In the days -- and weeks -- following the frantic rescue work after the destruction of the World Trade Center, the US EPA reassured everyone there was no harm from breathing the dust and fumes from that catastrophe. We now suspect this was quite wrong and EPA should have known it from the outset. Studies of Ground Zero rescue workers are beginning to show significant pulmonary function deficits and many workers are symptomatic. Since there was no registry of workers, unraveling the effects will be difficult, but there is an official commission and scientific studies under way.
Now we are being told the same thing about Hurricane Katrina rescue workers: no way there can be any risks:
Tom Harris, a toxicologist with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, said in the immediate aftermath of the storm the DEQ assessed environmental and health risks to rescue workers. "There's absolutely no way at all they will suffer any long term effects," Harris said. "The rescue workers were here for such a short period of time and it would have to be some pretty nasty stuff to be a health risk. We're at a level where it's safe for children to play every day for the next 30 years. "Louisiana state epidemiologist Dr. Raoult Ratard said the ground conditions after the terrorist attacks were vastly different than those experienced by rescue workers during Katrina. "In 9/11 you had explosions and fires and you got a lot of dust, products of the combustion of plastic and metal fumes, all kinds of things that will be extremely toxic," Ratard said. "In Katrina what you had was sewer water and that was not very nice but you don't get anything extraordinary from it. "There are risks from exposure to mold but if you take precautions you should have little problems. If you don't it will cause respiratory irritation but not anything linked to long term chronic pulmonary disease." (Fire/Rescue News)
I've heard Ratard give the same assessments at public meetings in the kind of arrogant, dismissive fashion that makes even plausible statements sound like bullshit. And it is at least plausible that there is no harm from working in the Katrina aftermath, unlike the patently toxic environment of the World Trade Center collapse. But it is also plausible that there are or will be health consequences of spending days and weeks in a sewage sodden environment. We know little about such things and there is considerable disagreement in the scientific community about the health effects of the high mold levels found there.
It's not too late to try to form some kind of registry for Katrina rescue workers. But it doesn't sound like there is any incentive on the part of the same public officials who failed the people of New Orleans originally to do any better by them now. Why should they be anxious to add one more black mark against them? This way we'll never know. Maybe.
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Obviously there was also more than just sewage, if you break/drown modern infrastructures like that.
Government spokespeople don't seem to understand how little basic science comprehension is needed to make spin unbelievable on the face of it.
(Wish schools and parents were making sure kids had more critical thinking skills and basic science, though.)
Also, things usually aren't studied the way people get exposed to them; in big complicated, cumulative, combinations, that may have effects we don't know about. We haven't heard the last of people's health impacted by the Gulf hurricanes.
We have a small creek at the back of our property that is rife with farm run off. I won't let my kid or animals in it even though it is as clear as rain water. I KNOW what is in it because I test it. Did they do the same for the Katrina workers? If not, how can they possibly know what was in the water, water vapor, or air at the time those people were doing their jobs?
What I find disturbing bout the aftermath of disasters is the bare bones of bigotry become exposed. American values pay lip service to rejecting racism and ethnocentricism.
But lived experience shows otherwise...
I just called on the Republican National Committee to withdraw its support of Sen. Allen. No politician should think it's okay to single someone out because of their skin color, to assume they're not "American" based on their ethnicity, or to call them "monkey" or a French equivalent of "nigger." But that's exactly what Senator George Allen did. I wanted to let you know about what happened, and invite you to join me in standing up against this overt display of racism by one of our highest elected officials.
http://www.colorofchange.org/allen/?id=2406-78522
The Katrina disaster highlights race and class issues for all Americans... Environmental groups are sounding the alarm about the toxic chemical contamination in sediment and soil left in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The hurricanes created 22 million tons of toxic debris, now dispersed throughout Greater New Orleans. Insufficient action has been taken to clean up the toxic contamination. No decision has been made as to whether there will ever be a coordinated government effort to rid storm ravaged communities of toxic substances... AIUSA believes that all residents of New Orleans have the right to live in a clean, healthy, and safe environment... In this [cleanup] process particular attention should be paid to low income areas and communities of color.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/usa/katrina.html
Express concern about possible environmental toxins and exposure effects and you're a hysterical enviro fear-monger. Say 'terrorist' and 'global war on terror' and Islamo fascist' every other sentence, and you're a real brave cowpoke. Go figure.
The corporate and political elites in the US spit on the graves of the workers they have killed through the elite's negligence and greed.
How much longer will this injustice be tolerated?
It is time for the workers to form cooperatives in order to defend themselves.
