SURPRISE! Federal government abandons 9/11 autopsy guidelines

[Bluebear]

NEW YORK - An effort to create standard autopsy guidelines that could document a link between toxic air at ground zero and deaths of 9/11 rescue workers has been abandoned by the federal government amid concerns the information collected could be misinterpreted...

The guidelines were intended to be used nationwide in cases such as the death of New York City police detective James Zadroga, who died last January. Zadroga spent 470 hours working amid the toxic fumes, and fell ill within weeks.

An autopsy found the 34-year-old detective died as a result of ground zero exposure, finding that there was material "consistent with dust" found in his lungs.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061119/ap_on_re_us/sept11_autopsies

[Bluebear]

1. .

[uppityperson]

2. k&r

edited to add, so they are not going to create guidlines because information collected could be misinterpreted? WHAT!?

[Bluebear]

3. Oh, yes. You read correctly. 9/11 is only good as a campaign point ...

to this administration.

[uppityperson]

4. isn't that what guidelines are for, to show how to classify/interpet things?

makes my head hurt.

[Divernan]

5. The information collected would be evidence in civil law suits v. govt. officials

If the fed. govt. sets guidelines, it will be very easy for individuals to prove causation of their illnesses. If the govt. doesn't acknowledge guidelines, every single lawsuit will have to prove the medical links over and over and over, utilizing expensive medical experts, and hoping that some not-very-bright juries won't be confused by the defense's hired guns, medical experts who will deny a link between 9/11 and the illnesses.

It's already been ruled that Christie Todd Whitman can be sued in civil court for the EPA's false reports that the air and water at Ground Zero was safe just 2 days after 9/11. However, she'll be able to join James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, because the EPA reports went through the White House before they were released to the public, and it was Connaughton who changed them to delete warnings and insert lethal lies that air/water was safe.

Now the 64 million dollar question (and no one as investigated this, to my knowledge) is who else in the White House was in on this decision. I doubt Connaughton did it without running it by Rove, Cheney and possibly even Bush. He's a smart, if heartless,lawyer and he would have been in CYA mode.

[mom cat]

10. Did you see this sick quote from the article:

"Because autopsy results are often used in civil lawsuits, the results collected by the institute — while intended as a scientific study — could be used as a trial tool for lawyers and others with an "undeniable self-interest" in the cause of death, Prezant said."

Calling the tissue samples a "trial tool" and the victims and their families "others with undeniable self interest" is so distorter and so typical of the twisted arguements used by the lawyers for the perpetrators!

What about the "undeniable self interest" of the people who do NOT want the tissue samples collected for fear that they might be used as evidence! We wouldn't want to collect evidence that Bush is guilty of murder, would we? :sarcasm:

[Bluebear]

11. That is indeed sick. nt

[Imagevision]

6. So, the next 9-11 that ocurrs we'll know... better? Bush should have stayed longer!!

[hootinholler]

7. Great. So if your family wants to sue after death, they have to find a private autopsy. n/t

[Divernan]

8. Not just the autopsy. They need a doctor to interpret autopsy results.

That would be a different specialist. And the whole question of causality would have to be fought out at every single trial. If there were recognized standard findings, like x percent of (name one of the many lethal elements in the air at Ground Zero)found in the lungs/body of a previously healthy person, there would be a presumption of causation. The burden would be on the defendant to prove there were other causes of death.

Without the standard, the burden of proof will be on the plaintiff to prove causation.

[drm604]

9. K&R

:kick: