N.Y.: Sept. 11 health claims exaggerated

NEW YORK, June 25 (UPI) -- Attorneys for New York City say many of the injury claims made by Sept. 11, 2001, rescue and cleanup workers are spurious and exaggerated.

The city, in its first attempt to sort through and categorize the medical records of nearly 10,000 firefighters, police officers and construction workers who worked at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has found that nearly 30 percent of them pertain to common ailments, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Some 300 workers, the city found, have admitted in court documents they suffered no injuries at all from breathing in dust generated from the collapse of the towers of the World Trade Center, the newspaper said.

The workers' lawyers said the city's review was inaccurate and skewed toward downplaying health problems suffered by workers, including respiratory or gastrointestinal illnesses as well as cancer, pulmonary disease and lung scarring, the Times said.

The lawsuits arose when workers claimed they were sickened because they didn't have the right breathing equipment during the nine-month rescue-and-recovery operation at Ground Zero, the newspaper said.