NYC janitors have the 9/11 cough and nobody cares - they did cleanup

[donsu]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cleaners14oct14,0,3275974.story?coll=la-home-headlines


Lost in the Dust of 9/11
From society's margins, janitors were drafted for an epic cleanup around ground zero. Then 'the cough' racked their lives.


There is no voice left in Manuel Checo's voice. He speaks in a granular rasp that fades, occasionally, to whispery puffs of air. Sometimes, for periods as long as two days, he is unable to speak at all.

When that happens, Checo carries a pad of paper with him so he can scribble down notes if he needs something. But for the most part, he will simply disappear into his rented room, ignoring his cellphone when it rings.

Checo, a janitor, spent six months cleaning dust from office buildings around ground zero after the World Trade Center attack. Five years later, the lining of his lungs is pocked with scars and densities that do not belong there — possibly a sign of a disease that can cause lung tissue to become so stiff that it can no longer carry oxygen, wrote a radiologist who examined a scan of his lungs last year.

The son of a general in the Dominican Republic, Checo, 54, irons his shirts with military precision. When he meets a woman on the street, he kisses her hand. But the truth is that when he discovered that he was too weak to work again, his life veered terribly off course. He was evicted from his apartment and slept in his car for six months. Acquaintances didn't understand his racking cough and thought he had tuberculosis or AIDS.

-snip-

An ever-growing number of New Yorkers is coming forward to describe symptoms: the first responders who plunged into the tangled wreckage to find survivors; the volunteers who hauled diesel fuel and doled out cigarettes; the students at Stuyvesant High School who returned to classes while acrid fires burned nearby.

Less visible is the army of cleaning workers who were sent to the area to clean office buildings. Those were the cases that were shocking to Scottie Hill, a social worker, when the Mount Sinai Medical Center opened its WTC health clinic in 2002. The cleaners, mostly Polish and Latino immigrants, were already living close to the edge when the job began; by the following year, many were in crisis because of lost wages and poor health.

-long, long snip-

In the meantime, Sanchez and Checo shuttle from appointment to appointment. Each man carries a sheaf of medical records and hospital bills around with him — artillery in an ongoing battle to get care. The future is something they do not focus on. But this is not unusual, said Carcamo, the psychologist.

-snip-
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we used to be a kind nation

[LibraLiz1973]

1. This is such a sad story

Thank you for posting this.

What can we do????? I'd love to help in any way possible.

[bluestateguy]

2. Making it, in George W. Bush's America

For some people it is every bit as hard as it was for people who lived under Nazism or Communism.

[Pirate Smile]

3. I posted that yesterday in LBN but it got dumped into Editorials and

lost.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=240255&mesg_id=240352

It is a horrifying article.

Another disgrace.

[HockeyMom]

4. Blacktop is BLACK, not Gray

I grew up in Manhattan and now live about 30 miles away. My daughter and I visited the site in February 2002. Apart from the devastation and collateral damage, what really amazed me was the "grayness and grit" of the surrounding area. It got under your shoes and hands with everything you touched. Yes, Manhattan streets are dirty, but as a Native I can say they were never like this. When we got home that day, we cleaned and washed our shoes and all of our clothing, besides taking showers.

That people who worked in offices and lived in surrounding buildings are getting sick, is, unfortunately, no surprise to many of us.

[Divernan]

5. The man responsible for this is James Connaughton, Chair of WH Council

on Environmental Quality. He was the person who took the EPA's original reports on air quality at Ground Zero, and whitewashed them so that people could be tricked into returning to live and work in the area, and primarily so that the stock market would reopen and Wall Street would be up and running again. In so doing, and exposing people to many months of breathing a toxic sludge of air-borne lethal elements, he has condemned to death tens of thousands of New Yorkers and relief workers from other areas who came to help. This includes not just the janitors, but school children, office workers, people who lived in the area.
Before coming to the WH, he lobbied on behalf of powerful companies and major electricity users; he also represented companies fighting Superfund cleanup rules. He co-authored a 1993 law journal article, "Defending Charges of Environmental Crime -- The Growth Industry of the 90's."

