Latest Donation to A4H Special Thanks

This month we have received a $1000 donation from Ronnie and Julie Hemenway of Marrero, LA. Everyone in this charity is thankful for their donation as it will help so many rescue and recovery workers to help us reach our goal of finding a cure to the cause of everyone's illness. We are touched to receive this donation from people who have survived the Hurricane Katrina event in which so many people were left hopeless. We thank you Ronnie and Julie Hemenway.

Scientists tracking health of 9/11 search dogs

Updated: 4:06 p.m. ET Oct 20, 2006

NEW YORK - They dug in the toxic World Trade Center dust for survivors, and later for the dead. Their feet were burned by white-hot debris. But unlike thousands of others who toiled at ground zero after Sept. 11, these rescue workers aren’t sick.
Scientists have spent years studying the health of search-and-rescue dogs that nosed through the debris at ground zero, and to their surprise, they have found no sign of major illness in the animals.
They are trying to figure out why this is so.
“They didn’t have any airway protection, they didn’t have any skin protection. They were sort of in the worst of it,” said Cynthia Otto, a veterinarian at the University of Pennsylvania, where researchers launched a study of 97 dogs five years ago.
Although many ground zero dogs have died — some of rare cancers — researchers say many have lived beyond the average life span for dogs and are not getting any sicker than average.
Owners of the dogs dispute the findings, saying there is a definite link between the toxic air and their pets’ health.
Otto has tracked dogs that spent an average of 10 days after the 2001 terrorist attacks at either the trade center site, the landfill in New York where most of the debris was taken, or the heavily damaged Pentagon.
As of last month, she said, 30 percent of the dogs deployed after Sept. 11 had died, compared with 22 percent of those in a comparison group of dogs who were not pressed into service. The difference was not considered statistically significant, Otto said.
But she added: “We have to keep looking.”

A separate study, to be published soon by a doctor at New York’s Animal Medical Center, focused on about two dozen New York police dogs, and comes to similar conclusions. The results have baffled doctors. A study released last month found that 70 percent of the people who worked at ground zero suffer severe respiratory problems; scientists thought that the dogs might have similar health problems.
Longer noses may serve as filtersThe dogs’ owners and scientists have many theories why dogs aren’t showing the same level of illness as people. Their noses are longer, possibly serving as a filter to protect their lungs from toxic dust and other debris, they say. The dogs were at the site an average of several days, while many people who report lung disease and cancer spent months cleaning up after the attacks.

The research isn’t persuasive to many owners of dogs that died after working at the trade center site. Joaquin Guerrero, a police officer in Saginaw, Mich., took two dogs, Felony and Rookie, to ground zero for 10 days after the attacks. While Felony remains healthy, Rookie died at age 9 in 2004 of cancer of the mouth. Guerrero believes his death was caused by exposure to ground zero.
“If the people are getting it, you know dogs are showing signs of it,” Guerrero said.

Otto said that some of the dogs that worked at the sites could not be found and other dogs’ owners were not willing to subject their pets to annual blood tests and X-rays.
Mary Flood, whose 11½-year-old black Labrador, Jake, is completely healthy five years after working at ground zero, said that dogs’ much shorter life span may also make it harder to track long-term illness.
“Maybe there’s not enough time to develop these things before they’re no longer with us,” she said.


This article can be found at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15349649/

Enzyme tied to 9/11 Ill

May explain cough, study sez
BY PAUL H.B. SHINDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Doctors unveiled a tantalizing glimpse yesterday into why some firefighters may suffer from the "World Trade Center cough" while others who endured the toxic dust and fumes at Ground Zero are relatively healthy.
Firefighters whose lung capacity deteriorated faster in the wake of 9/11 were more likely to be deficient in a key natural enzyme that protects against lung damage, according to a study of 90 of the 12,000 Bravest who responded to the attacks at Ground Zero.
But Dr. David Prezant, the study's lead researcher and the FDNY's co-chief medical officer, cautioned against drawing too broad a conclusion from the report.
"This is very, very preliminary information that cannot in any shape or form be translated into a diagnosis or treatment initiative," Prezant told the Daily News from Salt Lake City, where he presented his findings at a gathering of the American College of Chest Physicians.
"It is only one small piece of a puzzle," he said. "We are trying to understand the science behind why some patients come down with World Trade Center respiratory diseases and others do not."
However, the research could eventually help solve the puzzle years down the road, said Prezant, a lung specialist at Montefiore Medical Center.
Using a blood test normally used to screen people at risk of early-onset emphysema, Prezant found that 11 of the 90 firefighters had low levels of an enzyme called alpha-1 antitrypsin, or A1AT.
Of the 11, four had a significant deficiency of A1AT while seven had a moderate deficiency, the blood tests showed.
But none had the most severe kind of genetic deficiency. All have the WTC cough.
"What this enzyme does is it protects the lungs from damage," said Dr. Mark Rosen, a pulmonologist at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Medical Center and president of American College of Chest Physicians.
"It prevents the destruction of lung tissue by a variety of mechanisms," he said.
About 150,000 Americans have a severe shortage of A1AT, but many are undiagnosed.
"Many more have a partial deficiency, and most of those people are not diagnosed for their whole lives because most of those people don't get sick" unless they are exposed to toxins such as cigarette smoke, Rosen said.
Prezant stressed that trying to determine whether a particular disease - whether it's WTC cough or breast cancer - is due to genetic or environmental factors is a science that's still in its infancy.
"It's not going to be one genetic trait" that is responsible for WTC cough, Prezant said.
That's why simply testing responders for the enzyme won't be useful, he said.
But the ongoing research at the FDNY is "on the cutting edge for trying to find future cures."
A study published in August by one of Prezant's colleagues at Montefiore painted a grim picture of the lung ailments among the 12,000 firefighters who inhaled dust and smoke on 9/11 and in the following months.
Those firefighters suffered a dramatic loss of lung capacity - 12 times the normal rate that occurs each year as people age, the study found. Originally published on October 25, 2006

This article can be found at http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/465120p-391263c.html