September 1, 2011
Firefighters who worked at Ground Zero are 19% more likely to have cancer than their colleagues who did not work at the site, according to newly published research that could pave the way for government payments to those suffering from some types of cancer.
The research marks the first substantive findings on the difficult question of whether working at the World Trade Center site increased cancer risk. For years, firefighters, police officers and construction workers have argued that there is overwhelming anecdotal evidence that work at Ground Zero caused cancer, while researchers continue to caution that it will take 20 or 40 years to prove such a link.
Published in the Sept. 3 issue of the Lancet, the research led by Dr. David Prezant, the head doctor for the New York Fire Department, concludes that an association between World Trade Center exposure and cancer is “biologically plausible” due to findings of “a modest excess of cancer in exposed firefighters.”
The study’s authors also cautioned against drawing broader conclusions, saying it would be wrong to assume that because cancer is more likely among World Trade Center firefighters, it is also more likely among other groups of people exposed to the site.
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