NY Cop's lung disease death nothing to do with 9/11, ME says  
Friday, October 26th, 2007

Speaking of uber-suspicious.  The New York City Chief medical examiner released her findings yesterday, in the true cause of death of James Zadroga, a NY police detective who died in January 2006.

A pathologist in New Jersey had linked Zadroga's death to inhaling Ground Zero Dust after working in the rubble of the Word Trade Center after the September 11th attacks.  The city's medical examiner disagrees.

James' family and the police union had believed his death was caused by the hundreds of hours he had spent working at the 9/11 site.

My question is:  Why would they even be still investigating whether or not that was the true cause in the first place?  He worked on Ground Zero and breathed in the white dust for more than four hundred hours!  And then died of lung disease at the age of 34, five years later.

Give his family what they need, as Mayor Bloomberg promised.

And it took them nearly two years to release their findings?  I have never heard of this cause of death, that the ME ruled yesterday.

"The lung disease is not due to anything that was inhaled, it was because of what was put through his blood stream," announced Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the chief medical examiner.

"He ground up drugs and injected them.  Talc and cellulose were found.  Those two are used as binders when the companies make prescription drugs," she said.

They are saying that Zadroga took the insoluble ingredients, crushed them up, and injected them, giving himself the lung disease that killed him.

Zardoga's family acknowledged he was taking several drugs to treat his illness, and some of them intravenously, but they were all prescribed for his lung disease.

In a letter sent this week to Zadroga's parents, Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch rejected all opinions and analysis that linked the officer's death to breathing in harmful substances.

"It is our unequivocal opinion, with certainty beyond doubt, that the foreign material in your son's lungs did not get there as the result of inhaling dust at the World Trade Center or elsewhere," Hirsch wrote in the letter, also was signed by city Medical Examiner Michele Slone.

Zadroga died Jan. 5, 2006, at his parents' home in Little Egg Harbor, N.J., from pulmonary disease and respiratory failure.  His death had resulted in state lawmakers in New York passing a bill awarding accidental-death benefits to relatives of Ground Zero workers and responders who contracted fatal illnesses as a result to the harmful toxins at the site.

His memorial page at The Officer Down Memorial Page, Inc., where you can leave a "reflection" in memorium of him and other rescue workers and heroes, remains unchanged:

"Detective James Zadroga
New York City Police Department
New York
End of Watch: Friday, January 6, 2006

Biographical Info
Age: 34
Tour of Duty: 13 years
Badge Number: 6663

Incident Details
Cause of Death: 9/11 related illness
Date of Incident: Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Weapon Used: Aircraft; Passenger jet
Suspect Info: 19 suicide attackers

Detective James Zadroga died of a respiratory disease he contracted during rescue and recovery operations at the site of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center."

He is survived by his five-year old daughter, and his parents.

The Weinstein Company will donate 11% of their profits from the Michael Moore documentary "SICKO" to the 9/11 rescue workers who are not receiving the care that they should get.

The DVD is out on November 6th, so preorder now!  For Christmas, even!

They've also updated their website with more in the "What Can I Do?" section.

   

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