USG Settles Asbestos Lawsuits, Swings to a $1.78 Billion Loss, by Ilan Brat, Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2006
http://online.wsj.com/search/services_results.html
CHICAGO -- USG Corp., the giant maker of building materials, said it will spend as much as $3.95 billion to settle asbestos-related lawsuits, a move it expects to help it emerge from bankruptcy-law proceedings in July.The company said it would create and fund a trust for personal-injury claims with $900 million in cash and a contingent note for an additional $3.05 billion. But if Congress passes legislation creating a national asbestos-personal-injury trust fund, then the contingent note would be canceled.
The legislation, the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act of 2005, would create a $140 billion trust fund to pay asbestos victims. The legislation would require insurance and reinsurance companies to contribute $46 billion to the fund, while companies facing asbestos liability would cover the bulk of the fund's cost.
As part of the settlement plan, USG said it will fully repay debtholders and trade suppliers with interest. Shareholders will receive rights to acquire one additional share for $40 for each share held. In 4 p.m. composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange, USG shares rose $15.93 to $95.78, setting a 52-week high.
Though shareholders were pleased, consumer group Public Citizen said in a news release that the agreement "shows how the creation of a federal asbestos-compensation fund is really a backdoor attempt to erase billions of dollars in corporate liability for asbestos exposure."
Heavy costs associated with asbestos lawsuits led the company to file for bankruptcy protection in 2001. Asbestos, once prized for its fire-retardant and insulating qualities, has spawned more lawsuits than any other product in the history of personal-injury litigation.
Financing for the USG plan is expected to come from USG's cash on hand, a $1.8 billion rights offering to existing stockholders supported by Warren Buffett's investment vehicle Berkshire Hathaway Inc., tax refunds and new long-term debt.
USG officials said the asbestos agreement would be included in a plan of reorganization and disclosure statement they expect to file with bankruptcy court next month.
The company also reported that its fourth-quarter results swung to a loss of $1.78 billion, including an after-tax charge of $1.9 billion related to the litigation settlement, from earnings of $85 million, or $1.97 a share, a year earlier. Sales for the quarter rose to $1.34 billion from $1.17 billion.
Write to Ilan Brat at ilan.brat@wsj.com1
Copyright © 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Sen. Clinton seeks help for ground zero workers in asbestos bill, by Devlin Barrett, Associated Press, January 31, 2006
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--sept11health0131jan31,0,2463,print.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Clinton said Tuesday she will bring the debate over Sept. 11 ground zero worker health to the floor of the U.S. Senate in coming days, seeking help for first responders through a troubled asbestos litigation bill.
Clinton, D-N.Y., said she will try to add an amendment to a much-debated asbestos measure that would make Sept. 11, 2001, first responders, workers and nearby residents eligible to apply for aid under a newly created Federal Asbestos Compensation Fund.
As much as 2,000 tons of asbestos may have been tossed into the air in lower Manhattan when the 110-story World Trade Center towers collapsed, according to some estimates.
Ground zero health advocates have long argued that the full scope of illnesses from toxic debris and dust will take years to fully develop, even though doctors caution it will be very difficult to prove the hazards caused specific deaths.
"These first responders, workers and residents should be allowed to seek compensation for their asbestos injuries," Clinton said in a statement, adding they would not be eligible under the current version of the bill, the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act.
The bill, expected to be taken up in the Senate within days, already has plenty of problems, without additional fights over ground zero health problems. It would halt lawsuits over asbestos worker claims that the Bush administration estimates have cost businesses $80 billion.
One senator, John Cornyn, R-Texas, recently suggested it will take "a miracle" to get it passed.
The bill would establish a $140 billion trust fund with contributions from corporate defendants and their insurers. Courts would be barred from hearing new lawsuits from asbestos victims.
A coalition of companies and unions has campaigned against the measure, saying the fund isn't big enough. Democrats and several Republican senators also worry that taxpayers might be left holding the bill.
Asbestos is a fibrous mineral commonly used until the mid-1970s in insulation and fireproofing material, including in the World Trade Center. It has tiny fibers that can cause cancer and other ailments when inhaled, but the diseases often take decades to develop.
According to a 2003 study by the Rand Institute for Civil Justice, more than 60 companies have sought bankruptcy protection because of more than 600,000 asbestos claims now in courts. That number is expected to grow.
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.
http://www.nydailynews.com/01-31-2006/news/story/387152p-328525c.html
President Bush won't be the only one making political points about 9/11 at tonight's State of the Union speech.At least two New Yorkers invited to the address by state lawmakers will be there to illustrate their own, very different points.
"Let's see if we get some truth," said Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband on Sept. 11, 2001, and will listen to Bush with Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).
Bush, who has made his response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks a cornerstone of his administration, has featured New Yorkers prominently in the address every year since.
Gabrielle said she wants to hear Bush before she takes a stand on his speech.
Clinton's spokesman said the senator invited Gabrielle to recognize her push for security improvements and for more information about the attacks - but also to remind the President of challenges that still face New York.
Marvin Bethea, a paramedic sickened by his 9/11 exposure who is coming with Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan), has a message for Bush and the rest of the federal government.
"I want every member of Congress to look at me and remember me when they go to bed at night," said Bethea, who takes 14 medications and has formed a foundation to help other 9/11 responders who have lost or had to fight for health care.
Maloney sent Bush a letter yesterday asking him to appoint a health czar to make sure people like Bethea don't slip through the cracks.
All contents © 2005 Daily News, L.P.
Feds Urged To Tap 'Czar' To Eye 9/11 Health; Cite 23 Deaths, Call Broader Screening, Treatment Key, by Ginger Adams Otis, The Chief Leader, January 31, 2006
http://www.thechief-leader.com/news/2006/0203/News/005.html
'URGENT NEED': U.S. Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Vito Fossella led a bipartisan push for a Federal '9/11 Health Czar' to coordinate and monitor medical programs for first responders, workers, volunteers, residents and others exposed to debris and dust on Sept. 11, 2001 and during the subsequent recovery efforts.Must Improve Tracking
Congresswoman Maloney cited the recent deaths of three city workers who fell sick with illnesses believed to be 9/11-related as proof of the "urgent need" for improved tracking and treatment of first responders, volunteers and other workers.
Seventeen legislators - including Sens. Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer - signed a letter to Michael Leavitt, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, urging him to appoint a health professional to better coordinate the Federal Government's attempts to get aid to the estimated 40,000 people who responded on 9/11 or aided in the clean-up and restoration operations, and for area residents and workers who have suffered daily exposures for the past 4-1/2 years.
'Persistent Problems'
Dr. Jacqueline Moline, an industrial physician who spearheads the Mount Sinai World Trade Center Monitoring program, said at a Jan. 25 press conference held by Representatives Maloney and Fossella that some 16,000 people had come forward to be screened.
"More than half of them have persistent problems with their sinuses and throats. They have GERD [acid reflux] and breathing difficulties," she said. "And we've only seen a fraction of the thousands who have been exposed."
Ms. Moline said Mount Sinai has gotten Federal funding to continue its monitoring and screening programs through 2009 - but that the programs ideally need to continue for another 15 to 20 years.
Feds Skimp on Treatment
The Federal Government has yet to contribute toward treatment programs, she added, noting that Mount Sinai was able to treat some ill 9/11 responders only because the Red Cross and private philanthropists donated money.
"The Red Cross gave us $20 million and that will cover us for the next two years," Dr. Moline said. "After that, we don't know."
She is hopeful that some of the $125 million in 9/11 aid that President Bush initially cut from the Federal budget will go toward treatment programs. A bipartisan effort from lawmakers, top city officials and labor leaders successfully got the money restored last month, and $75 million has been earmarked for a treatment program.
Sees Role for FDNY
Although the Fire Department has set up its own health services bureau for its members, Congressman Fossella said "there would be a need for the FDNY to come to the table" to work with the 9/11 health czar, should one be appointed. He said the goal was to get as comprehensive an oversight as possible to make sure nobody fell through the cracks.
Marvin Bethea, a Paramedic who works with the Emergency Medical Service bureau but is employed by St. Vincent's Hospital, charged that the Federal and city governments had turned their backs on the workers who responded on 9/11. Mr. Bethea is currently living on Social Security payments while trying to get a Workers' Compensation claim approved by the state.
He said prior to 9/11 he was a healthy man who took only two pills a day; now he's suffering from asthma and other breathing problems and taking approximately 14 medications daily.
City officials have not commented on the possibility that workers who toiled at Ground Zero were exposed to toxins that could prove fatal as time passes.
Claim 23 Related Deaths
The Daily News reported Jan. 25 that lawyers for thousands of injured workers have turned up at least 23 Ground Zero fatalities - many of them workers in their 30s and 40s who died from cancer and other causes.
The newspaper said their surviving family members have joined 5,200 first responders in a pending class-action suit alleging the city and its contractors didn't do enough to protect them from a toxic environment at Ground Zero.
Two EMS members - Timothy Keller and Felix Hernandez - died from diseases their families believe were linked to their time at the disaster site, and the Detectives' Endowment Association has made the same claim about the death of retired Detective James Zadroga.
The Uniformed Firefighters' Association said it knew of three firefighters who died recently of cancers the families suspected stemmed from 9/11 exposures; an FDNY official said the department was not ordering an investigation into the cause of death for those firefighters because they were not in active service when they died. Congressman Fossella said the deaths "were a clarion call" to do more for responders. "These are Americans who responded to a tragedy, and we need to help them," he said.
