Nadler renews call for treatment program and comprehensive cleanup of remaining WTC dust
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released a report detailing the prevalence of respiratory and psychological distress among survivors from buildings that collapsed or were damaged on September 11.  The study confirms what community leaders and medical professionals have asserted for years: that World Trade Center dust poses a grave and long-term threat to public health. (You can read the report here.)

“Today’s news from CDC is, tragically, no news at all to those of us who have been dealing with this crisis since the day of the attacks,” Congressman Nadler said.  “If there is any good in such a grim accounting, it’s that this report will serve as a wakeup call to those who have downplayed or ignored the ongoing health effects of the 9/11.”

The report’s authors found that, among the more than 8,000 survivors surveyed:

• 62.4 percent were caught in the dust and debris cloud produced by the towers’ collapse.
• 56.6 percent  reported “new or worsening respiratory symptoms after the attack”
• 63.8 percent experienced “three or more potentially psychologically traumatizing events”

“The report underscores the dire need to take concrete action on two fronts,” Nadler said.  “First, it’s essential that we create and fund a medical screening and treatment program to give aid to survivors with physical and psychological symptoms – as opposed to just keeping track of them.

“Second, as many of us have been saying for years, the federal government absolutely must undertake a serious, comprehensive cleanup effort to rid New York of the toxic World Trade Center dust that still lurks in our buildings.  The Environmental Protection Agency has failed, from the beginning, to do its duty to protect New Yorkers from environmental harm.  That has got to change.”

Lower Manhattan residents and Ground Zero workers are currently suing EPA and former Administrator Christine Todd Whitman in federal court.  The plaintiffs allege that Whitman and EPA violated their constitutional rights by taking actions and making statements that knowingly placed the victims in the way of harmful contamination.  In early February, Judge Deborah Batts of the Southern District of New York ruled that key components of the suit could go forward, writing that Whitman and EPA’s handling of the case “shocked the conscience.”