Now, as the President's senior environmental advisor, Connaughton has helped develop the White House's positions on climate change (ignore it), Superfund (shrink it) and air- quality rules (relax them).

[Divernan]

6. Here's more on Connaughton from what I saved in my journal.

James Connaughton, head of WH Environmental Office, is prime example.
Posted by Divernan in General Discussion
Mon Oct 09th 2006, 09:09 AM
Google Connaughton's name and you will be shocked and awed at all the damage to the environment in general and individual people in particular that this "environmental lawyer" has caused. Ironically, Connaughton began his career working for asbestos victims working in the construction trades. His work for the white house now causes people to get asbestosis.

He is the ONE INDIVIDUAL MAN who revised Christine Whitman's/EPA's atatement on air quality in lower Manhattan immediately after 9/11, in order to get Wall Street up and running ASAP. His actions resulted in many thousands of emergency workers, firemen, police, residents, workers and school children returning to an area where they were breathing in toxic fumes for AT LEAST A YEAR! I am telling you that most of these people HAVE DEVELOPED OR WILL DEVELOP lung disease and various cancers from this exposure. Asbestos alone takes some 10 or more years to evidence itself once it enters your lungs.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/136...
"White House edited EPA's 9/11 reports
WASHINGTON -- At the White House's direction, the Environmental Protection Agency gave New Yorkers misleading assurances that there was no health risk from the debris-laden air after the World Trade Center collapse, according to an internal inquiry. President Bush's senior environmental adviser yesterday defended the White House involvement, saying it was justified by national security.

The White House "convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones" by having the National Security Council control EPA communications after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to a report issued late Thursday by EPA Inspector General Nikki Tinsley."When EPA made a Sept. 18 announcement that the air was 'safe' to breathe, the agency did not have sufficient data and analyses to make the statement," the report says, adding that the EPA had yet to adequately monitor air quality for contaminants such as PCBs, soot and dioxin. In all, the EPA issued five news releases within 10 days of the attacks and four more by the end of 2001 reassuring the public about air quality. But it wasn't until June 2002 that the EPA determined that air quality had returned to pre-Sept. 11 levels -- well after respiratory ailments and other problems began to surface in hundreds of workers cleaning dusty offices and apartments.

The day after the attacks, former EPA Deputy Administrator Linda Fisher's chief of staff e-mailed senior EPA officials to say that "all statements to the media should be cleared" first by the National Security Council, which is Bush's main forum for discussing national security and foreign policy matters with his senior aides and Cabinet, the inspector general's report says. Approval from the NSC, the report says, was arranged through the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which "influenced, through the collaboration process, the information that EPA communicated to the public through its early press releases when it convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones."

For example, the inspector general found, the EPA was persuaded to omit guidance for cleaning indoor spaces and tips on potential health effects from airborne dust containing asbestos, lead, glass fibers and concrete. JAMES CONNAUGHTON, chairman of the environmental council, which coordinates federal environmental efforts, said the White House directed the EPA to add and delete information based on how it should be released publicly. He said the EPA did "an incredible job" with the World Trade Center cleanup.
* * * * * *
And I quote Andy Darrell, New York regional director of Environmental Defense, an advocacy group, said the report is indicative of a pattern of White House interference in EPA affairs."For EPA to do its job well, it needs to be allowed to make decisions based on the science and the facts," he said.The EPA inspector general recommended the EPA adopt new procedures so its public statements on health risks and environmental quality are backed by data and analysis.Other recommendations include developing better procedures for indoor air cleanups and asbestos handling in large-scale disasters.

See also, "White House Environmental Chief Launces Stealth Attack on Climate www.desmogblog.com/white-house-environment...

And his official White House bio:
www.whitehouse.gov/ceq/connaughton-bio.htm...

[FourScore]

7. First responders

Listen to these four stories:
http://kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=16240