Health problems are common among 9/11 medical crews

Emergency medical service workers who went to Ground Zero after the World Trade Center attacks in 2001 have suffered from an usually high number of health problems, a new study shows.

Previous research has documented the health problems suffered by firefighters who worked at Ground Zero, but the new study is the first to examine the health consequences of the toxic dust and emotional stress on workers such as paramedics and emergency medical technicians.

Compared with emergency medical workers who didn't serve at the World Trade Center, those who responded on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, are seven times more likely to have had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder since the attacks.

They are nearly four times as likely to have had acid reflux, almost four times as likely to have had inflammation of the nasal and sinus cavities, more than twice as likely to have had breathing disorders such as asthma or chronic bronchitis and twice as likely to have suffered depression, according to the study, led by the Fire Department of the City of New York's Bureau of Health Services.

The most common problem was symptoms of depression, suffered by nearly 17% of the 2,281 medical service workers included in the study, which was published online Wednesday in Occupational Safety & Medicine. The rate of PTSD symptoms was 7%. The the rate of symptoms of harmful alcohol use was 3%.

It's easy to see why ambulance crews working at Ground Zero would suffer depression, given the carnage they witnessed, says Michael Crane, director of the World Trade Center Health Program Clinical Center at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

"This was an attack on the United States of America that is still impacting people 13 and 14 years later," says Crane, who was not involved in the new study. "The mental health impact was extraordinary and remains extraordinary."

About 12% of emergency medical workers suffer from acid reflux or breathing problems such as asthma or chronic bronchitis, according to the study. That's also not surprising, Crane says, because many workers breathed in or swallowed toxic dust and smoke from burning gasoline. Those substances can easily irritate the throat, lungs and digestive tract.

"Large numbers of toxins and carcinogens were found in that dust," Crane says. "We'll never know the total amount that people were exposed to because nobody stood there with a meter. But we know the dust that settled to the earth was highly toxic."

Previous studies have found even higher rates of medical problems among firefighters, who were exposed to more dust and toxins while digging through rubble, the study says. About 34% of firefighters developed nasal or sinus inflammation, 29% developed reflux, 25% developed breathing problems and 9.3% developed symptoms of harmful alcohol use.