Ground Zero Workers Show Increased Asthma

Aug 27, 04:10 PM

Current Headlines: By Joseph Mallia, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

Aug. 27--A New York City Health Department survey has found that World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers have 12 times the normal rate of new asthma cases.

The survey's results, released Monday, also indicate that respirators helped reduce the risk of developing asthma.

The study sheds new light on the health effects of exposure to dust and debris among workers who responded to the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, health officials said.

The data, drawn from the World Trade Center Health Registry, show that 3.6 percent of the 25,000 rescue and recovery workers enrolled in the registry report developing asthma after working at the site.

That rate is 12 times what would be normally expected for the adult population during such a time period, the health officials said.

The paper was published online Monday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

The survey, conducted in 2003 and 2004, found that arriving soon after the buildings collapsed, or working on the Ground Zero pile over a long period increased workers' risk of developing asthma.

Workers who arrived on September 11, 2001, and worked more than 90 days reported the highest rate of new asthma (7 percent).

Though respirator use increased as the cleanup progressed, many workers did not wear respiratory protection at first.

Workers who wore respirators on September 11 and 12, 2001, reported newly-diagnosed asthma at lower rates (4.0 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively) than those who did not (6.3 percent and 4.5 percent).

The longer the period of not wearing masks or respirators, the greater the risk, the survey found.

Workers who went months without respiratory protection reported two to three times more asthma incidence than those who wore respirators from the outset.

Though respirators were shown to be protective, all worker groups, including those who reported wearing masks, had elevated levels of newly reported asthma.

"The dust from the World Trade Center collapse appears to have had significant respiratory health effects at least for people who worked at the site," Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, New York City health commissioner, said in a statement.

"These findings reflect the critical importance of getting appropriate respiratory protection to all workers as quickly as possible during a disaster, and making every effort to make sure workers wear them at all times," Frieden said.

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