Copyright© 2005 The Chief Leader
All Rights Reserved
WTC Health Czar? No! Op-Ed, by Gilbert Ross, New York Post, January 31, 2006
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/62512.htm
MANY who worked at the World Trade Center site in the days after 9/11 now have ongoing medical and psychological problems as a result of their heroic service. But the latest demands for a federal strongman to oversee all health-related monitoring and treatment of the many thousands who served at Ground Zero are nothing short of political posturing, aiming to exploit rather than assist the sick and suffering victims and rescuers.
Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan/Queens) and Vito Fossella (R-S.I./Brooklyn) have called for a "health czar" to assume full control of rescue workers' health concerns, asserting that there is "no one person" in the federal government in charge of this area. True enough but there are many other resources available to those injured or sickened from the WTC collapse and its aftermath (among whom is my wife, whose injuries were thankfully minor). Why do we need another layer of bureaucracy to care for these valiant survivors and rescuers?
Maloney and Fossella point to three recent deaths as a "crisis" warranting federal intervention on an urgent basis. But that's three deaths out of thousands of potential victims over the course of four-plus years which does not amount to a health crisis. Did those unfortunate folks have other health issues that accelerated their decline, such as smoking? We don't know.
Numerous programs are in place to help monitor, diagnose and treat those who sustained injuries and lung ailments while working Downtown in the aftermath of 9/11. Some are government sponsored, some philanthropic; many are both. For instance, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, working with the city Health Department, has established the World Trade Center Health Registry which has more than 71,000 people registered, and refers those who need help to the appropriate agency or clinic.
One such clinic is run by the Mt. Sinai Hospital and Medical Center. Their WTC Medical Monitoring Program evaluates all comers with Ground Zero-related ailments, and refers those who need treatment to various clinics. Those who lack health insurance get free treatment.
This doesn't seem like anyone in need of help is being abandoned.
Politicians looking for a sound bite should pay more heed to the effects such alarms have on the public, as well as on those who need help coping with the effects of 9/11. Some sick WTC workers may get the message from such press briefings that they have no recourse, which is not only false, but will lead them to grow even more desperate and anxious.
The only ones who might benefit from such tirades are the lawyers still looking to sue anyone they can target who had anything to do with the site, including the owner, the city and a dozen other stakeholders. Accusations of federal neglect will only encourage these class-action ghouls, who had the good taste to file their suit on the third anniversary of 9/11.
Maloney herself was instrumental in getting another $125 million freed up to continue federal support for monitoring and treatment of rescue workers who need further medical evaluations and treatments over the course of the next several years. She should stick to helpful efforts, and forget about political pandering.
Dr. Gilbert Ross is executive and medical director at The American Council on Science and Health.
Copyright 2005 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Heroes Of 9/11 Are Getting Sick, by Joshua Brustein, Gotham Gazette, January 30, 2006
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/health/20060130/9/1742
Detective James Zadroga was inside 7 World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001. He escaped –- barely –- when the building collapsed. But Zadroga could not escape the damage done to his body by the hundreds of hours he spent at Ground Zero cleaning up the rubble in the following weeks. On January 5 of this year, Zadroga died from lung disease and mercury poisoning – a condition that hasn't been a widespread occupational hazard for over a century when hatters were sickened as they dyed beaver pelts.Working at Ground Zero seems to have been even more dangerous than initially suspected, say health researchers. At least two Ground Zero rescue workers besides Zadroga –- and maybe more than twenty -– have died from illnesses that seem to be related to working on "the pile" (rescue workers' nickname for the rubble of the twin towers). But James Zadroga's death in particular has redirected attention to a problem that, experts say, will likely continue for decades.
Efforts to confront the health effects of 9/11 have not progressed quickly. Federal attempts to determine how far dangerous chemicals spread have sputtered along, enraging many local residents and environmental activists, who suspect that the towers' collapse spread contaminants across lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. A registry set up to collect data on health trends covered a more limited area, and there is currently no way of knowing how many people are sick with 9/11-related illnesses.
The approximately 40,000 rescue workers are probably the one group at greatest risk, because those who worked on the site were directly exposed to these chemicals at very close range for long periods of time. Zadroga spent 470 hours at Ground Zero. But as they get sick and even die, public officials have had little success tracking their health, much less treating them.
This month, the New York congressional delegation called on the federal government to appoint a 9/11 health czar, whose first responsibility would be to find a way to track and confront the health problems rescue workers are facing. Until that happens, private screening and treatment programs are struggling to do what they can.
MONITORING AND TREATING PROBLEMSVincent Forras, a volunteer firefighter from Westchester County, was dispatched to Ground Zero immediately after the attack. He ended up working on the site for three weeks, spent two hours buried alive in the rubble of the South Tower, and later received the Ground Zero Service Medal.
Rescue workers had difficulty breathing soon after arriving at Ground Zero, said Forras. So, he said, "they juiced us up with all kinds of Albuterol and various medications to keep us breathing." This allowed rescue workers to continue working on the pile, where they filled their lungs with lead, mercury, asbestos, and pulverized cement and glass.
When Forras breathes now, he feels like he is "drowning in air."
He lists his other problems: He has "World Trade Center Cough", a symptom of Reactive Airway Dysfunction Syndrome. He is producing too much phlegm, has massive headaches, sinus problems, and symptoms of heart disease. More than four years after 9/11, his wife is still picking pieces of glass out of his skin.
Forras had his problems diagnosed at Mt. Sinai's World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program, run through its Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine. This program has screened the health of 16,000 men and women who worked on the pile, and is the largest effort to monitor the health of rescue workers at Ground Zero. The screening program is federally funded, and is open to anyone who worked at Ground Zero, whether they show symptoms or not, with a few exceptions: New York City firefighters – who have their own monitoring program – are ineligible, as are federal workers. Federal workers currently have no options for screening or treatment.
About half of the people that have come to Mt. Sinai for diagnosis have respiratory diseases, sinus or throat problems, or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Dr. Robin Herbert, who is the director of both the screening and treatment programs, continues to be taken aback by the severity of the medical problems like those afflicting Forras. She also feels overwhelmed by the problems involved with getting treatment for those her program screens. Mt. Sinai refers people who need treatment to its own program, which is overburdened, and has managed to see only 1,800 patients. It doesn't have the resources to see any more.
Private philanthropists currently provide all the money for treatment. The Red Cross gave $20 million to fund several such programs, and the lion's share of the Mt. Sinai's program comes from this pool of money (though donations like the $100,000 it received from a church group in Ohio, or $2,000 worth of pennies raised by children in Queens also help).
Mt. Sinai estimates that 5,000 people it has diagnosed as sick are not getting necessary health care. "It's pretty consistently the case that demand has tended to exceed our capacity," said Herbert.
WHERE IS THE GOVERNMENT?
The Red Cross sees its role as a stopgap measure, operating only until a more systematic public program can be put in place. It will stop its funding next year.
But interest from government is underwhelming. In his State of the City speech this month, Mayor Michael Bloomberg mentioned major plans for Ground Zero and for health care. He did not, however, connect these two themes. New York State government has provided treatment for those who worked on the pile with access to its worker's compensation program -– even if they came from out of state -– but its resources are limited.
It is the federal government's inactivity, however, that has most angered those involved with providing health care to 9/11 rescue workers.
There were 10,000 federal employees among the rescue workers at Ground Zero. The federal government set up its own medical monitoring program for these workers, but closed it down after screening only about 400 people. Federal employees cannot seek help through other programs; instead, they must wait for this program to be restored.
If the federal government has been lackluster in screening for health problems, its treatment program is nonexistent. To date, no federal money has been dedicated to treatment for any 9/11 rescue workers.
Some lawmakers in Washington are trying to change this. In December, Congress restored $125 million for funding for 9/11-related health issues that the Bush administration had cut from the budget. New York State's workers compensation program will get $50 million, with the remaining $75 million spent on existing monitoring and treatment programs. For the first time, this money will be available to be used not only to monitor workers' health, but also to treat their problems. It is not yet clear, however, when it will reach those who need it or how it will be split among monitoring and treatment programs.
On January 25, the New York Congressional delegation sent a letter to federal Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt asking him to appoint a "9/11 health czar" (letter in pdf format). So little has happened, they argue, because there is not a single person who is directly responsible for addressing 9/11 health issues.
Representative Carolyn Maloney and Vito Fossella recently called a press conference at Ground Zero to push for the idea. A position should be created within the department of Health and Human Services whose work would start with the establishment of "an exhaustive medical screening, monitoring, and health care program for all responders exposed to the toxins," said Maloney, encircled by men and women in fire department jackets or hats from local ironworkers unions. One had lost half a foot; another had lost almost a third of his lung capacity.
After Maloney finished, Forras stepped forward to talk about his battles with daily treatments, and about his feeling that the care he needed wasn't out there. He fully expected to die, he said, "sooner than later."
"I can guarantee you than when we come back here next year, some of these people will not be standing here," he said of those surrounding him. "You will find shadows of people."
by Chuck Bennett, AM-NY.com, January 30, 2006
The death of a cop who collapsed while pursuing robbery suspects in Manhattan on Friday is being blamed on Ground Zero dust. The parents of Kevin Lee, 31, said their son’s work at Ground Zero after 9/11 may have ruined his health, according to yesterday’s Daily News.
Chuck Bennett: chuck.Bennett@am-ny.com
9/11 killed hero cop? by Maureen Seaberg and Jose Martinez, New York Daily News,January 29th, 2006
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/386761p-328062c.html
The cop who collapsed and died Friday while chasing a suspect had been living a dream as one of the city's Finest - but his parents fear he may have been sickened by working long hours at the World Trade Center after 9/11.
