Several 9/11 Remembrance Ceremonies To Take Place Across The East End

More than 20 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the volume of research on responders and survivors is substantial and growing, yielding sometimes unexpected, potentially powerful revelations about the long-term physical and mental effects of exposure to disaster. Nicholas Spangler reports on Newsday.com that PubMed, an electronic database of the National Library of Medicine, lists roughly 1,300 scientific papers about the World Trade Center with close to 60 published in the last year. The latest papers examine links between exposure to what doctors have called the “toxic cocktail” of gas and dust at Ground Zero and cancer, pulmonary and cardiovascular conditions, along with trends in substance use and post-traumatic stress disorder. Today is the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. “There are so many questions still out there,” said Dr. Benjamin Luft, director and principal investigator of the Stony Brook World Trade Center Wellness Program. “Think of the number of toxicants that were at the World Trade Center site. About 70 were identified, which is huge. Some of these are extremely potent agents that affect multiple systems … These are agents that affect both the development of cancer, autoimmune disease, neurodegenerative processes.” The tens of thousands of participants in Stony Brook’s program and four similar programs in New York City and New Jersey may not follow the minutiae of every new study. But some keep themselves broadly informed, interested in their own health and the fate of others who served with them. Carol Paukner, a retired NYPD officer from Miller Place, has visited the Stony Brook clinic and participated in its research almost since it opened, she said. A multisport athlete before the attacks, Paukner was helping civilians to safety when one of the towers collapsed. She crawled out of the rubble. After multiple surgeries, she lives with blood cancer, sinusitis, PTSD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and back issues. If the research can “help in the future with different illnesses, if they can change something to help someone else — like medication or how to handle a particular situation — anything that’s going to help someone else, that’s why I do it,” she said. ***Commemorating the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks there are several east end remembrance ceremonies this evening: As reported by Beth Young in EAST END BEACON the Southold Town 9/11 Memorial Committee will hold their Remembrance Ceremony this evening at 6 p.m. in Jean Cochran Park on Peconic Lane in Peconic. Riverhead’s Sound Park Heights Association’s annual 9/11 Vigil will start at 6 this evening, with a memorial procession beginning at Marine Street in Reeves Park and concluding at the memorial at the intersection of Park Road and Sound Avenue. The East Hampton Town Chiefs Association will hold their annual ceremony at Hook Mill Green tonight at 6 p.m., and the Flanders Fire Department will hold their annual 9-11 Memorial Service at Fireman’s Memorial Park at 1459 Flanders Road at 7 this evening. ***Commemorating those who died 22 years ago today from the terrorist attacks upon the World Trade Center and the collapse of the twin towers, the Town of Riverhead this morning will hold a prayer ceremony at 10am at its World Trade Center Memorial Park at the corner of Riley and Edwards Avenue. Nearly 1 in 5 of the dead on September 11, 2001 were Long Islanders — about two-thirds from Nassau County and a third from Suffolk.Hundreds more died when the third plane crashed into the Pentagon, outside Washington, D.C., and Flight 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, bringing the overall toll to 2,977. Two of the 44 aboard the fourth plane - Flight 93 - were Long Islanders: including a passenger originally from Sag Harbor…Linda Gronlund. (At the World Trade Center ceremony, the 9/11 victims' names, plus the names of those who wer