Only one in five ground zero workers wore respirators
Hundreds of workers who cleaned up World Trade Center debris after the 9/11 attacks have filed a class-action lawsuit against the leaseholder of the towers and those who supervised the excavation, charging they did little to protect workers from disease-causing toxins, reports the Associated Press.
The lawsuit claims that Silverstein Properties and the four construction companies hired to oversee the removal of the 1.5 million tons of debris "should have known that safety precautions were needed to protect the rescue workers and cleanup workers… and anyone else exposed to the caustic dust from the airborne contamination, toxins and other substances."