"We're very concerned because he spent a lot of time at Ground Zero," Officer Kevin Lee's father, Gilbert, said yesterday.
But Gilbert Lee said "it's a total mystery" as to what killed his seemingly healthy 31-year-old son. The family was awaiting autopsy results.
The officer, a member of an elite robbery squad, dropped dead after chasing one of three teenagers suspected of swiping a laptop computer from a Lexington Ave. shop.
Kevin Lee, a married father, had achieved his lifelong goal of becoming a city police officer a decade ago, after spending five years as an auxiliary cop on Staten Island.
"His dream was always to be a policeman," said his mother, Catherine Lee, 52. "I always told him he was so lucky to have his dream."
Relatives gathered at his parents' Staten Island home yesterday, while his young wife struggled to come to grips with the loss of her husband.
"He was my world, my everything," said Erica Lee, 28, outside the couple's Bronx home.The pair, who wed 18 months ago in Las Vegas, met through Erica's aunt, Lee's former partner on the force. They were raising his 6-year-old son.
"We had many future plans, too many to speak about," said Erica Lee, fighting back tears. "I will never, ever forget him. He will live in my heart as long as I breathe."
"He died doing what he loved," she said.
The son of Chilean and Chinese parents, Kevin Lee spoke English, Spanish and Cantonese. He graduated from Staten Island Technical High School and studied criminal justice at St. John's University's Staten Island campus before joining the NYPD.
His funeral Mass will be held next week at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan.
"The family was very proud of him for being the first police officer in our family," said Gilbert Lee, 58.
In 10 years as a cop, Lee rang up more than 200 arrests and numerous citations, NYPD officials said.
"He liked the action," Gilbert Lee said.
Fellow cops at the 30th Precinct in Manhattan recalled Lee as a hardworking, well-liked officer.
"When I saw his picture come up on the TV, I just stared," said Officer Anthony Wyatt, who worked with Lee for four years. "I couldn't believe it."
In addition to his job, Lee volunteered with kids at the Police Athletic League
"He got a couple of citations and he wouldn't tell us," said his mother. "When I saw all of them on his wall, he goes, 'No big deal.' "
Relatives smiled yesterday while recalling a practical joke he played on his sister's boyfriend, who had told him he wanted a Hummer for Christmas.
Lee blindfolded the boyfriend, and led him outside, handing him the keys to his car. The boyfriend then discovered a tiny toy Hummer wrapped in a ribbon.
With Jego R. Armstrongand Jonathan LemireAll contents © 2006 Daily News, L.P.
NYPD Officer Who Collapsed And Died Worked At WTC Site, NY1.com, January 29, 2006http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=56668#
The police officer who collapsed and died during a pursuit Friday night, reportedly spent a lot of time at the World Trade Center Site. While the cause of death is still unclear, Kevin Lee's family members told the Daily News they fear he may have gotten sick because of the long hours he worked at the site after September 11th. The Medical Examiner is working to determine the cause of death. Officer Lee collapsed while he and his partner were chasing three men on the Upper East Side wanted for stealing a laptop from a Lexington Avenue store. Early reports suggested that Lee suffered a heart attack, but the hospital did not confirm that information. Lorenzo Walter, 18, and 19-year-old Julio Marquez were arrested Friday night, Rico Banks, 19, surrendered to police Satruday. All three men face robbery charges. Police say Lee struggled with one of the men right before he collapsed. Lee, a 10-year veteran of the NYPD and a member of the department's Grand Larceny Unit, was rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital where he was pronounced dead. He lived in the Bronx and is survived by a wife and 6-year-old son. Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke with Lee's mother who told him that being an officer was something her son always wanted. "All his life, all he wanted to do was be a cop. In high school there was some kind of a program where he could study what police offers do. It's all he ever talked about. He attended John Jay College and decided what her really wanted to do is be a cop." Police officer Lee was the second officer to collapse during a pursuit this year. Earlier this month, police officer Francis Hennessey collapsed and died from a brain aneurysm while on duty. Back to NYPD cop dies, by Graham Rayman, Rocco Parascandola, and Deborah S. Morris, NY Newsday, January 28, 2006 http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/newyork/nyc-nycop284604593jan28,0,6563073,print.story?coll=nyc-nynews-print Investigators probe what caused death of officer, 31, after he struggled with robbery suspect A 31-year-old cop who always wanted to be a police officer collapsed and died Friday night after grappling with a robbery suspect on the Upper East Side, police said. Kevin Lee, a 10-year NYPD veteran from the Bronx, was pronounced dead at 7:35 p.m. at Lenox Hill Hospital, said Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who rushed to the hospital Friday night to meet with the officer's wife, parents and sister. It was not immediately clear what caused the officer to collapse. "We just don't know whether it was an aneurysm or his heart or what it was," said Bloomberg, who added Lee was a tall, strapping guy who looked to be in great shape. "All his life he wanted to be a police officer," Bloomberg said, adding that Lee took courses in high school to become a police officer and also attended John Jay College of Criminal Justice. According to police, three suspects were being watched as they went into five different stores. When they left last store, Snappy Auctions.com at 83rd and 84th St. and Lexington at 6 p.m., three officers followed them, while another officer returned to the store to talk to a clerk, who told him that a laptop was missing. That officer radioed to the other officers, who then began to chase the suspects. As Lee grabbed one of the suspects at 86th Street and Lexington, he collapsed, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said. .Later on, police captured two of the suspects, Lorenzo Walter, 18, and Julio Marquez, 19, both of Brooklyn, and charged them with grand larceny and resisting arrest. The charges could be upgraded, they said Friday night. "The charges depend on the result of the autopsy and the nature of the struggle," Kelly said. Lee, who grew up on Staten Island, had been assigned to a borough-wide larceny team for two years. Prior to the chase, he and three other officers had been in that area, at Lexington Avenue and 86th Street, to watch for suspicious behavior. "The incident underscores the tension and high pressure that officers on patrol face every minute. At any moment, danger can strike," Kelly said. Bloomberg described Lee as "an outstanding officer" and "devoted to duty" who made more than 200 arrests. In addition to his wife, Lee has a 6-year-old son. At a news conference Friday night, Bloomberg said, "They all said that this was a person who wanted to be a police officer, and he was so proud to be one of New York Finest. He relished the job every day. "It's another one of those tragedies that no one can ever explain." Earlier this month, a Brooklyn cop, Officer Francis Hennessy, 35, of the 70th Precinct, died of an aneurysm responding to a call of a man with a gun. Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc. WTC attacks claim latest victim - four years later, by Larry McShane, Associated Press, January 28, 2006 http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--thelatestvictim0128jan28,0,945307,print.story?coll=ny-region-apnewjersey For James Zadroga, dying was as simple as breathing. The highly decorated New York police detective was heading home from work on Sept. 11, 2001, when the mind-numbing news came across his car radio: A plane had flown into the World Trade Center. He rushed back to lower Manhattan, where the twin 110-story towers had collapsed into a toxic pile of burning rubble. Zadroga spent 470 hours sifting through the smoldering ruins. Inhale, exhale. Twelve-hour shifts, nearly 40 of them. Inhale, exhale. More than 28,000 minutes, his only protection a thin paper face mask. Zadroga barely avoided death when 7 World Trade Center tumbled down around him hours after the planes hit. The escape was temporary: By the time he was finished at ground zero, Zadroga was as much a Sept. 11 victim as anyone lost in the tower stairwells _ although his suffering was time-released. His breathing became labored within weeks, his health deteriorated over months, he was on disability in just over three years. On Jan. 5, 2006, the 34-year-old Zadroga finally succumbed, betrayed by his failing body; the World Trade Center had claimed its latest fatality. Exhale, one last time. Two years earlier, his wife died of a heart ailment that family members blame on stress created by Zadroga's fatal illness and his battle with city bureaucrats over its cause. Their 4-year-old daughter, born shortly after her father finished work at ground zero, is the newest trade center orphan. In the days before Zadroga's final breath, his little girl came out of her father's bedroom and spoke to her grandfather. "I knew my daddy was really sick," Tylerann Zadroga told him. "But I didn't think he'd die this fast." Zadroga grew up in North Arlington, N.J., where his dad was chief of police in a blue-collar suburb of 15,000 residents. The youngest of two sons, he was a non-smoker and a bodybuilder with a rock-solid physique. "I used to punch him in the arm, just playing around," recalled his father, Joseph. "By the time he was 16, it started to hurt my hand." Zadroga graduated from high school, went to a local community college, and then surprised his father by entering law enforcement. The son swapped his small town for the big city: He joined the New York police in 1991, and was soon working the streets of Greenwich Village. "The apple didn't fall far from the tree," said Monsignor William Fadrowski, a family friend for nearly two decades. "Just like his father, he was a real genuine guy ... just a fine man." A 1994 New York Times article detailed his work busting beer-drinking teens as part of the city's "quality of life" crackdown, but Zadroga was destined for bigger things. The hard-working cop became a detective, earning 31 medals for excellence and seven others for meritorious duty during a decade on the job. He married wife Ronda in 2000, and they moved into their own suburban home two hours north of the city. On the morning of Sept. 11, Zadroga was working in the elite Manhattan South homicide unit _ "a pretty prestigious post," said Michael Palladino, head of the Detectives Endowment Association. "To be in that unit after 10 years, that's a testament to his work ethic." Zadroga was driving home after finishing an overnight tour when he heard about the airplane striking the trade center's north tower. He reversed course, heading toward the billowing smoke that marked the worst terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil. Zadroga was soon running for his life when 7 World Trade Center collapsed as he worked nearby. He spent the next month digging through the pile of concrete and chemicals and human remains _ even as his pregnant wife stayed alone at home carrying their first child. "The first weeks were the worst," said Rev. Brian Jordan, a Franciscan priest who met Zadroga at ground zero in the days after 9/11. "We're weren't sure what was going on. The fires were still burning." The priest remembered Zadroga as conscientious, hard-working