AP
Monday, November 20, 2006

NEW YORK -- The federal government is abandoning an effort to create standard autopsy guidelines that could document a link between toxic air at ground zero and the deaths of Sept. 11 rescue workers.

Concerns have been raised that the information collected could be misinterpreted or misapplied.

The CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says it will instead pursue "other avenues for documenting long-term health effects from exposure to air contaminants from the World Trade Center disaster."
The collapse of the twin towers sent thick plumes of concrete dust, fiberglass, asbestos and lead into the air in lower Manhattan. The tainted air was taken in by thousands of ground zero workers in the weeks after the terrorist attack.