ON the ground, the legacy of 9/11 is starting to emerge from the dust.
Volunteers and emergency workers at ground zero as well as New York residents have been complaining of health problems since the attacks five years ago. Now doctors at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York say the problems are more serious, persistent and widespread than previously thought.
鈥淎n estimated 40,000 rescue and recovery workers were exposed to caustic dust and airborne toxic pollutants,鈥� says Philip Landrigan, who led the study. It found that of the 9500 ground-zero workers studied, almost 70 per cent of them had a new or substantially worsened respiratory problem as a result of breathing in dust from the collapsed buildings. One-third had diminished lung capacity.
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鈥淎lmost 70 per cent of ground-zero workers had new or worse respiratory problems鈥�
The Bush administration has been criticised for ignoring the problem. The results, published in Environmental Health Perspectives (DOI: 10.1289/ehp.9592), will increase calls for the federal government to provide free healthcare for the estimated 40 per cent of workers who did not have health insurance. So far it has pledged $75 million to health programmes related to the attack. At a congressional subcommittee last week, Republican New York senator Vito Fossella said this was nowhere near enough. He said the government had not even recorded how many workers and volunteers took part in the cleanup.
