1,140 people, including first responders, have WTC-related cancer

[louis-t]

Source: Yahoo News

More than 1,000 people who have lived or worked near ground zero, including first responders, have been diagnosed with a cancer related to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, health officials say.

According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 1,140 people have been certified with a WTC-related cancer. And that number is expected to grow, the Daily News reports.

As many as 65,000 people, including first responders, became sick from 9/11 exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control. A Mount Sinai Medical Center study cited by the Daily News found a 15 percent higher cancer rate among first responders than among people who were not exposed to the toxic air.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/wtc-911-first-responders-cancer-143807168.html

---

I remember bush and cronies getting EPA to doctor the report that said there were toxins in the air. "It's safe", we were told.

[PoliticAverse]

1. Indeed, they lied about the air quality. n/t

[Iliyah]

2. Damn.

[WCLinolVir]

3. Anybody with a minimum of respiratory knowledge knew it was a toxic mix.

That always surprised me that many wore no kind of mask at all.

[Indi Guy]

9. And so the victims are to be blamed for believing the government's official statement?

???

[WCLinolVir]

27. No and I did not infer that either. When I saw those people there

without masks, it worried me. I am surprised and angry that there wasn't more of a response from the medical community who knew better. Where people pressured into silence? Usually exposure is longer term and chronic. That is what usually causes cancer. But the exposure in that instance was so massive and multifaceted.

[Journeyman]

4. A friend of mine, a heavy equipment operator who volunteered a couple months time to help. . .

died some years ago of respiratory illness. He was around 50 years old. He claimed to the end he didn't believe it was a result of working in that pit, and maybe he was right. But it seemed odd to us. He had no medical issues when he left for New York but developed a hacking cough some months after his return. Maybe it was coincidence.

I had a lot of pride in him and his crew. They volunteered without being asked, and went only to help give closure to so many grieving people.

Here's to the hope these later casualties will receive a measure of support commensurate with their sacrifice.

[Mnemosyne]

5. I read somewhere that breathing the air, then, was the equivalent of breathing Drano.

Shame on all the liars.

[Hydra]

7. The Towers were a mess inside

I heard that there had been some talk of how much it was going to cost to responsibly demolish them(deal with the toxic building materials) when it came time, and it was going to be cost prohibitive.

Everything about the cleanup was sketchy. Beyond toxic, bodies bulldozed into the sewers and all of it shipped off.

[Mnemosyne]

30. Do you remember when the media reported that an "organized" crime gang was

stealing the steel and selling it to China? I think it was within two weeks or so of 9/11.

I read the same about the mess in the Towers, and that woman that was head of the EPA at the time should be brought to trial for her lies and help in the coverup.

[Hydra]

31. *Shakes head*

I didn't hear about the "organized" crime thing, but the more I hear the more sick I feel about the whole thing.

Even had 9/11 been a totally out of the blue terrorist event, the things that happened afterward desecrated the grave of the victims and destroyed the lives of the people who tried to help.

Toxic all around.

[Mnemosyne]

32. I was ill at the time and had little to do but watch HLN and cartoons. I remember

all the bs they kept throwing around.

Agreed, very toxic environment, in more ways than one.

[markpkessinger]

6. I've heard it suggested . . .

. . . that being forced to lie about the air quality at Ground Zero was the thing that lay behind Christine Whitman's abrupt departure from the Administration.

[jtuck004]

8. I wonder if someday we will read a story about the rise in cancers throughout the Pacific NW,

indeed much of the entire West coast of Canada and the U.S., as we live through the persistent "crop dusting" of these areas by the Fukushima reactors?

Speaking of doctoring reports, despite NASA models, and data gathering, there doesn't seem to be much out there, and I doubt the effect is zero from the initial releases, as well as the ongoing flushing into the ocean and periodic releases of steam and perhaps hydrogen explosions.

[bananas]

10. Bush's EPA head is now a paid nuclear energy shill: Christine Todd Whitman

She lied about the danger of 911 dust, now she lies about the dangers of nuclear energy.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Christine_Todd_Whitman

Christine Todd Whitman (Christie) was elected as Governor of New Jersey in November 1993 and was appointed by George W. Bush as Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in January 2001. She resigned from the EPA on May 21, 2003. Since 2004, she has headed Whitman Strategy Group, a lobbying / consulting firm with offices in New Jersey and Washington DC. [1] Since at least 2006, she has consulted for the Nuclear Energy Institute, promoting nuclear power as the co-chair of the industry-funded "Clean and Safe Energy Coalition." [2] In January 2008, she was named a co-chair of the Aspen Institute's Health Stewardship Project. [1]

