God Forbid we discover a link to illness, eh Steve? You'd be discredited (again)

[Guest guest]

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/54679.htm

TOXIC PORK AT

GROUND ZERO

By STEVEN MILLOY

August 14, 2002 -- SEN. Hillary Clinton is pressuring President Bush to

allocate $90 million for a long-term health monitoring program for Ground

Zero rescue and recovery workers.

Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. announced

an $11.4 million contract with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine to

determine whether Ground Zero workers are experiencing related illnesses or

injuries.

What a waste of taxpayer money.

The collapse of the World Trade Center towers certainly was a unique event

in many respects - but not in terms of the health of rescue and recovery

workers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in May that worker

exposures to air contaminants at Ground Zero generally did not exceed safety

standards.

That study evaluated " general area " and " personal breathing zone " air

samples for numerous potential air contaminants, including: asbestos (from

insulation and fireproofing materials), crystalline silica (from concrete),

carbon monoxide (from fires and engine exhaust), diesel exhaust, mercury

(from fluorescent lights), Freon, heavy metals, hydrogen sulfide (from

decomposing bodies and food), inorganic acids, volatile organic compounds

(VOCs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, from fires and engine

exhaust).

More than 1,000 air samples were collected from Sept. 18 to Oct. 4 and

focused on search-and-rescue personnel, heavy equipment operators, workers

cutting metal beams and other recovery workers.

The CDC reported that virtually none of the sampled exposures, including

exposure to asbestos, exceeded permissible limits set by the Occupational

Safety and Health Administration - limits far more stringent than actual

" safe " levels.

Of the 45 air samples analyzed for various metals, one from a personal

breathing zone of a torch cutter exceeded the permissible exposure limit for

cadmium. One worker was definitely overexposed, and two others were

potentially overexposed to carbon monoxide.

While the study doesn't include data about exposures before Sept. 18, this

is hardly a reason to spend $11.4 million. The WTC, after all, is not the

first fire or building collapse involving rescue workers.

Firefighters are frequently exposed to a variety of " toxic " dusts and

chemical fumes. But the largest-ever study of firefighters, published in May

2001 by National Cancer Institute researchers, indicates that firefighters

do not have more cancer or worse health than non-firefighters.

The only possible justification for the contract would be if it somehow

short-circuited personal injury lawyers intent on suing New York City.

Hundreds of firefighters, police and other rescue workers filed notice in

February that they may sue New York City for $7.18 billion for failing to

provide adequate respiratory protection equipment at Ground Zero. The

notices allege fear of cancer and other ailments caused by the smoldering

ruins.

One firefighter filed notice of a $10 million claim because he gets winded

running up flights of stairs. " What if, five years down the road, we develop

lung cancer or something like that? " he told The Associated Press.

Most firefighters probably wouldn't think of suing the city but for

encouragement from lawyers angling for a percentage of whatever sums can be

milked from a jury via the FDNY's reputation.

One law firm that filed several hundred notices on behalf of rescue workers

specializes in shaking down both the city and insurance companies in the

name of firefighters, and brags about its multimillion-dollar success on its

Web site.

But there's good reason to be skeptical that Mount Sinai will be an

effective tool against the lawyers. Mount Sinai's Irving J. Selikoff Center

for Occupational and Environmental Medicine will be the center leading the

examinations.

Irving Selikoff, now deceased, and his fear-mongering minions at Mount Sinai

were the researchers who opened the floodgates of the junk science-fueled

multibillion-dollar asbestos litigation now clogging our courts and slowing

payments to deserving workers.

This pork will enable researchers-on-the-dole to tally and ponder every

cough and headache. It only will make the non-issue of Ground Zero worker

health a topic for years to come.

Milloy is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and the author of

" Junk Science Judo: Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams " (Cato

Institute, 2001).