9/11 cancers taking toll

Dr Robin Herbert said she and her colleagues at Sinai's World Trade Centre medical monitoring programme are now seeing unusual cases of plasma-cell cancers in Ground Zero workers, the New York Daily News reported.

"We know we have a handful of cases of multiple myeloma in very young individuals, and multiple myeloma is a condition that almost always presents later in life, so that's the kind of odd, unusual and troubling finding that we're seeing already," Herbert said in an online audio interview conducted in advance of today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

In the journal, Herbert outlines three waves of post 9/11 health problems in responders, the Daily News reported.

The first was the persistent, dry "World Trade Centre cough" caused by exposure to pulverised cement. It appeared in the months after the terror attacks. The second wave involves chronic respiratory diseases that result in lung inflammation and scarring. Cancers may be the third wave. – (HealthDayNews)

June 2007