TOTAL 911 INFO
Sunday, November 25, 2007
 From New York Times 11/25/07: "No New Yorker is privy to as many secrets of the dead as Dr. Charles S. Hirsch. During nearly two decades as New York City’s chief medical examiner, he has quietly overseen autopsies on more than 100,000 people, hoping to learn something more about the way they lived, and why they died.
After a long run marked by few major controversies, Dr. Hirsch, 70, now finds his objectivity and independence being questioned because of his review of a single autopsy — on the body of James Zadroga, 34, a New York City police detective who died in New Jersey last year. The Zadroga family had hoped he would agree with the Ocean County medical examiner’s finding that the detective’s death was linked to ground zero dust, which would add his name to the official list of victims of the 9/11 attack.
But last month Dr. Hirsch shocked the Zadroga family and others with his conclusion, “with certainty beyond doubt,” that the material in Detective Zadroga’s lungs was not dust from the trade center but ground up pills he had injected into his veins.
[...] the police union, members of Congress and others have raised doubts about his ability to make such a determination by himself. At the heart of their criticisms lies a single question: how could the same tissue samples, autopsy slides and medical records lead different forensic pathologists to radically different conclusions?
...Certainty is an elusive quality in science. Dr. Gregory J. Davis, a University of Kentucky professor who is chairman of the forensic pathology committee of the Congress of American Pathologists, said that “certainty beyond doubt” was not a phrase he had ever used.
[...]Dr. Hirsch’s determinations about Detective Zadroga sharply conflicted not only with the conclusions drawn in the Ocean County autopsy but with the findings of other experts. A former New York City medical examiner, Dr. Michael M. Baden, examined the autopsy slides and said he was convinced that trade center dust had killed Detective Zadroga. The Police Pension Board in 2004 linked Mr. Zadroga’s illness to the dust when it approved a disability pension for him. And the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund concluded in 2004 that he had been harmed by the dust and gave him a substantial monetary award.
Detective Zadroga was at ground zero in the weeks immediately after 9/11, though it is not clear exactly where he worked or how many hours he remained on the site. His medical records show that he was sickened by his work at ground zero.
Dr. Hirsch’s findings about Detective Zadroga have generated controversy in part because many cases involving ground zero workers may have to be reviewed if the workers are to be included on the 9/11 victims list. The 9/11 victims’ fund gave more than 1,300 ground zero workers the same kind of injury award Detective Zadroga received, opening the door for future claims. Similarly, more than 175 police officers and 725 firefighters have received disability pensions for illnesses related to the trade center. And more than 20,000 workers have registered with the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board in case they become sick in the future.
Several members of New York’s Congressional delegation said they did not think Dr. Hirsch should have the power to decide whether deaths were linked to 9/11. This month, they urged Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to create a panel of independent medical experts. But the mayor rejected the proposal.
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----- Labels: dust, dustification
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