- Up to 400,000 New Yorkers breathed in the most toxic
polluting cloud ever recorded after the twin towers were brought down three
years ago, but no proper effort has been made to find out how their health
has been affected, according to an official report.
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- The US government study provides the latest evidence
of a systematic cover-up of the health toll from pollution after the 9/11
disaster, which doctors fear will cause more deaths than the attacks themselves.
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- The Bush administration suppressed evidence of increasing
danger and officially announced that the air around the felled buildings
was "safe to breathe". Another report reveals that it has since
failed at least a dozen times to correct its assurances, even when it became
clear that people were becoming sick.
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- The official report - sent to Congress last week by the
US Government Accountability Office - says that between 250,000 and 400,000
people in lower Manhattan were exposed to the pollution on 11 September
2001. But it shows that the government has yet to make a comprehensive
effort to study the effects on their health.
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- And it reveals that there is no systematic effort to
adequately monitor the well-being of those affected, give them physical
examinations or provide treatment.
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- Scientific studies have shown that the cloud of pulverised
debris from the skyscrapers was uniquely dangerous. The US government's
own figures show that it contained the highest levels of deadly dioxins
ever recorded - about 1,500 times normal levels. Unprecedented levels of
acids, sulphur, fine particles, heavy metals and other dangerous materials
were also measured.
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- Asbestos was found at 27 times acceptable levels, and
scientists found about 400 organic alkanes, phthalates and polyaromatic
hydrocarbons - many suspected of causing cancer and other long-term diseases.
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- The site at Ground Zero went on smouldering, becoming
what scientists describe as a "chemical factory", creating new
dangerous substances.
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