By Jordan Lite
New York Daily News
Sun-Sentinel
Copyright 2007 Sun-Sentinel Company
All Rights Reserved
NEW YORK — World Trade Center illnesses are more than a New York problem -- they are affecting thousands across the country, according to a report obtained by the New York Daily News.
More than 70,000 have enrolled in the city’s World Trade Center Health Registry. Slightly more than 10,000 are from outside the New York metropolitan area, including people from every state.
Of those, about 70 percent are volunteers and rescue and recovery workers who responded at the site on Sept. 11, 2001, or soon afterward. About 20 percent are tourists or out-of-town business people who were in lower Manhattan at the time, and the remainder are former residents, said Deputy Health Commissioner Lorna Thorpe.
“We’re seeing the basic World Trade Center responses: the respiratory, the GERD [gastroesophogeal reflux disease], the post-traumatic,” said Katherine Kirkland, executive director of the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics, which has screened and treated about 900 responders at clinics outside the tri-state area.
Among them are firefighter Harold Schapelhouman, whose California urban search and rescue crew spent five days on and around Ground Zero starting Sept. 25, according to a report he submitted to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. During a recent interview, he said he was on his third round of antibiotics for asthmatic bronchitis.
“Before 9-11, I didn’t have the problems I have now, so I’m a little suspicious,” said Schapelhouman, 46, of Menlo Park, Calif., a fire chief who said he’s also battled sinus infections and walking pneumonia.
Another member of his team, Frank Fraone, developed a chronic cough and shortness of breath, a doctor’s letter shows. Even now, smoke and dust set off his coughing and sometimes force him to use an inhaler and other medication.
FEMA could not be reached to confirm the men’s presence at Ground Zero, but several news outlets reported on the group’s efforts at the time and the team was honored by Congress.
At a clinic at the University of Illinois Hospital, some of the 90 responders seen there are still having trouble sleeping, according to nurse Irene Stasula.
“It’s what they saw out there,” she said.
Last week, Congress approved $50 million to treat people whose health was affected by Sept. 11, including those outside the metro area. But the funding is included in a spending bill that also sets a deadline to withdraw troops from Iraq, which President Bush has vowed to veto.
“The 9-11 health crisis is an emergency on a national scale, and it requires a federal response,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who with Rep. Vito Fossella, R-N.Y., asked the city for the state-by-state breakdown of its registry.