Toxic Soup of 9/11 is now killing New Yorkers

On 25th June 2007, The New York Times ran an article questioning the role of Christie Whitman, the former head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, during the period that followed 9/11. She assured New Yorkers that "their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink."

On Monday she faced tough questions about those words at a congressional hearing headed by U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan).

It is now known that the collapse of the twin towers and the fires which burned for months at Ground Zero triggered the worst toxic release our nation has seen: thousands of tons of asbestos, lead, chromium, benzene, PCBs, dioxins, highly-caustic cement dust and hundreds of other dangerous substances.

Nearly six years later, thousands of first responders, recovery workers, residents and downtown workers are sick. Some have died.

A study of more than 20,000 people by Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York concluded that, since the attacks, 70 percent of ground zero workers have suffered some sort of respiratory illness. A separate study released last month found that rescue workers and firefighters contracted sarcoidosis, a serious lung-scarring disease, at a rate more than five times as high as in the years before the attacks

It is alleged that they are sick and dying in part because Whitman's agency and the Giuliani administration concealed the full extent of the toxic soup in lower Manhattan.

On Sept. 12, 2001, Dr. Ed Kilbourne, an associate administrator at the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), warned government officials against any hasty attempt to reopen the buildings in lower Manhattan.

Kilbourne was responding to an urgent White House request for asbestos clean-up guidelines for downtown Manhattan. One of the first five EPA bulk samples from the WTC site contained a "substantial concentration "of asbestos, Kilbourne warned. He said it was "important to characterize how far significant levels of asbestos extend before allowing unrestricted access by unprotected individuals."

Whitman denied that she had acted irresponsibly or that she had been coerced by the Bush Administration, to re-open Manhattan for business, before it was safe to do so.

To read the full story click on the link below
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/06/25/2007-06-25_damning_questions_whitman_must_be_made_t.html