actually, my first patient confirmed for me the basis for
all the worries that we had expressed a
week and some earlier.
This individual was a rescue worker in addition to being a
building trades worker, was caught in the dust cloud when
the first tower collapsed, stayed there afterwards
helping to evacuate people, and had been in excellent
physical condition up till September 10.
He came in with a full picture of sinusitis--
inflammation of his upper airways--
asthma, which he had never had before, post traumatic stress
disorder with disordered sleep and intrusive thoughts, and
emotional distancing and
irritability, the full picture.
[PIANO MUSIC PLAYING]
In the ensuing several weeks, we saw many, many more
responders, especially, people who were doing rescue and
recovery work, who by this point were recognizing that
unlike the way they were before 9/11, they now could
not go up a flight of stairs without gasping for breath,
finding their chest tight, coughing, wheezing, things
that they had never experienced before.
Just breathe normally, nice and quiet.
Most of our patients are improving.
But for many of our patients, I'm quite sure these will be
lifelong problems. What are considered the short term
illnesses, the asthma, the sinusitis, the post traumatic
stress disorder, in fact, will be long term problems. Many of
our patients will be asthmatic for life.
Many of our patients will have recurrent sinus
problems for life.
And while the post traumatic stress disorder and depression
for many will subside, it will remain provokable for the
remainder of their lives.
And we know that from the Vietnam vets' experience.
-Physical and psychological traumas are not the only
challenges facing 9/11 responders.
Dr. Levin has witnessed his patients' fight against what
he says is a badly broken workers' compensation board.
-To put these people, already psychologically harmed,
through the additional stresses and misery of a
workers' compensation system that accuses them of being
liars, malingerers, and cheats, is outrageous.
And yet, that's been the experience of many of our
patients.
-Take a very deep breath.
Open.
Blow, two three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Inhale please.
-We have other worries besides the persistence of the shorter
term effects.
And that is whether, in fact, diseases that take a longer
time to develop will be showing up 10 years down the
road, 15 and 20 years down the road.
And we know very well that the population of rescue and
recovery workers and those volunteers are
worried about this.
They know they were exposed to cancer causing agents.
This is not a mystery to them.
And the importance of following this group long
enough so that if, in fact, those diseases are going to
develop, the importance of detecting these early so that
we can treat them effectively is paramount now.