NEW YORK - 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 spokesman confirmed Thursday.
Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch concluded that retired police detective James Zadroga got the lung disease that killed him by injecting groundup pills into his bloodstream, leaving traces of the pills in the lung tissue, spokesman Ellen Borakove told reporters.
"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, 2001, 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 - and a ruling that would add Zadroga to the official Sept. 11, 2001, victims' list.
Last week Hirsch wrote a letter to Zadroga's father, Joseph, saying he believed "with certainty beyond doubt" that the dust did not cause his son's death, but Hirsch's conclusions about the real cause were not released by his office untilThursday.
His office did not say what drug or drugs were injected. Joseph Zadroga said his son was taking more than a dozen medications when he died, including anti-anxiety medicine and painkillers including OxyContin, but never ground up pills and injected them.
After James Zadroga died in January 2006, bills were named after him in Congress to fund research and treatment for those who became ill after working in the smoking ruins of the trade center.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 10/26/2007