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Air Today . . . Gone Tomorrow Article
Suits Link Ground
Zero Toxins, Illnesses
By Associated Press, May 24, 2004
NEW YORK -- The number of lawsuits filed against the city by firefighters and police
officers claiming that World Trade Center wreckage made them sick has exceeded 1,700,
according to a newspaper report.
Sicknesses named in the lawsuits include cancer, asthma, airway disorders and other lung
maladies, according to medical records reviewed by The Daily News for a story in Monday
editions.
Detective John Walcott, 39, claims his case of acute myelogenous leukemia was linked to
contaminated air he breathed while working with World Trade Center debris at the Fresh
Kills landfill on Staten Island, where the wreckage was carted followign the disaster, the
News reported.
Another police officer, Richard Lahm, 49, won a ruling in Manhattan Supreme Court last
month that his terminal tonsil cancer had been "exacerbated" by toxins from
ground zero. The city was ordered to pay him a disability pension.
More than 300 firefighters had retired since Sept. 11, 2001 because of sicknesses and
injuries related to the attacks, Fire Department spokesman Francis Gribbon told the News.
Eli Kleinman, supervising chief surgeon for the police department, said there had not been
a rise in cancer cases among police officers since Sept. 11, 2001, but that the department
was "very concerned" about the possibility of a spike in the future.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-attacks-health-lawsuits,0,5270956.story
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