NEW YORK (AFP) – Movie star Tom Cruise inaugurated an alternative detoxification program aimed at treating rescue workers exposed to toxic materials following the September 11 terror attacks in New York.

The centre, on Long Island adjacent to New York City is the second to be sponsored by a fundraising drive spearheaded by the 41-year-old movie heartthrob, his spokeswoman and sister, Lee Anne DeVette, told AFP.

“It’s been almost three years since the attacks, and thousands are still suffering,” said Cruise, who co-founded the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project.

“That’s unacceptable to me, to these heroes, and to their families.”

Cruise in March raised 1.2 million dollars for the scheme to treat rescue workers who helped sift through hundreds of thousands of tons of debris at the site of the World Trade Center towers known as Ground Zero.

Part of the money, raised through a major benefit gala, was used to build the new center on Long Island where many of the affected firemen and other rescuers live.

The centers offer free treatment to those exposed to hazardous materials and chemicals under a detox regimen worked out by Church of Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard.

Cruise is a longtime member and supporter of the Los Angeles-based church.

Cruise says the treatment of so-called “9/11 syndrome” is so effective that a center that he opened in Manhattan in 2002 had been inundated with patients who had asked for an additional center to be opened on Long Island.

“He will open several more of the facilities through the rest of the year,” said DeVette. “It’s very much something he cares a great deal about and it helps so much.”

Source: Yahoo