Editor’s note: This commentary is by Meg Hansen, who trained in an MBBS (British-style) medical degree program. She is a 2020 Republican candidate for a Bennington County seat in the Vermont Senate and was a candidate for lieutenant governor in the August primary.
Our collective mind burns with images of the Twin Towers collapsing, thousands running from the tsunami of noxious dusts, and New York City shrouded in billows of ash and smoke. This American tragedy has been embodied in our cultural memory through personal stories, video footage, photographs, documentaries, vigils, and memorials. These narratives give meaning to that day of infamy, enabling new generations to live the past and partake in a historical identity created in relation to bygone events.
Discourse and memorabilia alone, however, do not shape our post-9/11 communal identity. The catastrophic events of Sept. 11 have been coded as heritable epigenetic memories in the DNA of the survivors, first responders, and other New Yorkers that lived and worked in the vicinity of Ground Zero – and by extension persist in our collective medical unconscious. Epigenetics is the study of changes in genetic expression triggered by personal experiences and environmental factors. Epigenetic modifications caused by traumatic experiences in our past do not affect the underlying genetic structure. Rather, they are akin to molecular scars that switch genes on and off, and thus change the way genes behave. Importantly, these scars may be passed from one generation to the next.
To minimize the ensuing financial and economic fallout, Wall Street and the rest of New York returned to business as usual soon afterward. Though it demonstrated quintessential American resolve and optimism, initiating rapid cleanup efforts seriously jeopardized the health of firefighters, law enforcement officers, and other emergency response workers who confronted toxic dust and fires without any protective gear or decontamination measures for over a year.
In “Dust to Dust: Health Effects of 9/11” (2006), documentary filmmakers Heidi Dehncke-Fisher and Bruce Kennedy detail the poisons that persisted around Ground Zero for months following 9/11 – “over 400 tons of asbestos; 90,000 liters of jet fuel containing benzene; mercury from over 500,000 fluorescent lights; 200,000 pounds of lead and cadmium from computers; two million pounds of Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from diesel fuel fires; 130,000 gallons of transformer oil containing PCBs; and silica particulates from 420,000 tons of concrete, plasterboard and glass.” Prolonged exposure to such contaminants has led to devastating and irreversible health consequences.
Dr. David Prezant, chief medical officer for the New York Fire Department, published a landmark study in 2008, which demonstrated that firefighters working at Ground Zero one year after 9/11 had lost 12 years of normal lung function in 12 months. In an April 2010 interview with the New York Times, he explained, “This was not a regular fire. There were thousands of gallons of burning jet fuel and an immense, dense particulate matter cloud that enveloped these workers for days.”
Consequently, 30%-40% of firefighters and other workers involved in the rescue and recovery efforts suffer from breathing difficulties, sinusitis, pneumonia, and gastroesophageal reflux disease. These symptoms have exacerbated into COPD/ emphysema, chronic bronchitis, asthma, and lung scarring in one-fifth cases. High rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, liver and kidney ailments, and premature heart disease are also found.
Moreover, medical professionals predict new waves of increased disease incidence in the coming decades, particularly with regards to cancer, as it tends to develop after a period of latency. According to the World Trade Center Health Registry, between 2007 and 2011, first responders and civilians present at Ground Zero reported higher cancer rates (11% and 8% respectively) than the general population of New York state. Newsweek reports that doctors now link over 70 types of cancer to 9/11 and post-9/11 exposure. No doubt, thousands more will lose their health and lives in the near future.
Disease in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks may not personally afflict every American, but its dark ethos infects our body politic and touches each of us. Its medical imprint is recorded in our collective memory, reincorporated into personal and social identities, and transmitted within and between generations. This indelible impact ensures that we can never forget that fateful day 19 years ago. It also reminds us, as Ernest Hemingway wrote, that the world breaks everyone at one point or another, but afterward, some are strong at the broken places.
We, Americans, are strong at our broken places.
