Like a lot of New Yorkers who spent time near the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center, Lorraine Ashman needs to take a deep breath before listing all the health problems that have afflicted her over the past decade. First she got bronchiolitis and a constant cough that lasted for months. Then there were sinus infections, nine so far. She had pneumonia. She's developed immune system problems, vitamin deficiencies and a sensitivity to gluten. She had acid reflux so bad it damaged the lining of her esophagus. "I've just been sick non-stop," she said. "Being on antibiotics 12 months out of the year is an insane way to live ... I take 17 pills in the morning and six at night." Ashman, 57, blames it all on the sooty air she inhaled in the two months she worked as a volunteer near ground zero. Science, however, is less sure. A decade's worth of study has answered only a handful of questions about the hundreds of health conditions that people like Ashman suspect are related to the tons of gray dust that fell on the city when the trade center collapsed. While people have blamed everything from strange rashes to skin cancer on the dust, the list of illnesses even tentatively linked to the disaster is short
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