I doubt it very much. Other than people who worked on the site for any period of time, I have yet to hear of even one person with actual, legitimate health complaints that can definitely be traced to that.
Once *again*, I'll state that most of the bitching and whining comes from people who weren't here that morning and who don't live close enough to have breathed any of the air from the site.
Sorry, but when someone who lives in the West 80s whines about breathing the fumes from a fire that had been completely out for more than a month, I can't take her seriously, nor do I desire to waste money on making her feel a part of things, just because she missed out on running for her life that awful morning. I think there's a significant "I wanna be a part of this even though I wasn't there" factor going on here.
I would think a decent vetting process with a set of criteria should be able to handle this.
In other words, yet another federal program, pissing away our tax dollars...
In fact I was closer to the Towers before they came down than most having been told by some type of official that I couldn't walk further north, as I tried to get to the NJ Ferry which she told me was no longer running.
Didn't have much breathing trouble that day.
Going back into the area in October, just south of where the Towers had been I was coughing all weekend just from having been outside about a total of an hour those days walking from the Wall Street ferry to behind 130 Liberty Street where I worked.
One was breathing in chunks of glass at times and this is weeks later.
I have no idea how the policemen and firefighters dealt with it being outside in that air 8 or more hours a day.
I stopped going in and left my company, rather than keep going back into the area.
The area south of the Towers was not pleasant.