People Got Sick Because Leaders Lied: Mamdani Releases 9/11 Air Quality Files

India-West News Desk

NEW YORK, NY – Ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the release of more than 170,000 pages of previously undisclosed records detailing post-9/11 Ground Zero air quality.

Uncovered last year among 68 boxes in a city office, these long-buried documents show that officials privately harbored deep concerns about toxic conditions even as the public received repeated assurances that the air was safe to breathe.

 Confronting a tragedy where deaths from post-9/11 illnesses have now eclipsed the initial casualty count of nearly 3,000, Mamdani emphasized that New Yorkers deserved this transparency after decades of systemic failure across multiple city administrations.

The newly digitized files, now available via a free, searchable public portal, include internal memos spanning the months following the disaster, such as a February 2002 communication from U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler to then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg highlighting flawed EPA indoor air monitoring.

Standing alongside 9/11 families and advocate Jon Stewart, who reiterated that hazardous debris lingered in surrounding buildings for months, Mamdani stressed that many eligible survivors remain unenrolled in support networks.

While over 140,000 people are registered with the World Trade Center Health Program and 49,000 face certified cancers, a condition only added to the program in 2012 following studies of firefighter health, countless affected residents outside outreach channels have yet to receive assistance.

In response to the release, former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman defended her agency’s early statements, asserting they relied on scientific data available at the time while noting the EPA lacked jurisdiction over indoor air and the city-managed worksite itself.