Experts: No hard evidence 9/11 caused cancers
CBS
(AP) NEW YORK -- Call it compassionate, even political. But ... scientific? Several experts say there's no hard evidence to support the federal government's declaration this month that 50 kinds of cancer could be caused by exposure to World Trade Center dust.
The decision could help hundreds of people get payouts from a multibillion-dollar World Trade Center health fund to repay those ailing after they breathed in toxic dust created by the collapsing twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001.
But scientists say there is little research to prove that exposure to the toxic dust plume caused even one kind of cancer. And many acknowledge the payouts to cancer patients could take money away from those suffering from illnesses more definitively linked to Sept. 11, like asthma and laryngitis.
"To imagine that there is strong evidence about any cancer resulting from 9/11 is naive in the extreme," said Donald Berry, a biostatistics professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Yet this month, Dr. John Howard, who heads the federal agency that researches workplace illnesses, added scores of common and rare cancers to a list that had previously included just 12 ailments caused by dust exposure.
Lung, skin, breast and thyroid cancer were among those added; of the most common types of cancer, only prostate cancer was excluded.
"We recognize how personal the
issue of cancer and all of the health conditions related to the World
Trade Center tragedy are to 9/11 responders, survivors and their loved
ones," Howard said in a June 8 statement.
He declined requests for an interview with The Associated Press. His decision, based on an advisory panel's recommendation, will go through a public comment period and additional review before it's final.
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Several factors about the decision by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health raised eyebrows in the scientific community:
- Only a few of the 17 people on the advisory panel are experts at tracking cancer and weighing causal risks; they were outnumbered by occupational physicians and advocates for Sept. 11 rescue and cleanup workers.
- Exposure to a cancer-causing agent doesn't necessarily mean someone will develop cancer. And if they do, conventional medical wisdom says it generally takes decades. But the panel agreed to cover those diagnosed with cancer within just a few years of the disaster.
- The panel members favored adding cancers if there was any argument to include them. They added thyroid cancer because a study found a higher-than-expected number of cases in firefighters who responded to 9/11, even though thyroid cancer is generally linked to genetics or high doses of radiation. The same study found a lower-than-expected number of lung cancers, but it was added because it was considered a plausible consequence of inhaling toxins at the site.
Even lawyers for the first responders were stunned: They had expected to see only certain blood and respiratory cancers put on the list.
"I understand the urge to want to compensate and reward the heroes and victims of that tragedy," said Dr. Alfred Neugut, a Columbia University oncologist and epidemiologist. But "if we're using medical compensation as the means to that, then we should be scientifically rigorous about it."
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4 Comments Add a Comment
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- Another scam used by "victims" to get money from the government. I cant wait until the U.S. is finally busted, and these free-loaders get cut off.
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- This does not surprise me one bit. Experts are no longer credible in this country to a very large number of people who now know better. Every person reading this miscarriage of justice to our fellow saviors please allow some portion of your day to pray in earnst. This gov't should be ashamed of itself. Get those witch doctors out and get the parasites and traitors out of the gov't. If people do not do something nothing will get done.
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- Is this from the same experts who, somehow, cannot "find" a link between cigarette smoking and cancer?
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- "50 kinds of cancer could be caused by exposure to World Trade Center dust." How do we know that they could've gotten any one of the cancers without the whole incidence of the World trade center???? In some cases we will never know, come on 50 different kinds, that's a stretch and just a way for some to just get money...from out taxes. Lets not get carried away!
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