and determined to rescue his missing brothers. Day after day, often with just two hours of fitful sleep, Zadroga worked as all hope disappeared and the staggering death toll climbed: 23 fellow NYPD members, 37 Port Authority police, 343 New York firefighters, 2,749 people in all. "Reality set in," said Jordan. "We were not going to find anybody alive." When Zadroga returned to his detective squad in October, his breathing was already impaired. When daughter Tylerann was born weeks later, his condition was worsening. By year's end, he was visiting medical specialists to find out what was wrong while constantly missing work, his father said. There were few answers. And Zadroga's failing health was creating more questions: What exactly was wrong? Was there a cure? What would his family do for money now that his overtime was gone? With Sept. 11, 2002, approaching, Zadroga was plagued by a constant cough, a sore throat and an ongoing fight with the NYPD over the cause of his sickness. His father-in-law, a Florida clergyman, asked Zadroga to write down his feelings about the past year, hoping to share them with the local congregation. "They remember the dead," Zadroga wrote of the NYPD, "but don't want to acknowledge the sick who are living. ... I can't pay my bills and work doesn't want to acknowledge that I'm sick, depressed and disgusted." Zadroga's eyesight began failing, perhaps from trade center materials embedded in his eyes, his father said. By the second anniversary, the trade center rattle in his lungs had Zadroga attached to an oxygen tank. His wife, dealing with a new baby and a chronically sick husband, fell ill with what family members insist was a stress-related heart problem. The Zadrogas moved to Florida, where they found good weather but no good news: Ronda, just 29, died there two years ago. Zadroga came back north with his daughter, moved back in with his parents. The NYPD, more than three years after 9/11, finally agreed that he was suffering from pulmonary disease related to his rescue efforts. Union head Palladino said the detective had fiberglass in his lungs, and traces of mercury on his brain. At age 33, the once-proud detective was receiving a disability pension. In the Jersey shore home where Zadroga now lived with his parents, two things were happening: Tylerann helped tend to her dying father. And her dying father helped prepare Tylerann for the inevitable. "It was hard," said Joseph Zadroga. "But she knew. She knew." James Zadroga died at his parents' home on Jan. 5. Although autopsy results were pending on the exact cause, union officials said he was the first city police officer whose death was linked to working at ground zero. The NYPD confirmed he was the only officer to die after reporting 9/11-related health problems. His father was approached repeatedly at the wake by co-workers and friends from the NYPD. The ex-police chief heard story after story, most of them new to his ears, about his son's exploits in the city. "He wasn't the type to brag," the father said of the son. There were tears of sadness, and hugs of appreciation. On the day of Zadroga's funeral, Tylerann sat on her grandfather's lap inside Queen of Peace Church in North Arlington. Nearly 500 people had filled the church to bid farewell to James Zadroga in his old hometown. Fadrowski, the police chaplain during the elder Zadroga's tenure as police chief, delivered a moving eulogy. The monsignor called the detective "a righteous person," and hailed his work as a police officer. "He clearly followed his father's example, going into a career in law enforcement," Fadrowski said later. "He fulfilled his two goals as an officer: to protect, and to serve." An NYPD color guard was in attendance, along with honor guards from three northern New Jersey counties. Zadroga's flag-draped casket was brought down the church steps by a half-dozen fellow officers, as his father and mother stood side by side. The grandparents had broken the news of her father's death to Tylerann before the Mass. Her father, they stressed, had died a hero _ and he was reunited with Ronda. Tylerann, who now lives with her grandparents, seemed to understand more than most. "She thinks her dad and mom are stars in heaven," said her grandfather, Joseph, on the day of the funeral. "And she gets mad when there are no stars out."Unions Call For Death Benefit In Post-9/11 Cases; Wary of Growing Toll Among Responders To WTC Site, by Ginger Adams Otis, The Chief Leader, January 27, 2006
http://www.thechief-leader.com/news/2006/0127/News/003.html
Leaders of the city's fire and police unions are quietly pushing to get a task force in place to oversee the implementation of the World Trade Center Disability law signed by Governor Pataki last summer. They're also anxious to get a death benefit added to the law that currently only grants presumptive disability pensions to Ground Zero workers who fall ill with any number of predetermined injuries or diseases. The legislation contains a clause allowing for changes to the law as circumstances demand, to be made by a task force comprised of city, state and union leaders. 'Protect Families, Too' Uniformed Firefighters' Association Vice President James Slevin said his union was waiting for final appointments so that the task force could be petitioned to add a death benefit. "We feel it's critical to get these death benefits included as part of the law. It was the intent of the law and the legislators to not only protect the responders who became ill, but also their families, should they die," he said. The UFA Jan. 13 reported the deaths of three firefighters from lung-related diseases believed to be linked to their work at Ground Zero, and the Detectives' Endowment Association said the Jan. 5 death of 34-year-old retired Det. James Zadroga was also related to the 450 hours he spent investigating debris in the World Trade Center site. A medical autopsy is pending for Detective Zadroga. The families of the three firefighters have not made their medical reports public. The Fire Department has not confirmed the deaths or commented on any possible causal link to 9/11. Two Emergency Medical Technicians also passed away last summer from lung diseases believed to be related to 9/11, although the one coroner's report released to the public listed the death simply as a heart attack due to respiratory distress. Cumulative Toll DEA President Michael Palladino said he'd asked in informal discussions with the NYPD for a line-of-duty death designation for Detective Zadroga. "My feeling is, should his death certificate reveal that he's a victim of the World Trade Center, as we assume, then he's the 24th [city] police officer to succumb to 9/11 injuries," said Mr. Palladino. "He just didn't succumb that day." Mr. Palladino acknowledged the possibility that an autopsy might not establish that Mr. Zadroga's prolonged presence at Ground Zero four years ago brought about the diseases that took his life. 'Had to Be 9/11-Related' "Absent any clear indication, then it's left up to interpretation. But pre-9/11, James Zadroga was a very healthy individual with no symptoms of respiratory illness," the union leader noted. "His post-9/11 life was filled with difficulty breathing, reduced lung capacity, respiratory ailments and his health went downhill at an accelerated rate. I think it would be beyond coincidence to say this was his predetermined fate and not related to 9/11." Mr. Palladino said he hoped that no other first responders would suffer untimely deaths from what appeared to be 9/11-related illnesses, but that it was necessary to add a death benefit to the WTC disability law. The DEA is going to be polling its membership to get health information. According to Mr. Palladino, a week after Mr. Zadroga's passing, a second Detective died - Sandra Adrian, a 17-year-veteran of the force. She reportedly died of cancer, and the DEA is waiting for the autopsy before commenting on the possibility of a 9/11 link. "Sandra spent a good amount of time at Ground Zero and at the [Fresh Kills] landfill," he said. "But she wasn't as young as Zadroga, so I'm sure the big battle is going to be over whether it was related to 9/11 or not." No Protective Gear Shortly after the Twin Towers came down and the rescue effort turned into a recovery effort, officials declared Ground Zero a crime scene. When that happened, Mr. Palladino said, Fresh Kills, the morgue and the city bereavement center became Detective-heavy operations. Many of the Detectives were at the sites without protective gear or with inadequate gear; the DEA called in an industrial specialist a few days after the disaster who recommended more stringent protections that the union quickly adopted. Mr. Palladino and Mr. Slevin applauded the foresight of the Albany lawmakers who had insisted on including a task force in the final version of the bill presented to Governor Pataki last summer. Peter D. Meringolo, who as chair of the Public Employee Conference did most of the negotiating for city and state unions on the legislation, said he understood the urgent need to get the task force running. 'A Need to Monitor' "This bill, which was monumental in and of itself, is not foolproof, and there are things that we need to be monitoring and assessing now," he said. "At the Public Employees' [Conference] Breakfast in Albany this Feb. 7, one of the main objectives will be to get a time frame established and get the appointments finished, and we'll be giving examples like [Detective Zadroga] to reinforce the need for a death benefit." The task force is comprised of 19 members, three of whom are appointed by the Assembly, and three by the Senate. Four of those seats must be given to state or city labor leaders, and two must go to independent health experts. Of the Governor's six seats, one must be filled by the state Health Commissioner, and the remaining five can be designated as the Governor sees fit. Other appointees include the State Comptroller, the City Comptroller, the Mayor or a representative of his choice, a second appointee from the state Department of Health, the state's Department of Labor Commissioner, the Director of the state Division of the Budget and the Commissioner of the state Department of Civil Service. Outstanding Issues Assemblyman Peter Abbate, who was instrumental in getting the third version of the pension bill to the Governor's desk, said the Senate has already made its appointments and that the task force was very close to completion. He said there were a few issues that needed to be addressed, such as the situation of city Mechanics who cleaned and maintained all the vehicles used by first responders and others on 9/11 and for months after. Because the garages where they worked weren't included in the official delineation of "Ground Zero," they're not considered eligible for the disability pension. "They probably breathed in more dust and debris - after all, they were cleaning it up," said Mr. Abbate. "So that has to be fixed. But I'm open to hearing what the other unions have to say about a death benefit and I would support it, even if we have to do it in a different bill. It's something we knew was coming, we just didn't think it would be this soon." Mr. Abbate said he was pressing to get final appointments made by Feb. 1.Helping those harmed by 9/11, Editorial, Staten Island Advance, January 27, 2006 http://www.silive.com/editorials/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/113837226975870.xml&coll=1 Rep. Vito Fossella has occasionally been criticized for not working well with others -- at least if they're not rock-ribbed conservative Republican congressmen from the South and West. We'll leave the merits of that charge to others to decide. In his defense, however, we point to his recent collaboration with Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney of Manhattan. These two New York members of the House of Representatives have teamed up to call on the federal Department of Health and Human Services to appoint a 9/11 heath czar to coordinate the identification and treatment of those whose health was adversely affected in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Health-care experts believe that tens of thousands of first responders, federal employees and lower Manhattan residents and workers are suffering from health problems caused by exposure to toxins at or near the World Trade Center site. Reps. Fossella and Maloney are concerned that the $125 million in federal funding they and other members of the New York delegation recently obtained for treating those sickened at Ground Zero and environs be accurately targeted and wisely spent. They say putting a single seasoned health professional -- a "czar" -- in charge of this complex and profound responsibility will bring accountability, order and efficiency to the effort. Their joint letter to HHS read, in part, "The health problems affecting 9/11 responders are clearly real and dangerous. