NORFOLK, Va. (AP) -- About 10,000 firefighters who rushed to the rescue after the collapse of the World Trade Center towers suffered from respiratory ailments caused by a noxious cloud of fumes and pulverized debris. More than two years later, most firefighters have kicked the cough. Roughly 100, however, still hack and wheeze with a severity that has kept them from returning to work or resuming their normal lives.
At the Eastern Virginia Medical School, a team of scientists, physicians, technicians and administrators is responding to a call for help from New York, where doctors are puzzled by what some call World Trade Center Cough.
``These firefighters risked their lives to go in those buildings,'' said O. John Semmes, a microbiologist and director of the effort. ``Wouldn't it be nice if we could help them now?''
A $12 million federal screening program has examined thousands of the workers who toiled at the WTC ruins. With $4 million in extra funding, doctors expect to examine 4,500 more by March 2004.
Preliminary results show 48 percent of workers with ear, nose and throat problems such as nasal congestion, hoarseness, headaches and throat irritation. Thirty percent have pulmonary problems, including shortness of breath, persistent cough and wheezing.
EVMS was tapped to solve the medical mystery of World Trade Center Cough because it is one of only a handful of research centers in the nation pushing the edge of an up-and-coming science known as proteomics. Proteomics is the next rung of the work that recently decoded the sequence of the human genome.
Proteomics peers even deeper inside the body by studying the million or so proteins found inside its cells. The goal is to detect the minuscule changes that are now known to accompany many diseases.
Because each disease causes a unique distortion of the proteins, it leaves a ``fingerprint'' inside the cells long before more visible symptoms appear. By comparing the proteins of recovered ground zero firefighters with those who remain ill, EVMS scientists hope to tell if the sick ones are different at a biological level.
If so, they hope to determine if the differences are naturally occurring variables that make someone more vulnerable to respiratory problems, or if the firestorm of pollutants they inhaled altered their very cells. Both are critical questions in the quest for a cure.
Part of the study includes collecting the biographies of the firefighters behind the samples, as well as details of their movements on Sept. 11, 2001 _ a tough thing to track in the chaos of a catastrophe.
Most of the 100 chronically sick were among the first to reach the Twin Towers that morning. Ill-equipped for the magnitude of the devastation, they ``dove in without respirator masks because they were called upon,'' Semmes told The Virginian-Pilot. ``They went in first, and they stayed the longest.''
But so did many of the now-recovered firefighters.
To unravel the mystery, Semmes and his team must consider and compare all the variables, such as age, race, medical history and personal habits, such as smoking. Mental health is a factor, too.
Semmes said the study could take the better part of two years.
``They had a huge impact on all our psyches on 9-11,'' Semmes said of the firefighters. ``People still come to tears when they think about what these guys did.''
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