9/11 Dementia: The Neurotoxic Reality

Hard to imagine how anyone who understands what it must've been like to be working at Ground Zero on and after 9/11 could think there weren't going to be physical and mental consequences for the workers and survivors of that tragedy. No one should forget the chaos that followed in terms of people struggling to find survivors and the horror that they all endured in the process. It should not then surprise anyone that 20 years later we are witnessing the mental and emotional devastation that typically appears when people are in their 70s and 80s now is clearly evident in these folks in their 50s. The level of toxicity they were exposed to in a matter of days or weeks, most people never come close to in a lifetime.

Our work with people strugging with memory loss has taught us to look to the lifestyle and levels of exposure to black  mold and other neurotoxins as well as being infected with spirochetes from tick bites. We also looked to the trauma that they endured in their lives from sexual and physical abuse, chronic pain and respiratory challenges as well as addiction to substances or disordered eating. The mismanagement of emotional stress challenges our immune system along with every other functional system in our body. How would that not add to the degrading our capacity to maintain a healthy internal biological and psychological ecosystem? 

The report now about first responders developing early onset dementia comes as no surprise to me or anyone in my professional circle and it offers cold comfort to see these things coming and know there's very little attention being given let alone resources put toward mitigation of the downside risk and the inevitable disaster facing these brave souls who put their lives on the line for us every day.  Grief over the enormity of the loss we suffered and that which was yet to come turned to anger shortly after the towers fell and it was clear that precious little attention being paid to the long term impact of being on the pile. The shocking enormity of the moment constrained most of our thinking to short term problem solving, coping with the next moment and the next. The axiom of those in recovery from addiction became the mantra for the country... 'one day at a time.'

There are tools available to these people to help them deal with their symptoms and possibly reverse their conditions or at least change the slope of decline. We've shown this to be true in our research on the use of self-administered transcranial infrared photobiomodulation (light therapy) and brainwave biofeedback. We are ready to help these heros first by letting them know that there is hope for recovery and the truth that time is the enemy in this situation. The sooner you start treatment the greater the chances are for improvement. Put the resources behind noninvasive technologies that have been proven effective in gold standard clinical trirals, that have no side effects, are easily deployed and would cost a fraction of what has been spent on the 500+ failed pharmaceutical trials in the vain search for a single molecule solution to a systemic disease. Researchers like Tom Lewis PhD (healthrevivalpartners.com) and Dale Bredesen (apollohealthco.com) foundational work has shown us there are alternatives to treating dementia, let's put them to work now for these brave souls who deserve nothing less than our absolute best. 
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/08/30/911-first-responders-dementia/?itid=pr_hybrid_experimentrandom_with_top_mostshared_3_na-ans_3