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that the government response has been inadequate." Rep. Fossella said in a separate statement, "The 9/11 Health Czar would be directly responsible and accountable for the full range of the federal government's response. A comprehensive screening, monitoring and treatment program is essential to protecting the health of 9/11 responders. The recent deaths of several rescue workers underscore the need for enhancing current efforts and appointing one person to oversee the entire initiative." We're normally skeptical of calls for so-called "czars" to address major issues, but in this case, the lawmakers are right on target. The 9/11 health problem, while it involves an alarming number of people, is confined, so it lends itself to this kind of approach over the long term. The combined efforts on this front thus far have been scattershot and ineffective. As Mr. Fossella put it, "There doesn't seem to be one individual who is in charge of coordinating this huge task." If HHS heeds their call, there will be. Bravo to Reps. Fossella and Maloney for putting aside partisan differences on other issues and uniting to confront in a logical and intelligent way this critical, almost sacred responsibility to help those who are suffering in the wake of 9/11. © 2006 Staten Island Advance © 2006 SILive.com All Rights Reserved. Back to Top
Bloomberg's Call for New Developers At WTC Site Stirs the Pot, by Paul Rosta, Senior Associate Editor January 27, 2006
http://www.commercialpropertynews.com/cpn/regions/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001920115
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's call yesterday for developer Larry Silverstein to partly relinquish control of the World Trade Center site today renewed discussions about a perceived lack of progress there and the best course to follow.Bloomberg reignited the debate yesterday during his annual State of the City address, during which he called for World Trade Center site leaseholder Silverstein Properties Inc. to hand over responsibility for developing two of the four towers to other developers, in exchange for rent reduction. The key would be if the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, could commit to being the anchor tenant in one of the towers. "The time to reach agreement is now," Bloomberg said. "We cannot allow the Trade Center to be a construction site for the next 15 years, which the current plan all but ensures it will be."
Silverstein Properties responded in a prepared statement that the firm was able to move ahead but cannot build the second, third and fourth towers until the Port Authority completes site preparation, including site excavation and a protective slurry wall. "It's unclear whether that's a convenient excuse or that's a real thing--and that's what's causing the delays," Donald Lutt, managing director at GVA Williams Brokerage Services and chair of the Real Estate Board of New York's subcommittee on Lower Manhattan incentives, told CPN this afternoon.
Silverstein plans to break ground on the Freedom Tower this year, and construction is also scheduled to start on the Port Authority's transit hub. Nevertheless, the perceived lack of progress is a continuing source of frustration. "No plan is going to be the perfect plan," Lutt said. "But no action, which is what everyone's seeing, is the worst plan."
Some observers say that Silverstein will eventually have to give up the site because the company lacks a deep enough bench and deep enough pockets. "If this was ready to go tomorrow, he'd have to build a company to do it," said a veteran New York City real estate executive active in Downtown. "I think at the end of the day&hellipLarry winds up giving up."
The volume of construction activity also makes it unattractive to many prospective tenants, he contended. "Lower Manhattan is now a full-fledged permanent construction zone," the executive said.
Eric Deutsch, President of the Alliance for Downtown New York, urged the sides to come together and find a solution. "It's important for the business and residential community downtown that physical improvements are made," he told CPN this afternoon, "that the infrastructure movements are made and that the buildings go up as soon as possible."
© 2006 VNU eMedia Inc. All rights reserved.
Back to TopResponders, lawmakers press for '9/11 Health Czar' by Lisa Schneider, Staten Island Advance, January 26, 2006
http://www.silive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/113828948712560.xml&coll=1
Official would coordinate disaster programs and secure care for those who fell sick after terror attacks
Standing in front of a Ground Zero scabbed over by construction trucks and time, the walking wounded of Sept. 11 joined two members of Congress yesterday to demand the appointment of a federal "9/11 Health Czar." Reps. Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) and Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan/Queens) want the czar to coordinate World Trade Center disaster programs and secure care now and in years to come for thousands of first responders, recovery workers and residents. In the past year, three people reportedly died as a result of ailments developed after 9/11. "Their deaths should be a clarion call to the entire Congress and the entire country to once and for all put somebody in charge to help those who need our help," Fossella said. The destruction of the Twin Towers created a toxic atmospheric "cocktail" of pulverized glass, asbestos and poisonous gases. "We are in the middle of a health crisis that can't be ignored," said Ms. Maloney. "It seems like our government has abandoned the heroes of 9/11 just when they need help the most." Heroes like Timothy Keller, who was a healthy emergency medical technician when he responded to Ground Zero. David Keller, 19, said yesterday that he watched his father cough up blood and phlegm, and eventually die. Linda Belfer, a resident of Lower Manhattan, said she has developed allergies and respiratory problems. She now uses a wheelchair. Marvin Bethea, a paramedic who took only two medications before Sept. 11, 2001, today takes 14 drugs, ranging from pills for high blood pressure to asthma inhalers to anxiety relievers. The health care czar would fill the gaps in what has been dubbed by those who attended yesterday's rally as an inadequate federal response. "9/11 is not over," Ms. Maloney said. "We have failed to provide health care and support to 9/11 heroes." "People are perishing now," said Tom Hart, chairman of an advisory committee for the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Monitoring Program. "Is there a 100 percent link [to 9/11]? No. If you look in their faces, you know. The folks who were here got sick." In the past four years, several programs have screened thousands of responders, and many of them have had persistent health problems, said Dr. Jacqueline Moline, medical core director of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program. "Many of these people are unable to work," she said. "They still need help. They still need treatment. ... We need money to treat them." Dr. Moline said she worries that the deaths reported so far are just the beginning. It remains unclear what the long-term health effects will be across the decades, making it even more important for a fully coordinated system of tracking and treatment, said Fossella. "My father shouldn't have died," said David Keller. "He applied for Sept. 11 benefits but was denied. ... I went to different hospitals with him. Everyone kept saying the same thing: 'This is from the World Trade Center.'" For more information about available screening programs, call the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program at (888) 702-0630. Lisa Schneider covers health news for the Advance. She may be reached at schneider@siadvance.com. © 2006 Staten Island Advance © 2006 SILive.com All Rights Reserved. Back to Top Halliburton Posts $1.1 Billion Profit, by Russell Gold, Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2006http://online.wsj.com/search/services_results.html
Riding growing demand for sophisticated oilfield services amid the continuing energy boom, Halliburton Co. posted a $1.1 billion profit in the fourth quarter. This was boosted by a $540 million gain related to future tax considerations.The company also said it was making progress resolving billing issues over massive contracts supporting U.S. troop deployment and restoring the oil infrastructure in Iraq, even as its revenue from this work declined. The company said it had made a "favorable settlement'' with the Pentagon auditors on all outstanding billing issues related how much it charged to deliver fuel into Iraq at the beginning of the war.
Houston-based Halliburton is primarily an oilfield services firm in the business of providing specialized technology and skills to exploration companies. But it also has a large engineering, construction and government-contracting unit known as Kellogg Brown & Root, or KBR.
The company is still considering separating KBR, in an effort to boost its stock value which executives say is dragged down by the unit. Analysts expect an announcement of an initial public offering of a minority stake in the company soon, perhaps in the next quarter. A surge in energy construction has pushed up the value of independent engineering concerns, making an IPO increasingly attractive.
Halliburton reported a $1.1 billion profit in the quarter, or $2.08 a share. This includes $540 million related to a reduction in a deferred tax asset valuation allowance related to its asbestos settlement fund.
The profit compares to a $210 million loss in the fourth-quarter a year ago, or 45 cents a share, when earnings were dragged down by an after-tax $384 million non-cash charge related to the rising cost of shares pledged to a fund created to resolve asbestos litigation. In addition, the year-earlier quarter was impacted by several one-time losses and a gain that resulted in a net $52 million charge before taxes.
Halliburton reported $5.8 billion in revenue in the quarter, up from $5.2 billion a year earlier. The company said its Iraq work contributed $1.3 billion in revenue in the quarter, down from $1.7 billion a year ago.Write to Russell Gold at russell.gold@wsj.com
Copyright © 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Back to TopBloomberg Seeks Control Over Ground Zero, by Sara Kugler, Associated Press Writer, January 26, 2006
Mayor Michael Bloomberg used his State of the City address Thursday to muscle his way into the debate over rebuilding at the World Trade Center, urging a developer to give up control over part of the project.
