October 8, 2001: Report Warns Residents near Ground Zero at Risk of Gulf War Syndrome

A draft report written by Dr. Roderick Wallace of New York State Psychiatric Institute and Dr. Deborah N. Wallace of Columbia University, warns that residents of downtown Manhattan may later develop symptoms similar to “particularly acute forms of Gulf War Syndrome” because of their exposure to the contaminants released when the World Trade Center towers collapsed and burned. The report’s authors write that the collapse and fires appear “to have exposed an exceedingly large population to dioxins, dibenzofurans, related endocrine disruptors, and a multitude of other physiologically active chemicals arising from the decomposition of the massive quantities of halogenated hydrocarbons and other plastics within the affected buildings.” The expected pattern “greatly transcends a simple ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’ model, and may come to resemble particularly acute forms of Gulf War Syndrome,” they say. [Wallace and Wallace, 10/8/2001 ]