In the hours and days following the September 11 World Trade Center disaster, rescue and clean-up workers continually breathed in air dense with particulate matter (PM) from the explosion and resulting fires. Little monitoring data are available for the first few days when exposures were greatest. While October rains helped mitigate the amount of airborne PM, precise information on PM composition and exposure levels for the period September 11-13 is lacking.

Dr. Frederick Miller, an expert in inhalation dosimetry, from CIIT Centers for Health Research says somewhat smaller particles that can be breathed and lodge in the tracheobronchial area can cause more lasting irritation, even though they clear form the lungs in about 24 hours. Dr. Miller believes particles this size some of which appear to be of an unusually high alkalinity (i.e. caustic) because of materials like gypsum board and concrete may contribute to "fireman's cough" experienced by firemen and rescuers.

Dr. Miller says what was only a small component of the dust after the collapse of the towers were the far more dangerous fine particles that can lodge deep into the alveolar spaces of the lung. These particles can take months to clear, and thus have greater likelihood of causing problems. He says initially most of these fine particles were literally lifted out of the area by the gigantic dust plume visible in all the photographs and television images. It shot up for thousands of feet, initially transporting the smallest particles to the East River and out into the harbor. However, many of the earliest people on the scene, often working 12-hour shifts, didn't use respirators. Not only is it virtually impossible to know exactly the make up of the particles they breathed, they are the people who would have been exposed to any toxic vapors.

STUDIES OF AIRBORNE PARTICLES INDICATE ADVERSE HEALTH EFFECTS, ESPECIALLY FROM SMALLEST PARTICLES

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Contact: Sarah Goodwin
eb3press@bellsouth.net
770-270-0989
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
14-Apr-2003

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