Bloomberg blasted the redevelopment plan for the swath of Lower Manhattan that was scarred by the 2001 terrorist attack, a project largely led by Gov. George Pataki throughout the mayor's first term.
The redevelopment will stall, Bloomberg said, unless the timeline is revised and rebuilding efforts accelerated.
"We need this now, to advance our economy and pay tribute to those who died there not a decade and a half in the future, when it fits a developer's financial plan," he said.
The mayor was referring to a collection of smaller skyscrapers planned around the ambitious 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, which is in the early stages of construction. Groundbreaking for the trade center memorial is scheduled to begin this spring, but the current timeline does not have the complex finished until 2015.
The mayor said trade center developer Larry Silverstein should give up control over two key towers planned for ground zero in exchange for rent reduction, and allow the city to take over so the projects can proceed more quickly.
Janno Lieber, director of World Trade Center development for Silverstein's organization, said the group was not responsible for construction delays. He said the Port Authority must first excavate the site and make other preparations before the buildings can go up.
After the mayor's speech, a Pataki spokeswoman said the governor last month asked the Port Authority to reassess Silverstein's role at ground zero and report to him by mid-March.
Bloomberg also signaled that he will crack down on illegal guns after the recent shooting deaths of two police officers. He described a program that would require gun offenders to register and update their addresses with law enforcement, and a push to make criminal possession of a loaded weapon a felony with a minimum 3 1/2-year sentence. Both proposals would require the state Legislature's approval.The mayor acknowledged that many illegal guns come from other states, but warned that the city will begin to hold gun dealers "accountable for the terrible damage their guns cause."
Copyright 2006, Associated Press Back to TopPushing for '9/11 health czar' by Lisa Schneider, Staten Island Advance, January 25, 2006 http://www.silive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/113819960142380.xml&coll=1 Over the next few decades, health officials say, thousands of people will need treatment for ills related to Sept. 11, 2001, including problems that may not yet be apparent -- but even now, some of these folks are falling through the cracks. Yesterday, Reps. Vito Fossella and Carolyn Maloney pressed the federal Department of Health and Human Services to appoint a "9/11 health czar" to oversee comprehensive studies of 9/11's health effects, as well as all treatment programs . As is, "there doesn't seem to be one individual who is in charge of coordinating this huge task," complained Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn). He and Ms. Maloney (D-Manhattan/Queens) have scheduled a press conference at Ground Zero today -- with sick and injured workers -- to drive home their demand. After recapturing $125 million in federal funding for the city, the representatives want to ensure the money goes toward treating patients effectively and tracking their illnesses. Lending urgency to the issue are several reports of recent deaths from 9/11-related illnesses. "The health problems affecting 9/11 responders are clearly real and dangerous," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to HHS, adding, "Unfortunately, the sad truth is that the government response has been inadequate." Anything that helps residents of Lower Manhattan get the health care they need would be an important and positive step, said Dr. David Prezant, deputy chief medical officer of the city Fire Department. But he cautioned that the operations of a health czar could tie existing programs in more strands of red tape. "We are looking to serve as partners," Dr. Prezant said. "It would be useful that there be a partnership, so that the lessons that we have learned be applied and that we do not go backwards." Less than one month after the World Trade Center collapsed, the FDNY began a comprehensive monitoring and treatment program for its members. Since then, it has partnered with agencies including Mount Sinai Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine to aggressively monitor and treat almost 28,000 firefighters, police officers, medical technicians and volunteers who helped in the recovery and cleanup work. The groups meet monthly and have made joint presentations on their findings. Soon after the terrorist attacks, one firefighter died from interstitial pulmonary fibrosis, Dr. Prezant said. But the programs have since been effective in halting the progress of many responders' respiratory illnesses, he said, and "we have had no cases since then because of aggressive monitoring." That success demonstrates the importance of maintaining an extensive and timely monitoring system, Dr. Prezant said. Meanwhile, much of the affected population has been left behind, without a treatment program to address current and future health needs, Fossella and Ms. Maloney told HHS. They noted that two screening programs for state and federal workers were closed soon after they began. And three men reportedly died from 9/11-induced health effects within the past year. Without a centralized effort to monitor and treat everyone, the legislators wrote, many have grown increasingly ill and are unable to pay their medical bills. "These guys who needed treatment couldn't get it," Fossella said. Lisa Schneider covers health news for the Advance. She may be reached at schneider@siadvance.com. © 2006 Staten Island Advance © 2006 SILive.com All Rights Reserved Back to Top
9/11 Health Czar Sought, CNN.com, January 25, 2006, watch the video at: http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/us/2006/01/25/snow.911.health.czar.cnn&wm=10 In recent months, three emergency responders who worked at ground zero just after the 9/11 attacks have died. Others are sick. Some officials in New York say toxic remains from the World Trade Center collapse are to blame. Now they want action. Let's go to the scene. Our Mary Snow is standing by at the -- what's called ground zero, the site of the World Trade Center -- Mary. MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, rescue workers who say they were once hailed as heroes here at ground zero now they say they need help. They say they're concerned about their health. And they say it's not easy to make a direct link between their sickness and the work they did here more than four years ago. Today, they joined lawmakers in asking the federal government to appoint a 9/11 health czar. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SNOW (voice-over): They're being called the latest victims of 9/11, three emergency workers who spent weeks, even months, at ground zero who have recently died. Police Detective James Zadroga was the latest to succumb to lung ailments. Their families insist it's because of the hundreds of hours they spent inhaling toxic debris. Now a congressional delegation from New York is calling on the federal government to appoint a 9/11 health czar. REP. VITO FOSSELLA (R), NEW YORK: I need no scientist or researcher to tell me that the people who responded to 9/11, four-and- a-half years later, are suffering. SNOW: Lawmakers were joined by emergency workers, like former paramedic Marvin Betha (ph), who held up a sign to show the two medications he took before 9/11 and the many he takes now. Vince Forras volunteered several weeks at ground zero and says now he can't go without his inhaler and medications. VINCENT FORRAS, SUFFERS POST-9/11 HEALTH PROBLEMS: Never had a breathing problem in my life, used to run two, three miles a day. Now I have trouble walking from the car into my house. SNOW: Doctors who are tracking the 9/11 responders say many are getting sick. DR. JACQUELINE MOLINE, WORLD TRADE CENTER MEDICAL MONITORING PROGRAM: We have seen 16,000 responders. These people are showing problems. They still have respiratory problems. They still have problems with their sinuses, with their throats. SNOW: Officials say money to monitor them has come from private funds. And they say many are fighting red tape just to get insurance benefits. REP. CAROLYN MALONEY (D), NEW YORK: They are calling my office, some of whom tell me they do not even have the help with their drugs that they need. Many cannot work. It's a -- it's a national disgrace and it's a crisis. SNOW: Lawmakers say there needs to be coordinated effort by the government to track these illnesses, fearing the numbers of cases will drastically increase with passing time. (END VIDEOTAPE) SNOW: And, just earlier today, lawmakers sent letter to the secretary of health and human services, Michael Leavitt, asking for this appointment. This afternoon, we got a response from the Department of Health and Human Services, saying: "We have received the letter and currently reviewing their recommendations. The health needs resulting from 9/11 are of primary concern to us" -- Wolf. BLITZER: All right, Mary, thank you very much, Mary Snow at ground zero in New York.
N.Y. pols press for 9/11 health czar, by Thomas Zambito, NY Daily News, January 25th, 2006
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/385528p-327183c.html
New York's congressional delegation will urge the Bush administration today to appoint a health czar to oversee the treatment of thousands of Ground Zero workers left sick after toiling amid the rubble left by the Sept. 11 attacks.
The bipartisan demand comes a week after the Daily News reported that lawyers for thousands of injured workers have turned up at least 23 Ground Zero workers, many of them in their 30s and 40s, who have died from cancer and other causes.
Their families have joined some 5,200 responders in a pending class-action suit that alleges the city and its contractors didn't do enough to protect them from a toxic environment at Ground Zero.
"The number of deaths becomes a clarion call to do more and to do better," said Rep. Vito Fossella (R-S.I.) "These are Americans who responded to a tragedy, and we need to help them."
In a letter to Michael Leavitt, the federal Health and Human Services secretary, 17 legislators - including New York Sens. Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer - express "grave concerns" about the recent deaths and urge him to appoint a health professional to coordinate the federal government's response to the illnesses faced by some of the 40,000 who responded to the site after Sept. 11.
The New York delegation recently succeeded in getting the Bush administration to free up some $75 million for treatment of sick responders, but they say that won't be enough to treat thousands of workers for decades to come.
More than four years later, thousands of 9/11 responders are sick and they seem to have been forgotten," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan).
Fossella and Maloney have co-written an op-ed piece in today's News, outlining their case for a health czar.
They and other lawmakers will be joined at a news conference near the Ground Zero site today by dozens of workers, many of whom have not been able to work for the past four years because of respiratory illnesses contracted at the site.
Among them are John Feal and John Sferazzo, Ground Zero construction workers who started a group called Unsung Heroes for Heroes to advocate for fellow responders.
"In all honesty, we've gotten poor treatment," said Sferazzo, 50, of Huntington, L.I. "We're made to feel like we're really expendable."
Feal, 39, of Nesconset, L.I., had half of his left foot amputated after it was crushed by falling steel and suffers through respiratory ailments and bouts of depression. "I don't intend to keep feeling sorry for myself," he said. "I'm going to fight back. Every day I'm going to help someone who made an effort on 9/11."
