Left in the Dust: Negotiating Environmental Illness in the Aftermath of 9/11

Abstract

The unprecedented toxic release in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001 created one of the worst environmental disasters in US history, followed by a contentious and ongoing battle over the existence, etiology, and legitimation of World Trade Center-related illness. In this paper, I explore the enactment of epistemic authority by a complex array of stakeholders—government officials, scientists, physicians, environmentalists, advocates, journalists, and politicians—who have woven medical-scientific knowledge into their competing agendas and platforms. Despite the scientific validation of environmental dangers, the clinical documentation of illness and the epidemiological substantiation of links between environmental exposure and illness onset, the political-economic interests of federal, state, and local bodies have often been privileged over the protection of public health. 9/11 illness is a “contested illness” enmeshed in politically charged disputes regarding the relationship of environmental toxins to disease.

Key Words:

• 9/11
• contested illness
• environmental disaster
• rhetoric
• science
• toxins

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am very thankful for the financial and institutional support that Texas Christian University has provided for this research. My dear friend Josephine Diamond kindly opened her home to me in New York City while I conducted my research. I am also grateful to Rob Garnett, Peter Guarnaccia, Lenore Manderson, and the anonymous reviewers who read drafts of this paper and offered comments and critique. Finally, I am indebted to the New Yorkers who generously shared their perspectives on environmental illness.

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Lisa K. Vanderlinden

LISA K. VANDERLINDEN, PhD, is an assistant professor of anthropology at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, USA. Her research focuses on health and inequality, with a special interest in the cultural meanings of infertility, the medical politics of toxicity, and illness legitimation. She has conducted ethnographic research in Germany and the United States with migrant populations.