Researchers say they have irrefutable evidence that smoke and
dust from the World Trade Center terrorist attacks permanently
damaged the health of first responders. NY1's Health reporter
Kafi Drexel filed the following report. A new report from the
New York City Fire Department's World Trade Center Monitoring
and Treatment Program has found that exposure to dust lead to
large declines in lung function for thousands of firefighters
and emergency medical service workers within a year of the
September 11th terrorist attacks. Furthermore, such declines in
lung function never reversed over the following seven years. The
study is valuable in helping to assess the long-term health
impacts of the World Trade Center attack, because firefighters
and EMS workers were the most exposed groups. As both types of
responders need a clean bill of health to be on the job, they
also have health records from before September 11, 2001 that can
be used as a baseline. "Typically after a regular house fire,
you have a return of lung