Mamdani: People Got Sick After 9/11 Because the Leaders They Trusted, Lied and Told Them They Were Safe to Breathe in Toxic Air

EXCERPT:

MAMDANI: “Thousands of iron workers and firefighters and office workers and so many more remember September 11th not just each time we mark the passage of another year, but as Congressman Nadler once said, each time they take a struggling breath, each time they have to swallow a pill, each time another chemo dose is administered, and as the years pass and the human toll grows, we reckon with the cost of September 11th whenever another New Yorker is stolen from us too soon. Now, close to 25 years later more people have died from 9/11-related illnesses than were killed on the day itself. It would be one thing if government had stood alongside survivors and provided them with everything they needed at every step of the way, and yet we know that could not be further from what actually happened. People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air. And then, when they began to contend with the symptoms of the illnesses that followed, the government that had not hesitated to send them into harm’s way was nowhere to be found.”