Pill misuse, not 9/11, blamed for man's death

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Oct 26, 2007

NEW YORK (AP) -- The city's medical examiner concluded that the misuse of pills, not the dust of ground zero, caused the lung disease that killed a man who became a nationally known example of post-Sept. 11 illness, the examiner's spokeswoman confirmed Thursday.

Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch concluded that retired police detective James Zadroga got the lung disease that killed him by injecting ground-up pills into his bloodstream, leaving traces of the pills in the lung tissue, spokeswoman Ellen Borakove told The Associated Press.

"It is our opinion that that material entered his body via the bloodstream and not via the airways," she said.

She confirmed Hirsch's findings after Zadroga's father and lawyer said Hirsch told them Zadroga's death was caused by the misuse of prescription drugs -- not the more than 450 hours he spent toiling at the World Trade Center site after the Sept. 11 attacks.

A New Jersey medical examiner had ruled last year that Zadroga died from inhaling toxic ground zero dust, but the family asked Hirsch for a second opinion.