City of Dust

15. Afterclap

When the voices of the doomsayers who predicted an environmental holocaust matched the rhetoric of the deniers who were unwilling to acknowledge any serious illnesses linked to the dust, the city and large parts of the nation were unable to come to any conclusions about what had truly happened at ground zero. New York’s government turned schizophrenic, fighting against the sick responders in federal court even as it begged Washington to fund screening, monitoring, and treatment programs for them. Complex litigation dragged on for years, even as more people fell ill and died. Scientists and medical experts were pushed beyond the limits of their expertise as they were badgered to prove a link between dust and disease that could ...