The Mystery of Lung Disease (there is no scientific evidence for "Ground Zero Syndrome")

New York Sun ^ | February 20, 2007 | JEFF STIER

[presidio9]

There is no scientific evidence linking exposure to 9/11 dust and diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis. That doesn't stop the press and politicians from leaping to conclusions.

Take the case of New York Police Officer Cesar Borja, the police officer whose son was a guest of Senator Clinton at the State of the Union only hours after his father's untimely and premature death from lung disease.

Officer Borja became a symbol of the second round of 9/11 victims. The press said that he rushed downtown to rescue office workers on September 11. Now it seems that Officer Borja was not sent to the site until the end of December and served fewer than 20 shifts. These details matter.

Even though high levels of exposure to the dust are not linked with the lung disease that killed him, the claim that such exposure killed Officer Borja becomes even less plausible given how much time went by before he was assigned to the World Trade Center area. The air there became significantly cleaner as the days, weeks, and months went by.

Politicians and many in the press, though, are rushing to judgment and making expensive, rash decisions based on misplaced sympathy rather than sound science.

Politicians have vowed to spend over $1 billion on people presumed to have mysterious lung disease caused by the World Trade Center collapse, inspired in part by public sympathy for figures like Officer Borja and World Trade Center site cleanup worker and nun Sister Cindy Mahoney,

[RicocheT]

Another fake cause bolstered by junk science that politicians want to grand stand for by throwing away our tax money.

The original reason to tax on the USA was for defense against foreign enemies, roads, harbors and projects not well suited for private enterprise to solve. A tiny bit went to support a small government to run the country.

Now, tax is income redistribution to take from me to give to others who the politicians need to keep them in office by vote buying. There are so many programs enacted that the size of the administration is immense. We need a tax rebellion very soon or our economy and taxpayers are going to be dead.

[HEY4QDEMS]

Everyone knows the real cause is the cigarette smoker who lived across the street from the WTC. I hear that his SHS is causing lung diseases halfway down New Jersey.