Lung afflictions after 9/11

The New York Times has an article today, "Debate Revives as 9/11 Dust is Called Fatal." It tells the story of a 34-year old detective who died of a lung malady. The coroner reported, "It is felt with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of death in this case was directly related to the 9/11 incident." "A reasonable degree of medical certainty," the article notes, is "coroner language for 'as sure as I can be.'"

According to the article, some people suggest that the mix of chemicals in the air after the collapse of the World Trade Center somehow accelerated the development of cancers and other respiratory maladies.

One of our relatives has been diagnosed with lung cancer. She's a non-smoker with no risk factors. So far as we know, she's never lived somewhere with high concentrations of radon, and her two sisters are in good health. But she works in Manhattan and spent a lot of time breathing that post-collapse air. It seems like 2001 was too recent for cancer to develop, but it's the only risk factor that we can come up with.