NEW YORK — Call it compassionate, even political. But … scientific? Several experts say there’s no hard evidence to support the federal government’s declaration this month that 50 kinds of cancer could be caused by exposure to dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center.
The decision could help hundreds of people get payouts from a multibillion-dollar World Trade Center health fund to repay those ailing after they breathed in toxic dust created by the collapsing twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001.
But scientists say there is little research to prove that exposure to the toxic dust plume caused even one kind of cancer. And many acknowledge the payouts to cancer patients could take money away from those suffering from illnesses more definitively linked to Sept. 11, such as asthma and some types of lung disease.
The Associated Press
