Program Has Critics: Set Body Scan For Ground Zero Dets.

Program Has Critics
Set Body Scan For Ground Zero Dets.

By REUVEN BLAU

The Detectives' Endowment Association last week announced that it will soon offer its members who worked at Ground Zero a complete body scan designed to detect potential health ailments.

MICHAEL PALLADINO: Hopes for early detection. The comprehensive test, which normally costs $850, will be available to active Detectives for $175 and all retirees for $375. Inner Imaging, the company contracted with the DEA to conduct the exams, is affiliated with Beth Israel Medical Center.

Cause for Concern

Numerous reports have shown that first-responders who assisted in the rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks have incurred increased respiratory ailments and other potentially fatal sicknesses. Many of the city's Detectives sifted through rubble at Ground Zero, the City Morgue and the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island looking for evidence and other remnants.

"This is a proactive approach by the DEA to try and get our members screened, and if there are any problems they can get diagnosed early enough," said DEA President Michael J. Palladino. "My fear is that the rank of Detective is going to be mostly affected by these health issues. The landfill and the Morgue were solely Detective operations."

DR. DAVID PREZANT: Fears false diagnoses. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, has cautioned asymptomatic individuals against using the test. "The FDA is recommending that people consider the drawbacks before they decide to have one of these scans," the oversight agency stated. "First of all, no manufacturer has submitted data to the FDA that demonstrate that this kind of screening is safe and effective."

'Will Save Lives'

Albert E. Barrette, the managing director of Inner Imaging, asserted that the exam will save lives. The test, he said, has the ability to determine if someone has coronary heart disease and other lung and abdomen ailments years in advance. "Heart disease is the number one killer" among officers, he said. "This can see the diseases 15 to 17 years before symptoms occur."

According to the FDA, another concern is the issue of false positives and false negatives. "False positive results, in which the scan indicates abnormalities that don't exist, can lead to more tests and medical procedures, some of [which] carry their own hazards," the FDA stated. "And ironically, instead of providing peace of mind, they induce needless anxiety."

But Mr. Barrette called the Imatron Ultrafast Electron Beam Scanner test the "golden standard upon which everyone else compares themselves." He claimed that conventional scans cannot fully see the heart's right artery. "We can predict heart attacks," he asserted.

The scanner takes a series of high-resolution images of the heart, which physicians then examine for flecks of calcium in the areas where the three major coronary arteries are located. According to Mr. Barrette, over 2,000 independent clinical studies have shown that the Imatron is 98-percent accurate in detecting coronary heart disease.

The exam also closely looks at patients' lungs and abdomen. Inner Imaging owns the only such scanner in the entire state. Asked why more hospitals haven't begun to use the technology, Mr. Barrette responded, "Prevention is not a big seller."

FDNY Doctor Skeptical

Dr. David Prezant, the FDNY's Chief Medical Officer, noted that radiologists feel the abdominal and pelvic portion of the scan is not worth the added radiation "because it does not pick up early disease and does not replace proven screening methods such as colonoscopy. We don't want to give false impressions to patients."

Dr. Prezant said he recommends that only high-risk patients undergo chest scans. "It is not meant to be a screening test," he remarked. "These chest CT tests are best served in a treatment program for those people who really need it."

The chest CT scan, he added, is "frequently a test that requires further testing."

Local physicians have also questioned the use of the body scan test. "I'm not sure that routine screening is healthy for you," said Dr. Robert Frankel, the Associate Director of Interventional Cardiology at Maimonides Medical Center. "You may wind up doing all sorts of tests. You may wind up biopsing and taking out tumors that are doing nothing."

Mr. Barrette countered that "prevention is not well understood [at] most institutions" and private practices fail to use it as a tool "mostly because it is laborintensive." Dr. Frankel sarcastically replied, "I'm glad that he's the only one who understands prevention."

'Another Option'

Mr. Palladino said that the test has already detected various ailments Detectives who toiled at Ground Zero have suffered. "We don't know what we are dealing with at Ground Zero; our people were exposed to significant toxic ailments," he added. "If I can give my members another affordable option that will give them early detection on these killer diseases, that's my goal."

The DEA is also backing a bill that would amend a state pension law to give lineof duty death benefits to public employees who die from 9/11-related illnesses.

The measure, called the Det. James Zadroga Bill after the officer who died in January from a combination of diseases that a New Jersey Medical Examiner tied to exposure to toxic substances at Ground Zero, passed both the Senate and Assembly the previous week.

Detective Zadroga worked for nearly 500 hours at the site after it was declared a crime scene by Federal investigators. He retired in 2005 on a tax-free three-quarter disability pension that his family can continue to receive for the next eight years.

If the bill is signed into law by Governor Pataki, the Zadroga family would be eligible for full death benefits, including a monthly tax-free payment based on 100 percent of Detective Zadroga's salary the last year he worked. His four-year-old daughter Tylerann could collect the benefit until she turned 19, or 23 if she was a full-time college student.

"We've been working very hard to get this," Mr. Palladino said. "I'm definitely concerned. As time marches on, we are finding out more and more illnesses. Some are more serious than others, and some, unfortunately, will be like James Zadroga, where it will claim their lives."