The Fallout, Five Years Later

A study by Mount Sinai Hospital that concluded that seven of every 10 workers who responded to the World Trade Center site five years ago for the rescue, recovery and cleanup operations have sustained lung problems as a result produced some revealing reactions from government officials last week.

Mayor Bloomberg, who had opposed legislation granting special pension and death benefits in cases where an individual's disability or death was presumed to be related to exposure to toxic materials as part of those operations, Sept. 5 unveiled a comprehensive plan for treating and monitoring the Trade Center workers. His Health Commissioner, Dr. Thomas Frieden, three days later told a Congressional hearing at the headquarters of District Council 37 that there was "no doubt" that many of the illnesses reported by those workers were linked to the Trade Center work.

On the same day that Mr. Frieden made those remarks, it was reported that former U.S. Secretary of Environmental Protection Christie Whitman, in an interview broadcast on "60 Minutes" Sept. 10, blamed Giuliani administration officials for not enforcing the requirement that all those working at Ground Zero wear respirators. Mr. Giuliani through a spokeswoman denied that was the case but declined to be interviewed on the matter.

The growing focus on those who grew ill and, in some cases, died as a result of their work following the Trade Center destruction that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 persons has made clear that public officials are considerably less comfortable dealing with them and their needs than they were ministering to and compensating the families who lost loved ones on 9/11. For Mayor Bloomberg, a large part of the reason, in his words, is that when an illness takes an extended period of time to become apparent, "you're never really sure what connections are between what the cause and effect are."

Even before the Mount Sinai study was issued last week, however, it had become increasingly apparent that there was an undeniable link. Mount Sinai doctors found that 61 percent of those surveyed who previously had no breathing problems had developed respiratory difficulty, and a third of the 9,000 persons it tested had abnormal lung function - twice what would be found in the general population.

A prime reason for the high incidence of lung-related illnesses is that many of the recovery and cleanup workers did not wear respirators while they labored - in many cases for months - amid the toxic stew known as The Pile. Unfortunately, the official pronouncements from Ms. Whitman and the Environmental Protection Agency and Mr. Giuliani and his top commissioners may have given them a false sense that the air wasn't as bad as it smelled.

Less than a week after the Trade Center attacks, Ms. Whitman pronounced the air around the Trade Center safe to breathe and Mr. Giuliani allowed the surrounding area to reopen for business on the following Monday.

We now know, as the result of an internal EPA study released three years ago, that Ms. Whitman was making false assurances, and that White House officials had altered a press release from the agency to make a more definitive statement about the quality of the air than was warranted by the available facts. Mr. Giuliani and his Health Commissioner attacked newspaper reports that began appearing six weeks after 9/11 detailing the extent of the contamination that had been found in nearby office buildings and residences.

Both Ms. Whitman and Mr. Giuliani bear responsibility for their conduct then, and in the preferred locution of our former Mayor, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. They may have had a legitimate motive for their initial assurances that the air was safe to breathe - the speedy return to business as usual in lower Manhattan both for the city's economic sake and for symbolic reasons - but as part of that bargain they turned a blind eye to the impact on the health of those working there.

While Mr. Giuliani should have had a more personal investment in the health of those workers - who except for the hundreds of private-sector construction workers who helped clear the steel and other rubble as part of the search process were generally city employees - to our mind Ms. Whitman bears a greater responsibility.

Unlike some of the undistinguished cronies President Bush has tapped to head Federal agencies, she came to the EPA job with stature and credibility developed while she was Governor of New Jersey. Her first concern should not have been the city's business operations; her job title was not Secretary of Commerce. If she had objected to attempts by political officials in the White House to paint an artificially rosy picture of air quality at Ground Zero, Ms. Whitman would have been taken seriously by both the media and the public. Instead, she kept silent and now, having rediscovered her conscience, points her finger at a lesser accomplice in the deception she allowed to be put over. It doesn't say much for her character.

Thankfully, state legislators and Governor Pataki have approved legislation that recognizes the potential health sacrifices made by those involved in the recovery efforts.

Ultimately, as our current Mayor seems to be finally acknowledging, one of the best ways to honor those who died on Sept. 11 is to take care of those who worked with them and then searched for them in its aftermath, should their own physical conditions take a slower but potentially just as deadly turn for the worse.