Health

9/11 Dust Exposure Linked to 14x Higher Dementia Risk

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United States: The World Trade Center Health Program has been covering the medical expenses for cancer, respiratory ailments, mental health conditions, and musculoskeletal disorders linked to work at the site ever since it was established by an act of Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2011. 

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Recently, researchers have started to look into cognitive impairment and dementia afflicting first responders at rates far higher than in the general population. 

The study findings are urging healthcare providers to be more expressive regarding lobbying the World Trade Center Health Program, which is overseen by the CDC, to include dementia among the illnesses covered. 

What more are the experts stating?

According to Benjamin Luft, the director of a program at Stony Brook University that cares for and monitors the health of first responders, “I’m hoping they will,” and “They have a systematic process in which they evaluate the scientific data. We’ve spent a huge amount of time and effort to establish that exposure to the neurotoxins and dust could cause these problems, and so should be eligible for coverage,” the Washington Post reported. 

9/11 Dust Exposure Linked to 14x Higher Dementia Risk. Credit | AP

Lust has been working as a senior author of a study whose findings were published this summer and involved more than five thousand respondents who regularly undergone tests for over a decade. 

They found that the ones with maximum exposure to the dust, as well as neurotoxic debris at the WTC, would have fourteen times more chances of becoming infected with dementia before the age of 65.

As per Ray Dorsey, a professor of neurology at the University of Rochester, the small-sized ordinary dust particles, which are termed fine particulate matter, could enter the nose and reach the brain to cause damage, the Washington Post reported. 

However, as Dorsey said, “The nose is the front door to our brain,” and “Dust and chemicals set up shop in the small area of our brain, then spread to the parts of the brain important for memory.” 

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