New Yorkers get special 9/11 clinic

By Matt Wells
BBC News, New York

More than five years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, thousands of New York's downtown residents are convinced that toxic residues still lurking inside their homes are damaging their health.

And it seems that the city's politicians and health authorities are taking their concerns seriously.

Psychologists join medics in treating patients at the new clinic

A new health clinic to diagnose and treat those people who live and work around Ground Zero has just opened with more than $17m funding from the city and from private charities.

Native Welshman-turned-New Yorker Craig Hall is president of the World Trade Center Residents' Coalition. "Things will get worse as the years go on - that's our worry," he says, while handing out health-survey leaflets in the lobby of one downtown residential block.

Many of the "first-responders" to the 9/11 attacks - firefighters, medics and police, together with volunteers who sorted through the debris - have suffered from well-publicised respiratory problems. Their medical treatment and assessment has been on-going for several years now.

But Mr Hall believes that ordinary citizens are still at risk and that the legacy of the destruction of the towers is far more active and pernicious than previously thought.

Dust reservoirs

"We lived and worked down here, and the buildings have still not been cleaned properly... We believe there are still dust reservoirs inside the air-conditioning units," Mr Hall says.

"There's all the pulverised glass-fibre, the concrete dust, and when all this stuff's mixed in with the PCBs, the heavy-metals, the mercury, the lead - it's a really toxic soup."

Mr Hall has been diagnosed with lung damage, and he maintains that there are too many others who share common symptoms - such as so-called "World Trade Center cough", shortness of breath, and chronic digestion problems - for it to be put down to stress or psychosomatic factors.

Downtown residents' groups are still hoping for millions more in federal funding from Washington, but New York and its mayor, Michael Bloomberg, have already responded to their concerns.

The state-of-the-art WTC Environmental Health Center has just opened on the second floor of the vast Bellevue Hospital, just above the downtown area, on First Avenue.

Symptoms 'real'

The small team of medical specialists grew out of an asthma clinic, and it now includes a number of psychologists. The unit is headed by Dr Joan Reibman, who is convinced that the symptoms are real and medically related.

Residents near Ground Zero say their environment is still dangerous

"We've not seen abuse of this programme," she said, answering the question of whether some residents were just using the free services of the clinic to treat issues that had nothing to do with 11 September.

In fact, she believes that there has been reluctance on the part of many, to come forward and accept that 9/11 may be making them ill.

"Because people have been so appreciative of the work of the responders - people were embarrassed to say that we honour these people but we also have some symptoms as well," she said.

Risk 'exaggerated'

But not all New Yorkers are convinced that funding potentially limitless health care for those living near Ground Zero, is a fair strategy. There are some limited-government advocates who believe tougher questions need to be asked.

"Just as the media and politicians should take care not to heighten terrorism's impact by exaggerating the risk it poses to the public, so, too, should we be cautious about making an already-nervous population think they have been 'poisoned'," writes Todd Seavey, on the subject of a workers' health study published last September.

But at the new clinic treating the residents, Dr Reibman is diplomatic on the question of the continuing threat posed by potential toxic residue.

"Unfortunately, there was no real, consistent clean-up of Lower-Manhattan, and we don't really know what was in the buildings... and what remains in the buildings. Certainly, it remains an issue with other agencies."