By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com
At least 15 FBI agents who searched for victims and clues in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have died from cancers likely linked to toxic exposure to carcinogenic fumes and dust, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Three agents have died since March.
“It’s like Bin Laden is still reaching out from the grave,” said FBI Agent Thomas O’Connor, who is president of the FBI Agents Assn., a service and advocacy group for active and former agents. “It affects us all in serious ways. People are dying, others are sick. Those that are not yet sick wonder — is that headache, is it really cancer? Is that sore hip really cancer?”
The FBI deaths are only a small part of the lingering tragedy. According to the Word Trade Center Health Program, which is administered by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 7,500 emergency responders, cleanup and recovery workers and volunteers who were exposed to debris at the three Sept. 11 crash sites have been diagnosed with cancer.
Among those are more than 300 firefighters and police officers who have died of cancer and other diseases linked to the attacks.
“We are now seeing a new wave of cancers coming in,” said Dr. Michael Crane, who runs a treatment and monitoring center financed by the federal health program at Mount Sinai Health System in New York. “Most [first responders] just rushed down there and were not protected from the toxins in the air or the dust cloud. They were literally eating and breathing this material. There were known carcinogens in the air.”
