Law Department notice on WTC document preservation, Oct 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Recent Conclusions About WTC Air Quality

The only formal risk evaluation of the health effects from exposure to the outdoor air in Lower Manhattan following the WTC collapse was performed by EPA’s Office of Research and Development. This evaluation, still in draff form as of July 2003, concluded that, except for the rescue and cleanup workers at Ground Zero who were not wearing respirators, as well as unknown exposures to the public during the first few days, persons in the area were unlikely to suffer adverse heath effects from the outdoor air.

The report also had a caveat for the conclusions drawn in the report relative to human health risks. The draft report stated:

This report should be viewed as thefirst phase ofan ongoing analysis, and the conclusions andfindings cited below should not be considered thefinal EPA Judgment. At this point, the available data and analysis are still too preliminary to support reliable quantitative predictions ofpotential human health risks.

We spoke to a number of experts in the field of environmental monitoring, including physicians, industrial hygienists, and researchers These experts generally agreed that the levels of airborne asbestos detected in the air outside the perimeter of Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan did not present a significant increase in long-term health risk to the public. Appendix I lists the experts we interviewed during this evaluation.

We noted that several health studies pointed to potential problems for firefighters, rescue workers, and other persons working within the confines of Ground Zero who did not wear respirators:

• A study of firefighters with “World Trade Center Cough” concluded that “intense, short-term exposure to materials generated during the collapse of the World Trade Center was associated with bronchial responsiveness and the development of cough.”^

• The preliminary results of a Mount Sinai School of Medicine study on workers directly involved in rescue and recovery found that 78 percent of those sampled had suffered lung ailments and 88 percent had experienced ear, nose, and throat problems in the months immediately following the attack.

5 “Cough and Bronchial Responsiveness in Firefighters at the World Trade Center Site,” David J. Prezant et al, New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 347, No. 11, September 12,2002.

18 Report No. 2003-P-00012

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