All contents © 2006 Daily News,
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Create 9/11 health czar, op-ed by Reps Vito Fossella and Carolyn Maloney, NY Daily News, January 25, 2006 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/385419p-327092c.html Within hours of the collapse of the World Trade Center, firefighters, police officers, federal agents and other first responders labored alongside hardhats and average New Yorkers without regard for their own health or safety. Unbeknownst to them, many were inhaling a potentially poisonous cocktail of asbestos, lead, mercury, powdered glass and other carcinogens. We are now only beginning to see the potentially deadly effects on some who worked at Ground Zero. Thousands have already been documented as sick, and many of them lack access to sufficient medical care or treatment. Reports indicate that several responders may have died as a result of their service at Ground Zero years after the attack. Since June alone, we have mourned the loss of three local heroes - EMTs Felix Hernandez, 31; Timothy Keller, 41; and, earlier this month, NYPD Detective James Zadroga, 34. We have repeatedly called for improvements in meeting the health needs of 9/11 responders and area residents. Yet as of today, there appears to be no one individual in the federal government charged with overseeing the massive job of monitoring and treating those who are injured or sick. That is why this morning we will be at Ground Zero with New York's first responders to call for the appointment of a national 9/11 health czar. The czar must be a seasoned health professional able to fill the gaps in the federal response and bring together those with a proven track record screening, monitoring and treating 9/11 responders. The health czar's first order of business must be ensuring that an exhaustive medical screening and monitoring program encompassing a large pool of responders and residents is operational. To date, such programs have yielded valuable information, but have tracked only a fraction of the affected population and, to our dismay, have never been fully funded. Their preliminary findings raise serious concerns: The World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program found that roughly half of the 16,000 people followed have a medical condition resulting from 9/11. A New York City Fire Department study reported similar findings. Other screening programs have not fared as well. One initiative geared to state workers was terminated while another for federal rescue workers was closed after screening only 400 of the approximately 10,000 federal responders at Ground Zero. A first step was taken last month when a bipartisan coalition of New York lawmakers, including Mayor Bloomberg, Gov. Pataki and the entire state congressional delegation, successfully restored $125 million in federal funding for sick 9/11 responders. This victory will enable us to provide, for the first time, long overdue medical treatment for those in need. The 9/11 health czar would be on the front lines of this initiative, charged with distributing funding to expand and enhance medical screening and monitoring programs and ensuring federal dollars are dedicated to treatment. This individual also would be responsible for bringing together the collective talents of the medical and scientific communities to develop a plan to help all those who are ill from 9/11. After 4-1/2 years, the time to act is now. The lives of those injured on and after 9/11 depend on it. Fossella, a Republican, represents Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn. Maloney, a Democrat, represents parts of Manhattan and Queens. All contents © 2006 Daily News, L.P.
Chinese developer to open conference center at 7 WTC, AP, Newsday, January 24, 2006
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--attacks-chinacent0124jan24,0,2203081,print.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork
NEW YORK (AP) _ A Beijing developer has agreed to rent the top five floors of Seven World Trade Center to open a business center for Chinese firms, the biggest rental so far for the rebuilt skyscraper, officials announced Tuesday.
Beijing Vantone Real Estate Co. Ltd. will rent 200,000 square feet on floors 48 through 52 of the building to create a hub for Chinese businesses moving to New York and for firms interested in investing in China, the developers said.
"We are pleased to be building a bridge between the Chinese and U.S. business and cultural communities," said Lun Feng, chairman of Beijing Vantone. "The China Center will be both a business and cultural destination, providing a platform to nurture mutually beneficial dialogue."
The preliminary lease agreement for the China Center is the third and largest at the building rebuilt by World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein after it collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001. The 52-story tower had no signed tenants until last month, and has leased a total of 60,000 square feet to Ameriprise Financial and the New York Academy of Sciences.
It is set to open for business in April, the same month that groundbreaking is scheduled on the Freedom Tower at the trade center site. The Freedom Tower has no signed tenants.
State and city officials took credit for bringing the Chinese developer to lower Manhattan, starting with a 2004 meeting in China with city Economic Development Corp. president Andrew Alper and later meetings with Gov. George Pataki and other officials who hope the center will lure other multinational firms to downtown Manhattan.
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.
US Senate Debate on Asbestos to Open Feb 6, by Susan Cornwell, Reuters, January 24, 2006
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-01-25T005318Z_01_N24238832_RTRUKOC_0_US-CONGRESS-ASBESTOS.xml&archived=False
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legislation to create a $140 billion asbestos compensation fund will come to the Senate floor for debate on February 6, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said on Tuesday.
"That's the day we will open the arguments on, opening statements on asbestos," Specter told a meeting of the Judiciary Committee he chairs.
And U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he was determined to go ahead with the bill, despite a suggestion by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid that the asbestos debate be postponed to work on reforms in the wake of the scandal surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
"To postpone debate on this (asbestos) issue is to blatantly ignore a very real problem," Frist a Tennessee Republican, wrote to Reid, a Nevada Democrat, in a letter released on Tuesday.
Asbestos fibers are linked to cancer and other lung-scarring diseases, and hundreds of thousands of injury claims have clogged courtroom dockets and helped push over 70 U.S. companies, like W.R. Grace & Co. and USG Corp., into bankruptcy proceedings.
Grace shares closed up 4.4 percent to $10.70 a share on the New York Stock Exchange. USG ended up 6 percent to $79.92.
Under the Senate bill, victims would lose their right to sue and claims would be paid instead by the $140 billion fund to be financed by asbestos defendant companies and insurers.
Specter said he expected amendments to be offered.
"People feel very deeply about many of the issues there." But he said he hoped for advance notice in order to organize the debate and "move ahead in an orderly way to consider that bill, because it is complicated and will take some time."
While the bill is intended in part to help lift the threat of litigation from companies, it has stirred controversy in the business community as elsewhere. Small to medium-size companies say they would have to pay too much to the fund while bigger companies would get a break from asbestos liabilities.
Many insurers are worried too. The American Insurance Association wrote to Senate Majority Leader Frist to complain that the legislation as written does not provide insurance companies with "certainty" and "finality" at a cost they can afford.
The bill would allow some asbestos claims to return to the courts if the fund is slow getting started, while insurers would already be paying billions to the fund, the AIA said.
The insurers' portion of the funding, $46 billion, needs to be amended downwards to credit them for the amounts they have paid out on asbestos claims since the funding level was set back in 2003, according to the letter.
Reuters 2006
US Senate Debate on Asbestos Starts Feb 6 – Specter, Reuters, January 24, 2006 http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=governmentFilingsNews&storyID=URI:urn:newsml:reuters.com:20060124:MTFH94881_2006-01-24_14-51-19_WAT004709:1 WASHINGTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - U.S. Senate floor debate on a bill to create a $140 billion fund to compensate asbestos victims will begin on Feb. 6, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said on Tuesday. "That's the day we will open the arguments on, opening statements on asbestos," Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said at a committee meeting. He is co-sponsor of the asbestos bill along with Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy.
Reuters 2006.
9/11 responders are now in need of help, by Sheryl McCarthy, NY Newsday, January 23, 2006 http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/nyc-nysher234598685jan23,0,5739673.story 'People keep saying it's all in our heads, but you know what, we're dropping dead," Bonnie Giebfried told me.A former emergency medical technician, Giebfried was healthy and athletic when her ambulance responded to the World Trade Center attacks more than four years ago. But after spending five hours at the site and being buried twice by falling debris, her life changed dramatically.
