Fallout includes worry about toxic WTC dust
NEW YORK — Two decades after the collapse of the World Trade Center, people are still coming forward to report illnesses that might be related to dust that billowed over the city after the terror attack.
To date, the U.S. has spent $11.7 billion on care and compensation for those exposed to the toxic dust and fires that burned at ground zero for weeks after the attacks. More than 40,000 people have gotten payments from a government fund for people with illnesses potentially linked to the attacks.
More than 111,000 people have signed up for the World Trade Center Health Program, which gives free medical care to people with medical problems potentially linked to the dust.
Enrollees include people like Barbara Burnette, a retired police detective still suffering from severe respiratory problems two decades after she spat soot from her mouth for weeks as she worked on the burning rubble pile without a protective mask. She credits the intensive health monitoring she got through the health program with helping to spot lung cancer.
“Had I not been in the program … I don’t know that they would have found it,” Burnette says. Since then she has had two rounds of chemotherapy to keep the cancer at bay.
Scientists still can’t say for certain how many people developed health problems as a result of exposure to the tons of pulverized concrete, glass, asbestos, gypsum released when the towers fell.
Many people enrolled in the health program have conditions common in the general public, like skin cancer, acid reflux or sleep apnea. In most situations, there is no test that can tell whether someone’s illness is related to the Trade Center dust, or a result of other factors, like smoking, genetics or obesity.
Over the years, that has led to some friction between patients who are absolutely sure they have an illness connected to 9/11, and doctors who have doubts.
Mariama James, who had to clean up copious amounts of the gray powder that billowed through the open windows of her Manhattan apartment, says she initially had a hard time persuading doctors that the chronic ear infections, sinus issues and asthma afflicting her children, or her own shortness of breath, had anything to do with 9/11.
“Most people thought I was crazy back then,” she says.
Years of research have produced partial answers about 9/11 health problems like hers. The largest number of people enrolled in the federal health program suffer from chronic inflammation of their sinus or nasal cavities or from reflux disease, a condition that can cause symptoms including heartburn, sore throat and a chronic cough.
Post-traumatic stress disorder has emerged as one of the most common, persistent health conditions. Nearly 19,000 enrollees have a mental health problem believed to be linked to the attacks, according to health program statistics.