Human Toll Continues To Mount After A Year

It’s been a year since the Boston Marathon bombings and that will get a lot of attention this week.  It has also been a year since the horrific explosion in the West, Texas fertilizer plant.  The human toll continues to mount:

Fifteen people, including a dozen first responders, died last April 17 when stores of ammonium nitrate at West Fertilizer Co. detonated during a fire. It’s been estimated that more than 300 people were injured.

Government health officials were initially slow to study the extent of the West injuries. When they did, they limited their survey to those treated at hospitals and urgent care clinics. They did not canvass private medical practices, where blast victims were also treated. Nor did they track problems that may have surfaced later, such as brain injuries, hearing loss and post-traumatic stress disorder.

 

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.