City Says Prescription Misuse Caused Death of Detective Who Worked at 9/11 Site

NY Times ^ | October 26, 2007 | ANTHONY DePALMA

[neverdem]

New York City’s medical examiner has concluded that it was the misuse of prescription drugs, and not toxic ground zero dust, that killed James Zadroga, a retired detective, but other experts strongly disagree.

Detective Zadroga’s parents revealed the medical examiner’s opinion yesterday, several days after he had sent a letter to them stating “with certainty beyond doubt” that their son had not died as a result of inhaling dust during the more than 400 hours he worked at ground zero.

After reviewing medical evidence, Charles S. Hirsch, the city’s chief medical examiner, concluded that Detective Zadroga had crushed pills and made them into a solution that was injected intravenously into his bloodstream.

Traces of nonsoluble fillers, or binders, in the pills accumulated in his lungs, leading to respiratory illness that caused his death in January 2006, at the age of 34, according to the medical examiner’s office.

Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office, said the material in Detective Zadroga’s lungs had passed through his bloodstream.

“Our findings were that his lung disease was not caused by anything he inhaled,” she said. “The crystals we saw under the microscope could only have been caused by foreign body granulomas in the blood vessels.”

Medical experts have been aware for more than two decades that drug abusers who crush tablets — including the painkiller OxyContin — and inject them directly into their veins can develop serious respiratory problems. Powdery materials used to bind tablets, including talc and cellulose, can lodge in the lung capillaries. The body reacts by forming nodules called granulomas, which can eventually reduce lung capacity...

[pepsionice]

The experts may be correct...but the dude may have had such pains...that this was the only way to relieve them...and thus he accidentally killed himself. All those guys who performed their duties in the days after 9-11 in New York...deserve some appreciation from us. They took in alot of dust, and probably contaminants. At some point...we will have to face the music...but just not yet.

[KJC1]

This is not passing the sniff test. I might well be wrong.

[neverdem]

This is not passing the sniff test. I might well be wrong.

IIRC, my pathology teacher in school said something to the effect that if you get three different pathologists to make a diagnosis, then you'll get three different diagnoses. Without more direct physical evidence of intravenous drug abuse(IVDA), I'm scratching my head.

My guess is only the first NJ examiner had a chance to examine his whole body for the "tracks" of IVDA at autopsy, and the others only looked at sections of his lung specimens under a microscope.