Dust to Dust: The Health Effects of 9/11

The White House Council on Environmental Quality is headed by James Connaughton, who is not a scientist. He had been appointed to his post, by President Bush, only months before 9/11. His previous experience; representing large corporations in disputes about cleaning toxic waste sites working against the EPA.

We’d go out with rakes and shovels and stuff and just go through all the debris. Looking for, you know, body parts and different things of that sort to make identifications. The weird thing was it was very cold when we were up there; I believe it was the middle of winter, but the ground wasn’t frozen… the ground kind of like bubbled underneath your feet, which was strange to me. You know you’re coughing a lot, I mean for days after coughing up blood and different things like that.