Whitman co-founded the Republican Leadership Council, which works to get centrist Republicans elected. Her daugher, Kate Whitman, is the group's executive director. In November 2007, Kate Whitman announced she would seek the Republican nomination for New Jersey's 7th district Congressional seat. [3]

Contents

1 Lobbying / consulting work
1.1 Nuclear power
1.2 Water policy
1.3 Whitman's "personal legacy"
1.4 Other
2 Background
3 N.J. voter suppression allegations
4 N.J. environmental record
5 Cheney Energy Task Force
6 EPA record
7 Misleading New Yorkers post-9/11
8 Board positions and other affiliations
9 Statements on nuclear power
10 Appearances
11 Articles and resources
11.1 Related SourceWatch articles
11.2 References
11.3 External resources
11.4 External articles

<snip>

[WCLinolVir]

28. Well at least she's consistent.

[madaboutharry]

11. A few days after 9/11

Christie Whitman went on television and emphatically stated that the air in Manhattan was safe and everyone can get back to their jobs on Wall Street.

[leftynyc]

12. Not surprised

It smelled like burning electrical wires for a couple of months.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. 200 ACRES worth of office equipment just in the two towers...

[Brigid]

13. I have heard . . .

That many of the search-and-rescue dogs used at Ground Zero died within a short time after their service ended.

[AtheistCrusader]

14. Don't forget to thank W.R. Grace for their vermiculite asbestos too.

They knew that shit was lethal before the towers were constructed.

[KewlKat]

15. You can hear Whitman lying

on this 45 second clip.

[Doremus]

18. You gotta wonder how people like that live with themselves.

Do they ever think about the damage they inflict on others, or is it all forgotten?

Do they actually derive pleasure from it? Nothing would surprise me anymore.

[madrchsod]

17. i used to work around shit like that and we had to use all kinds of protection.

seems to me the authorities in charge did`t want to pay to protect those workers.

[PoliticAverse]

19. Also if they made workers on the site all wear elaborate protection what would all the people

working regular jobs in buildings in the area think about how safe the area was?

[madrchsod]

26. good point!

[greatlaurel]

20. These health problems could have been prevented

The Bush administration did not want the workers wearing respiratory protection. I remember reports that workers were ordered not to wear respirators. Death necklaces, indeed. The clean up was a horror show. It was completely mishandled to protect the business interests of New York at the expense of the workers and the citizens of New York. Most of the area within a pretty big radius of the Towers should have been evacuated for months while the businesses and homes were properly abated. Everyone working at the site should have been in full respiratory protection and protective clothing. The clean up of homes and businesses should have been treated as asbestos abatement projects. There is no known safe level of exposure to asbestos fibers.

Christine Todd Whitman could have prevented many of these illnesses. She chose to lie rather than protect these brave, selfless and hardworking men and women. She is a sociopath. She could have chosen to resign immediately and announce to the public how dangerous the situation was. She preferred to go along to get along and allow innocent people have their lives cut short needlessly.

The thing that puzzles me is that there were many environmental professionals who stated how dangerous the air pollutants were at the time, but no one in the media paid any attention. Many of these media people were breathing this toxic brew. Did they think they and their families were immune? It is not a secret that burning plastics release massive quantities of toxic chemicals, including many carcinogens. The release of asbestos alone was enough to make the area a hazardous cleanup site. Any air pollution expert could give you a list of what could be expected to be airborne even before any air monitoring was conducted. The head of the New York City Fire Department, Health Department, and news media should be ashamed of themselves for failing to protect the workers and citizens. They are just as culpable as Whitman. I am also furious with the unions. They should have insisted the workers were properly protected.

Hilary Clinton, as Senator, held extensive hearings on this very subject. There were reams of documents about the levels of pollutants to which people were exposed. The hearings were incredibly detailed and exposed the callous disregard of public health by the Bush administration. She did an outstanding job on these hearings and got almost no recognition for it.

Sorry for the long rant, but as an air pollution scientist that situation still makes me crazy. Fukushima is being ignored the same way. It will have a very measurable impact on life spans. The infant mortality and miscarriage numbers on the west coast were published for the months before and after the meltdown and promptly ignored.

[WCLinolVir]

29. +1000.

Talk about sociopaths. Bush.

[WestSeattle2]

21. Of course they lied - the almighty dollar was at stake.

[Uncle Joe]

23. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, louis-t

[Rhiannon12866]

24. Remember Michael Moore's 2007 film, "Sicko?"

[Snake Plissken]

25. They're only Americans, if they were Middle Easterners this would be real news

We as Americans are a dime a dozen in washington, we haven't been important since the 1970s