LHS students learn from Mount Sinai doctor

By CAROL HOLOBOFF The Western News

Dr. Stephen M. Levin, the medical director of Mount Sinai School of Medicine's Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine in New York, was in Libby to meet with Dr. Brad Black, medical director of the Center for Asbestos Related Disease, last week. Dr. Levin, part of the CARD research advisory group, is a recognized expert on asbestos related diseases. He studied under Irving J. Selikoff, a foremost authority on asbestos related diseases in the late 20th century.

Black generously arranged for Levin to speak with Gene Reckin's science students at Libby High School.

Levin's power-point presentation, "Health Effects Among World Trade Center Rescue and Recovery Workers" kept the students spellbound for almost two hours. The presentation included many striking photos from the 9/11 WTC disaster. Some of the photos demonstrated the lack of respiratory breathing apparatus that were used by the rescue workers. Other pictures showed piles of pulverized materials from the buildings that imploded. Levin explained to the students that those hazardous materials were from many sources, including the many tons of asbestos that had been sprayed on the WTC beams during the construction of the buildings.

In the clinic at Mount Sinai, as rescue and recovery workers began to show similar signs and symptoms during their medical visits, scientists knew they had been right when they attempted to warn agencies about the environmental dangers in the ruins of the WTC.

Eventually funding, although the WTC was never declared a Public Health Disaster or a Superfund site, was secured from unions and other labor related agencies. Free screening and later, free medical treatment was established with the understanding that the project was not for the purpose of research, but for the benefit of the participants. Over 22,000 people participated in the screening.

Another highly visible participant in Libby's asbestos disaster story, Dr. Aubrey Miller, the Senior Medical Officer and Toxicologist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Region 8 office, was also present at the high school. Miller told the students that government agencies that are supposed to serve and protect the public sometimes seem to give priority to financial or political considerations instead of protecting human health.

Levin was careful to point out that the lack of EPA cooperation at the WTC was in sharp contrast to the support that Region 8 has provided for Libby.

"Frankly," he said, "It is hard to believe they are the same agency.

"Dr. Black is one of my heroes. He has displayed a lot of courage in the face of adversity. Dr. Black saw what he believed to be something significant in the understanding of asbestos related diseases and he has remained steadfast in that assumption, in spite of economic and political hardships, and opposing medical opinions of others around the world," Levin said.

Reckin's students were the recipients of a world class presentation that was not watered down and Libby has world class connections who lend credibility to the CARD's pursuit of scientific legitimacy.