Tom Cruise helps 9/11 detox

It has been revealed Tom Cruise helped raise $1.2 million to treat fire fighters caught up in the September 11th terror attacks.

11:55 14 April 2004

It has been revealed Tom Cruise helped raise $1.2 million to treat fire fighters caught up in the September 11th terror attacks.

The sum of around 657,000 will help provide a detox treatment for those exposed to toxic gases during the Trade Centre collapse.

The Hollywood star hopes the regime, designed by Ron L Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology, can benefit those affected.

At a recent fundraising dinner, Mr Cruise said: "I worried about those who had survived and been exposed." The actor, who visited Ground Zero soon after the attacks, said he "knew immediately that not only would people be getting ill, very ill, but that it would be sooner rather than later."

The cash raised by the star will help to treat around 400 fire fighters at a detox centre on New York's Long Island.

The alternative treatment, outlined in Hubbard's book Clear Body, Clear Mind, uses "exercise, sauna sweat-out, vitamins and minerals" to help rescue workers cleanse their bodies of toxic materials, and has also been used to treat drug addiction.

The treatment has already helped about 200 emergency workers, according to Bridge Publications, the publishers of Mr Hubbard's non-fiction works.

The actor added, "Once the towers had gone down and we were faced with the aftermath of their collapse, I could not get out of my mind that huge cloud billowing across Manhattan."