Remembering Dedicated Health Advocate for New York Firefighters and Police

Many New York firefighters and police know the name Dr. Stephen M. Levin and his advocacy for their health. Dr. Levin focused early attention on the adverse health effects and respiratory disease that first responders and rescue workers faced after breathing toxic dust after the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Levin, who served as co-director of the Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Manhattan, warned that 9/11 rescue workers had special medical needs because of their exposure to carcinogens like asbestos and dioxin and to microscopic shards of glass. Asbestos is linked to serious respiratory disease including lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung.

Levin, who died of cancer last week at age 70, worked with colleagues at Mount Sinai in the days immediately after the 2001 terrorist attacks to set up a clinic to provide comprehensive examinations to thousands of first responders. More than 20,000 have been treated at the clinic. Dr. Levin said in testimony to lawmakers that it was scandalous that the first responders had worked at Ground Zero without respirators and breathing protection.

Influential research that Levin and colleagues published in 2006 indicated that about a third of the 12,000 patients who had visited the clinic were dealing with respiratory issues and one out of five was dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms of certain respiratory diseases such as mesothelioma typically take decades to appear.

In late 2010, approaching the tenth anniversary of Sept. 11, Congress approved legislation allocating $4.3 billion to provide ongoing monitoring and medical treatment for first responders at Ground Zero. The legislation was named the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act in memory of a NY police detective who died after developing symptoms common to first responders.

Dr. Levin also did important research on the asbestos-tainted vermiculite mine at Libby, Montana, which was linked to cancer and respiratory disease suffered by hundreds of area residents. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has since declared a public health emergency in Libby Montana and launched a massive environmental cleanup of the area.

“The number of workers whose health he protected is in the tens of thousands,” Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai, told The New York Times. “These include the those whom he treated directly, but also those he protected through his advocacy and research findings.

For more information about asbestos disease and mesothelioma, click here.