Five years after the attack on the World Trade Center, more of the truth is making its way into the mainstream media. The New York Times last week finally editorialized about the appalling lack of support that the government provided to first responders -- the police, fire, and emergency workers who responded to the crisis five years ago and in the months that followed, saying that "One of the worst things about listening to those who rushed to ground zero after the attacks on Sept. 11 is that you can barely hear their stories. For many, the lungs hardly work. The cough, the ragged breathing, the confusion and even the bitterness make it hard for some of those who labored in that toxic cloud to explain how they feel forgotten... as many as seven in 10 of those who worked at ground zero and Fresh Kills on Staten Island have felt their lungs deteriorate because of their heroism."
Last Tuesday, the Times reported in some depth on the reality that "for many of the ill and those worried about becoming sick, government actions -- coming from officials whom they see as more concerned about the politics of the moment than the health of those who responded to the emergency -- are too limited and too late." Also last Tuesday, Mt. Sinai Medical Center released a new study showing that the health problems facing responders were increasing, not easing, with time. Dr. Philip J. Landrigan one of the authors of the new study, said that the toxic character of the dust at Ground Zero convinced doctors "that there would be serious health issues for years to come, especially for workers who were exposed to the heaviest concentrations in the early days after the terrorist attack.
"'This was extremely toxic dust,' Dr. Landrigan said."
Yet, official denial of this tragedy continues. New York Mayor Bloomberg says that, despite whatever data exists showing that the first responders are suffering as a group from an overwhelming set of respiratory illnesses, he's not convinced it proves anything. "I don't believe that you can say specifically a particular problem came from this particular event," the Mayor opined, saying that no correlation could ever prove causation. (One suspects that the correlation between stepping in front of a speeding New York taxi and getting injured would persuade him, so he probably doesn't mean this literally.)
And it is still very difficult to get mainstream media coverage of another grim reality -- that many, perhaps most, of these lethal health effects could have been avoided. The government knowingly chose to put these first responders at risk. Worse, this is now official U.S. government policy for any natural disaster -- to ignore basic health and safety precautions not only during a crisis but after it. A new Sierra Club report, "Harmful Legacy of Pollution and Deception at Ground Zero: How Post 9/11 Disaster Policy Endangers America," warns that federal policies for national disasters compromise worker safety, fail to require precautionary health warnings, and -- in the event of a "dirty bomb" attack -- allow for lower cleanup standards for radiological contamination. The report cites a new Bush Administration policy for our response to terrorist attacks that release radioactive contamination, such as from a "dirty bomb" or illegal nuclear device. Cleanup decisions will balance public health against a list of economic factors that even includes the impact on tourism.
The report also documents that, in responding to Katrina, many of the post-hurricane problems are the direct result of the Bush Administration's applying its new approach to cleaning up after disasters, whether natural or man-made. It reveals that, like a guilty corporation seeking to protect itself against litigation, the Department of Homeland Security has now instructed its staff working on disasters to destroy certain types of unclassified documents "when they are no longer needed." (Or it might become embarrassing.) And it raises the concern, based on an earlier Inside EPA article, that another possible step in exposing Americans to greater risk from terrorist attacks -- weakening health standards in the event of an attack on a chemical plant or refinery -- appears to be under consideration.
In 1882 Henrik Ibsen wrote a play about the efforts of a small town doctor to warn the public of a contaminated drinking water supply. The doctor's message is ignored by the political leadership in the town, and he himself is branded "an enemy of the people" because his message may discourage tourism and hurt the local economy. The Bush Administration has adopted the same approach to cleanups after a terrorist attack and natural disasters as it has adopted to global warming -- suppress and ignore the science, do what is convenient for the short-term needs of the economy, and conceal the truth from the public.
But unlike the Administration's assault on the science of global warming, which has been widely reported, its policy decision that it will ignore reasonable public health precautions in any future disaster has been almost ignored. While Clear Channel, of all media outlets, carried the Sierra Club report last week, the New York Times itself has never reported the existence of this chilling official policy. Nor has the Washington Post, the L.A. Times or the Wall Street Journal, as far as I can tell. This may be one of the biggest cover-ups yet.