Those government officials and corporate executives that send workers into toxic environments like New Orleans should now be sent to Garut Indonesia, where there is a cluster of bird flu patients, with 8 infected and 4 dead. Let us see how they feel to be sent into danger, knowing they may die. Would you like to go to Garut to investigate the situation there? Are you sure your protective clothing would save you?
There is another class of workers that may soon be in danger; and again corporate profits will be more important than protecting workers. The environment is hospitals, where,as it appears likely now, a pandemic hits; nurses and doctors will be in danger. Will hospital administrators work to protect the medical staff; or will they instead, let them get infected and die of H5N1, and maximize profits? The answer is: In the Capitalist system, lives have no value. The only things that matters are corporate profits and the Market. Long live the Market, our new God. They used to sacrifice virgins to the gods, but now they sacrifice hospital staff to the Market. It is the same thing.
That is the creed for the corporate world. People mean nothing, they are replaceable. (We know better with our shortage of health care professionsals.) Only PROFITS count today.
Refusing to create a rescue worker registry is mind-bogglingly stupid.
Whatever the underlying political reasons, the fact is that data is always good to have. Even from a political perspective it's better to know what's coming than studiously cultivate ignorance then act all surprised when it hits you. But more than that, it seems like these kind of mass rescue worker mobilizations are going to get more and more common as the world gets less secure. Even more so if you factor in climate change. Even from the most cold-hearted "straight up science" perspective, why pass up such a perfect "natural experiment"?
I know it is a lot of fun to think about all the really neat ways our corporate and government leaders are killing us, the workers. But if bird flu breaks loose, our leaders may not have time to slowly kill us; because bird flu my do it rapidly and efficiently.
Henry Niman has been posting on his site all day long at a furious pace; and what he is describing should worry you. If it does not worry you, then you have nerves of steel.
All hell has broken loose in the Garut human H5N1 cluster in Indonesia. Niman says: "Human cases in Indonesia have failed to match the H5N1 from poultry."
This cluster now has 9 victims, with 6 of the nine dead, and 2 more in the hospital in critical condition.
First a 9 year old boy died, and then his mother died. And when 2 neighbors went to the funeral, they developed symptoms and are hospitalized in critical condition. And the villagers were feeding dead poultry to dogs."
Niman says this rapidly growing cluster suggests H5N1 bird flu sequence has changed; and the large number of cases in such a small area the H5N1 transmission to humans is now more efficient.
What bothers me the most about that quote is the offhand dismissal of mould exposure. That's serious stuff, especially if you're sensitive to it to start with. Extrinsic allergic alveolitis (for example) is no laughing matter, and can have serious, lasting health effects. (Five years after having had it myself, I'm still not quite right.)
I'm actually surprised that more Katrina-related illness hasn't surfaced (so to speak) already.
Interrobang: I agree with you completely. Mold is the thing that worries me the most, especially for residents but also for rescue workers.
Revere (and Interrobang) I have a friend who went to work down in NOLA for several months this spring on cleanup and reconstruction. (Not paid work, either he was a volunteer.) While he was there he developed the same respiratory symptoms all the other workers had. I asked about him using a mask, but not only it would have been difficult to wear one while working, it might have been pointless, since you couldn't wear it 24 hours a day. Nothing ever dried out, there was all kinds of mold and crap in the air. The common ailment had a name: the Katrina Cough.
Now, there may be all kind of toxins released by the damage from the hurricane. An Independent (UK) article last September quoted an EPA scientist as saying New Orleans would be unsafe for a decade. And there's a Superfund site underwater there. But even ignoring all that, who knows what the long-term effect of all the mold and other inhalants will be? Will Katrina Cough just go away, or is it a signal of future problems?
P.S> Here's a reprint of the Independent article in its entirety.
Many have made comparisons between the reconstruction of Iraq (by those who bombed it to bits, heh) and the clean-up and rebuilding after Katrina. (Lebanon will be different.)
- this passage from the Independent on 22 Aug. 2006, about Katrina, caught my eye:
The report claims many large companies established 'contracting pyramids', with each layer skimming money. It highlighted the $500m contract awarded to Ashbritt to remove debris, which worked out at $23 per cubic metre of rubbish moved. In turn, it hired C&B Enterprises to do the work for $9 per cubic metre, which in turn hired Amlee Transportation which was paid $8 per cubic metre. Amlee hired another company for $7 a cubic metre. Finally, the work was done at $3 per cubic metre by a haulier from New Jersey.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1220475.ece
This kind of gangster capitalism leaves no room for any kind of registry related to health.