Rescue workers exposed to thick clouds of dust after the attack on the World Trade Center had large drops in lung function lasting at least seven years, a study of nearly 13,000 workers has found.
The study is the first to document long-term harm in a large group of firefighters and emergency medical workers who worked at ground zero between Sept. 11 and Sept. 24, 2001. All had had previous tests of lung function, so there were baseline readings with which the measurements after the attack could be compared.
The dust exposure left “a substantial proportion of workers with abnormal lung function,” the researchers report in an article to be published on Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine....
