Flaherty
4th October 2003, 05:23 AM
For the past year, more than 140 New York City firefighters, some ailing from their work in the ruins of the World Trade Center, have walked into a seventh-floor medical clinic just two blocks from the former disaster site. Once inside, some have abandoned the medical care and emotional counseling provided to them by their own department's doctors, and all have taken up a treatment regimen devised by L. Ron Hubbard, the late science fiction writer and founder of the Church of Scientology.
The firefighters take saunas, engage in physical workouts and swallow pills — all of which together constitute what for years has been known, amid considerable dispute, as Mr. Hubbard's detoxification program, one meant to wash the body of poisons or toxins. The firefighters are not charged for their trips to the clinic, called Downtown Medical.
Of the more than 140 firefighters and 15 emergency medical workers who have undergone the program, some have told colleagues of its virtues. Others have said they were simply following the regimen in order to enjoy free saunas.
But one retired firefighter is a paid member of the clinic's advisory board, and the city's main fire union has pledged its "full support" to the clinic as it seeks government grants and other forms of financing.
"The statements I have heard from firefighters who have completed the program are truly remarkable," Stephen J. Cassidy, the president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, wrote in a letter that is posted on the clinic's Web site. The letter adds, "The work you are doing in this regard is unique in the city, and is very welcome."
But the existence of the clinic has upset city Fire Department officials, who, among other concerns, are alarmed that the medical treatment prescribed by its doctors is being discarded by some firefighters who enroll at Downtown Medical. They say the clinic's detoxification program requires firefighters to stop using inhalers meant to help with their breathing and any medications they may be taking, like antidepressants or blood pressure pills.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/04/nyregion/04DETO.html?hp
The firefighters take saunas, engage in physical workouts and swallow pills — all of which together constitute what for years has been known, amid considerable dispute, as Mr. Hubbard's detoxification program, one meant to wash the body of poisons or toxins. The firefighters are not charged for their trips to the clinic, called Downtown Medical.
Of the more than 140 firefighters and 15 emergency medical workers who have undergone the program, some have told colleagues of its virtues. Others have said they were simply following the regimen in order to enjoy free saunas.
But one retired firefighter is a paid member of the clinic's advisory board, and the city's main fire union has pledged its "full support" to the clinic as it seeks government grants and other forms of financing.
"The statements I have heard from firefighters who have completed the program are truly remarkable," Stephen J. Cassidy, the president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, wrote in a letter that is posted on the clinic's Web site. The letter adds, "The work you are doing in this regard is unique in the city, and is very welcome."
But the existence of the clinic has upset city Fire Department officials, who, among other concerns, are alarmed that the medical treatment prescribed by its doctors is being discarded by some firefighters who enroll at Downtown Medical. They say the clinic's detoxification program requires firefighters to stop using inhalers meant to help with their breathing and any medications they may be taking, like antidepressants or blood pressure pills.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/04/nyregion/04DETO.html?hp