One of my favorite off-line reads, The Week magazine, is usually unswervingly neutral in its coverage. Not this time. The editor’s note for the current issue comes down hard on the Bush administration, blaming it not just for 9/11, but for the greed and consumerist ideology that placed the economy above safety.

Just hours after Sept. 11, Jeffrey Endean of the Morris County, N.J., Sheriff’s Office plunged himself into the nightmare of ground zero. Endean rushed to the still-burning ruins, volunteering to search for survivors and counsel emergency workers. He worked there for two months on nights and weekends, without ever wearing a mask. “The EPA said the air was safe,” he said. “That was all the talk—it was just dust.” Today, Endean’s lungs, larynx, and vocal cords are all scarred from a cocktail of atmospheric toxins—dioxin, lead, asbestos, and pulverized glass. His asthma is so bad that he awakens most mornings gasping for breath…

A new study by Mount Sinai Medical Center has found that about 70 percent of ground zero workers have serious respiratory problems caused or worsened by inhaling the poisoned air at the site. Even as they worked in the dust and the fumes, many had concerns about what they were breathing. But the Environmental Protection Agency blithely insisted that the air was fine. If people didn’t return to downtown Manhattan, of course, Wall Street would remain closed, and the economic damage would be severe…But a small army of selfless laborers are now paying the price with their health; some have died. The government let them down—just as surely as it did when it ignored warnings that Muslim men with foreign citizenships were learning how to fly commercial jets.