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n September 11, 2001, the Chartered Institute of
Environmental Health in the United Kingdom was in the middle of its annual
conference. Astounded by what had happened in New York and Washington, the
Institute took immediate action to assist environmental health in the U.S. in
the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. The Institute donated a sum of money to
the National Environmental Health Association to use in ways that NEHA saw fit.
NEHA's first idea was to forward the funds to public
health agencies affected by these events in the DC, Northern Virginia, and New
York City areas. These agencies, however, indicated that they did not need the
financial assistance.
The NEHA Board of Directors discussed the
appropriate use of these funds at length. A decision was made to have a
professional writer prepare a "Lessons Learned" report that would
examine the response of environmental health professionals to the events of
Sept 11, 2001. A committee was formed to develop the request for proposal (RFP)
that would be sent to professional writers and reporters, especially those in
the impacted areas. The committee would also evaluate the RFP submissions and
select the author. This was done in September of 2002. The writer selected was
Francesca Lyman, an independent writer and columnist for MSNBC who had written
several articles on the health aspects of the events of 9/11. (Her column,
“Your Environment,” can be found at http://www.msnbc.com/news/YOURENVIRONMENTH_Front.asp?0dm=C303H.)
Ms. Lyman’s articles have appeared in the New York Times, Sierra Magazine, The
Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, San Francisco Examiner and others. She has a
Bachelor of Arts from Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont, and she
currently lives in Kirkland, Washington. Her report is entitled “Messages in
the Dust.”
It is NEHA’s intent to see that environmental health
professionals throughout the country—and even the world—learn what the lessons
from the environmental health response to the attacks were. Hopefully this will
help to better prepare this profession so that should anything ever remotely
similar happen again, the environmental health response will be the best that
it can be.
—Nelson Fabian, Executive Director
National Environmental Health Association
September 2003