New York made public more than 170,000 pages of documents about air quality after the September 11 attacks. These records have now been revealed to the public, allowing access to information that had been kept confidential for years.
The documents reveal that New York officials knew the risks of exposure to toxic substances released after the collapse of the Twin Towers. Despite this knowledge, the authorities continued to publicly state that the air was safe to breathe in the World Trade Center area.
This discovery comes in the context of decades of debate about the health effects on survivors, firefighters, cleanup workers, and residents of the affected area. Many developed serious and chronic illnesses attributed to prolonged exposure to the toxins present in the air during the months following the attacks.
The release of these 170,000 pages of records represents a significant moment of transparency, now allowing those affected and the general public access to documentary evidence about what was actually known by the authorities at the time.
