Neither Dr. Charles Hirsch, the city’s chief medical examiner, nor the fam ily of James Zadroga was talking publicly yesterday about why the M.E. is convinced “beyond certainty of doubt” that the retired NYPD detective’s death last year was not related to his post-9/11 rescue work at Ground Zero.
But Hirsch’s unambigious findings – made at the request of Zadroga’s family, it should be noted – only underscore why the city can’t automatically presume that any and all illnesses of ex-Ground Zero workers are 9/11-related, no questions asked.
Zadroga, recall, was the first rescue worker whose death was officially linked to dust he’d inhaled at Ground Zero.
A retired pathologist who’d worked for the Ocean County (N.J.) medical examiner conducted an autopsy and determined “with a reasonable degree of medical certainty” that Zadroa’s respiratory failure was “directly related to the 9/11 incident.”
This assertion unleashed an emotional flood that led federal and city officials to commit to billions in medical care for those claiming 9/11-related illnesses.
But as The New York Times noted, there are solid reasons why the Jersey pathologist’s findings may not be as conclusive as initially stated.
For one thing, he never compared the particles he found in Zadroga’s lungs to dust from the air around the destroyed Twin Towers. Nor did he consult with any doctors or specialists who’d treated other first responders with claimed Ground Zero-related illnesses.
In other words, he apparently presumed that the foreign particles in Zadroga’s lungs must have come from Ground Zero – though police officers and firefighters are routinely exposed to toxic materials at other fire scenes.
Not surprisingly, the city M.E.’s findings came as a blow to Zadroga’s family, who yesterday met with Hirsch privately to discuss his report. Even Mayor Bloomberg distanced himself from the medical examiner’s findings.
None of this, of course, is to say that no first responders have contracted illnesses from their Ground Zero work. Nor does it in any way discredit the heroism of Det. Zadroga, who spent 450 hours at the site.
Zadroga’s union charged that Hirsch’s report was meant to lessen the city’s liability in lawsuits. But Zadroga’s family has not sued – and the M.E. has certified one case, that of bystander Felicia Dunn-Jones, to have been 9/11-related.
But – like the earlier case of Officer Cesar Borja, whose death was blamed in bogus news stories on 9/11 dust he’d inhaled, until it was discovered that he’d only worked near Ground Zero, and then not until well after the plume had cleared – it reinforces the need to scrutinize each and every such claim individually.
Neither the city nor the feds can presume that all Ground Zero workers are entitled to benefits and fully subsidized health care whenever any illness develops – on the unproven assumption that it must be 9/11-related.
Those who were physically injured on 9/11 and its aftermath – especially the first-responders – deserve all the help that America can offer.
But those who hope to game the system – even if they sincerely believe, without proof, that their illness is 9/11-related – cannot be allowed to get away with it.