Ground Zero 9/11 Workers, Residents Still Struggling With Asbestos Illnesses
When the World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, about 10,000 “first responders” such as police, firefighters and rescue workers were on the scene immediately. Their exposure to toxic materials such as asbestos, lead, and other contaminants caused many respiratory illnesses and possibly cancer.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the White House are now dealing with accusations that they played down the risks of being at or near Ground Zero in the months after 9/11, telling workers and residents that it was safe to go back into the area although evidence indicated otherwise.
Thousands Sickened by Contaminants
The clean-up workers comprise another few thousand people exposed to contaminants, and the residents in the area and those who came into Lower Manhattan for their jobs were also exposed. The World Trade Center Health Registry is tracking the health of some 71,000 New York City residents and workers.
Researchers with the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York found that nearly 70 percent of the 10,000 first responders they examined had newly developed or worsened lung problems after their work on and after 9/11. The same medical problems have been documents among lower-Manhattan residents by doctors at the New York University School of Medicine.
Bellevue Hospital in lower Manhattan has a new World Trade Center health clinic for treating people exposed to dust or fumes from the tragedy on 9/11. The clinic is currently treating more than 1,300 such patients, with many more on a waiting list.
EPA Assurances about Safety
A June 2007 hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives examined the charges that the EPA issued reassuring public statements about air safety and asbestos levels in the Ground Zero area even though the agency was informed of unsafe levels of toxins there. Former EPA director Christine Todd testified that the EPA’s early assurances were based on reports by scientists, not on political expedience.
However, an August 2003 report by the EPA’s own inspector noted that some of the EPA statements about the air quality and safety soon after the attacks were made without scientific evidence, and the report also implicated the Bush administration in the mitigation of the health warnings to New Yorkers.
In early 2007, a federal judge ruled that Whitman knowingly lied to residents of lower Manhattan about the health risks rising from 9/11. An appeal of the ruling is underway.