Christy Whitman: Pay attention

I wrote recently about then EPA's Christy Whitman downplaying - minimalising - the toxic chemicals that 9/11 responders were exposed to at Ground Zero.

Ten years later, comes this report:

Mesothelioma Risk Still Exists After 9/11

September 16, 2011

A decade after the attack on the World Trade Centers, health officials are bracing for latent health effects such as mesothelioma among the tens of thousands of people exposed to toxic dust at the scene.

The collapse of the World Trade Centers in 2001 released huge clouds of dust and spread high levels of airborne pollutants across Manhattan and part of Brooklyn, New York.

[...]

An estimated 60,000 to 70,000 responders suffered the most concentrated exposure, but thousands of other people who were just in the area at the time – particularly in the first three days after the disaster – are also likely to have inhaled at least some toxic smoke and particulates including asbestos.

Air quality analysis conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency of the World Trade Center site around 9/11 revealed a long list of deadly contaminants. Within the clouds of smoke and dust were asbestos, pulverized concrete, glass fibers, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s) and polychlorinated furans and dioxins. An EPA health risk assessment in 2007 concluded that people exposed to these contaminants during the collapse of the towers and for several hours afterward were “likely to be at risk for acute and potentially chronic respiratory effects”.

There is also evidence that those materials are still in the lungs of those who inhaled them that day... (Copyright © 2005-20011 Cancer Monthly, Inc.)

No added commentary from me needed. Go read the rest of this report here.