She used to play on three softball teams and a paddleball team. Now she suffers from full-blown asthma, a persistent cough, a condition that causes stomach acid to back up into her throat and has damaged her vocal cords, damage to her left side from the neck to the knee, nerve damage, and injuries to her left thumb, wrist, elbow and shoulder. She recently recovered from her third bout with pneumonia, has been hospitalized three times, and has made repeated trips to emergency rooms. So she wasn't surprised by recent news reports that 23 former Ground Zero responders have died from diseases related to their exposure to toxic chemicals there, and that thousands more are sick and suffering. While some responders are suing the government, Giebfried and others want the federal government to pay for medical treatment for the sick responders, many of whom can no longer work and have no health insurance. Mount Sinai Medical Center has done medical screenings for more than 15,000 World Trade Center responders under a federally funded program that will last until 2009. The medical center has also treated 1,600 responders through a program primarily paid for by the Red Cross. But there's a three-month waiting list and it's funded only for another year and a half. Meanwhile, doctors at Mount Sinai say they're seeing people who are chronically ill and not getting better. And because they were exposed to numerous carcinogens, many more could get sick over time and some may develop cancer. "There's a potentially looming time bomb of what we may see down the road," says Dr. Robin Herbert, director of the World Trade Center Health Effects Treatment Program at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Giebfried hasn't worked since April 2004. It took more than two years for the state's workers' compensation program, which is funded by private employers, to agree to pay some of her medical bills. After her job insurance ran out, she was without coverage for a year until the Red Cross picked up her $440 monthly premium under the COBRA program, and that coverage will end in March. Meanwhile, she has more than $40,000 in unpaid medical bills and is living off a federal disability check and a small stipend from workers' compensation. Her story is similar to the ones I heard from other responders. They talked about going from good health to having a vast array of ailments for which they take up to two dozen medications. They talked about losing the ability to work, about burying friends, and about fearing that, having been exposed to the infamous "green smoke" at Ground Zero, they will only get sicker over time. They also talked about fighting with workers' compensation officials for their benefits, and about their amazement that the federal government has done nothing to help them with their medical needs. John Feal, 39, a former demolition supervisor, worked six days removing debris at Ground Zero before his left foot was crushed by a steel beam. He's since had half his foot amputated, battled gangrene and organ shutdown, and has had more than a dozen surgeries on both feet. Every time he takes a pre-operative breathing test, he fails it. He thinks programs like the one at Mount Sinai are great, but knows the hospital can't handle the demand. "We went [to Ground Zero] without any prejudice, without thinking about our lives," Feal said. "Now while we're suffering and dying slowly - we are literally decaying - these people have just turned their backs." Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) is outraged that to date, "not one dime of federal money" has gone for the treatment of sick and injured responders. She and other members of New York's congressional delegation are pushing Congress to restore $125 million that was cut from the federal budget to help states pay workers' compensation claims related to Sept. 11 and to pay for treatment programs like Mount Sinai's. The measure passed the House and the Senate is expected to follow suit. The health problems of the responders are shaping up to be the next big national scandal. They deserve to be treated better, not simply ignored. Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc. Asbestos Legislation Denies LA Funds, Particles Could Be Cause of "Katrina Cough", by Christopher Tidmore, Political Columnist, Louisiana Weekly, January 23, 2006http://www.louisianaweekly.com/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20060124e
In the last few decades, nearly 123,158 tons of asbestos has been shipped into Orleans Parish, some only blocks from where school children play. Twenty-six tons arrived in the 200 block of Camp Street just days prior to Hurricane Katrina, an area surrounded by neighborhoods and restaurants frequented by many. Post-storm rehabilitations of homes, the related large scale demolitions, or even ubiquitous roofing jobs currently underway on Orleans Parish houses are and will expose thousands of people to asbestos in ways unprecedented in urban American history. Despite these dangers, a new bill now before Congress would prevent someone who gets cancer due to asbestos exposure post-Katrina from getting relief from the Asbestos Trust Fund. The proposed Senate Bill 852 would create the federal Asbestos Trust Fund. Its purpose ostensibly is to compensate asbestos victims by creating a trust fund financed by the corporations who were enriched by the production and sale of asbestos. Post -Katrina however, provisions have been added to the legislation that would specifically exclude any victims of asbestos-related diseases caused by exposure due to Katrina damage in Louisiana. Asbestos exposure is a real problem in post-Katrina Louisiana, according to Cheron Brylski, Director of the Louisiana Women's Health Access Project. As she explained to The Louisiana Weekly, "As home and property owners are rushing to demolish, gut and rehabilitate hurricane-damaged properties, they may be exposing themselves to asbestos." This week, at a Faubourg Marigny neighborhood meeting, the subject of asbestos exposure came up in a discussion with the federal officials, who demonstrated the proper suits, masks and gloves to use. While Brylski is hopeful that all neighborhoods are getting this message, she worries they have not, and the newly exposed would not be able to access the new federal trust fund to help pay future medical expenses. "The federal Environmental Protection Agency has posted directives on their website about how to deal with asbestos in post-Katrina New Orleans. Older homes and buildings, which are the majority of our stock, more than likely contain asbestos, which has been linked to terminal illnesses. Ironically, after 9-11, thousands of people who either worked at or lived near the site reported ailments such as 'trade center cough', just like New Orleanians are reporting the 'Katrina cough'. "What does bother me," Brylski pointed out, "is that Congress will be voting on a bill, S 852, probably by the first week of February, which will compensate asbestos victims, but exclude any victims of asbestos-related diseases caused by exposure due to Katrina damage in Louisiana." In Louisiana, it is known that 123,158 tons asbestos-laden ore were sent to three locations in New Orleans between 1948 and 1993. (See attached graphics for proximity to neighborhoods, churches, schools, and businesses.) These plants typically "popped" or exfoliated the ore to produce vermiculite attic insulation and other products. This process produced a massive amount of asbestos-contaminated dust, very high workplace exposures, and significant airborne asbestos in the surrounding neighborhoods. The federal government (is currently conducting contamination assessments at the 28 largest factories that processed the ore, including the Zonolite Company site in New Orleans. The Bill Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) sponsored the original Asbestos Trust Fund bill in early 2003 when it made its first appearance in the Senate as S.1125, the FAIR Act (Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution). S.1125 died a well-deserved death at the end of the 108th Congress only to be resurrected as S.852 in the 109th Congress. S.852, sponsored by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee last May. Since, the bill has encountered many problems and has not yet reached the Senate floor. Senator Frist, however, has said that S.852 will be one of the first items the Senate will address when it returns in January following the Alito nomination. Democrats are likely to filibuster the motion to proceed to the bill, which means the GOP will need to muster 60 votes to get this bill to the floor. For Republican members, like David Vitter, this is a tough ask as they will have to vote against their leadership to get the bill to the floor. In essence, companies with asbestos liability would be shielded from further asbestos lawsuits by paying into a government administered $140 billion trust fund that would screen claimants through established medical criteria. Victims would be awarded compensation based on the severity of their illness. The Bill would not cover victims of environmental and neighborhood exposure will be left out entirely, the predominant form in post-Katrina New Orleans. Criticism of the legislation comes from many angles. On the medical side, physicians groups including the AMA and the American Thoracic Society argue that the medical criteria in the bill are overly strict. With the exception of the United Auto Workers, Labor Unions have taken a nearly united stand against the legislation. Like Victims Groups, they contend that the bill is under funded. (Labor spokesmen also present a unique defense of cigarette users. Most smokers are excluded from the bill regardless of their diagnosis. For instance a smoker with mesothelioma might not be compensated even though asbestos is the only known cause of mesothelioma). It is on budgetary grounds that the bill's opponents have gained some unlikely allies-Conservative Deficit Hawks and small business groups. With deficits mounting from the Iraq war, the hurricanes, and large yearly increases in general appropriations, several GOP Senators have begun to pay greater attention to present and future deficit spending. When the Judiciary Committee passed S. 852 last May, a number of leading conservative Republicans (namely Senators Kyl, Cornyn, DeWine, Coburn, Grassley, Sessions, & Brownback) included language in the committee's report that they hoped the bill's budget issues would be resolved before it reached the floor for consideration. Their concerns came from a Congressional Budget Office study that found that if events progress as the sponsors claim, the legislation's funding could be insufficient. Even though it used very conservative assumptions and relied on data provided by supporters of the bill, CBO found that S. 852 would increase the federal deficit by $6.5 billion just in the first ten years. That's without counting debt service costs, which witnesses have testified could be in the tens of billions of dollars. Taxpayers would have to take up the tab. A study commissioned by The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an association of conservative state lawmakers, further found that the bill's fiscal provisions would create entitlements valued at $300 billion leaving a $160 billion shortfall above the $140 billion statutory funding level. As a result of this shortfall, the Trust fund would sunset within three years of inception with a debt of more than $45 billion. Under less conservative scenarios, the total price tag could reach $600 billion. Adding to the conservative critics, the Government Accountability Office (formerly known as the General Accounting Office) pointed out in a recent report on Trust Fund legislation ( http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06230.pdf ) that these types of funds often do not work, and usually colossally underestimate the number of claimants. For instance, the Black Lung program---instituted in the late 60s on behalf of coal miners, was originally supposed to cost $3 billion has now surpassed $41 billion in payments and costs about $55 million per year to operate. Moreover, opponents of S. 852 have been bolstered by the fact that the business community is not speaking with one voice on this issue. The strongest proponents of this legislation are large corporations like Halliburton, Honeywell, & W.R. Grace who have billions of dollars in asbestos liabilities---not small and mid-sized businesses. Several small business advocates have argued that medium sized companies who smaller asbestos liabilities are concerned that they are going to be forced to pay disproportionately into the fund. Many are calling it a "tax" that could bankrupt them. They maintain that the legislation lacks transparency. Even the bill's supporters cannot say for sure who will pay into the trust fund and how much. Advocates have repeatedly stated that the number of participating companies will be between 8,000 and 10,000. However, the CBO could document only 1,700 companies. This further calls into question the funding of the bill. Opponents further add that most of these companies managed their liabilities wisely and bought insurance to protect them from asbestos liability. S.852 would make them pay anyway and then make asbestos insurance unavailable. Additional Concerns...The "Libby" Problem Along with the budget issues outlined above, the "Libby problem" is another potent issue with the potential to derail the entire bill. A number of Senators, particularly Republicans Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn & Democrat Diane Feinstein, have expressed concern about provisions in the bill related to residents of Libby, MT. In the town, W.R. Grace operated one of the largest vermiculite (contains asbestos) mines in the world. Today, because of ambient asbestos exposure, nearly half the town now has some type of asbestos related disease and hundreds of former residents have died from asbestos related diseases. ABC's "Nightline" devoted two of its final shows with Ted Koppel to covering the Libby story. From 1948 to 1993, more than 5.8 million tons of asbestos-contaminated ore from Libby, MT, was shipped to 236 different addresses in 39 states. The federal government has launched a special health investigation into the site and surrounding communities of the 28 largest facilities. The government acknowledges that the nearby residents are at greater risk for asbestos-related diseases. S852 sets out stringent medical criteria that victims must meet in order to be compensated. In the case of Libby residents however, the only criteria to be met is that the victim lived in Libby, MT in order to receive $400,000 from the trust fund. No opponent of the bill has suggested that Libby residents deserve any less. However, many Senators have expressed concern that Libby residents are receiving special treatment when there are places in their states that received enormous amount of vermiculite/asbestos and victims of either workplace or environmental exposure near these places will likely be excluded from compensation. Particularly, those exposed in New Orleans.Copyright 2005, Louisiana Weekly Publishing Company
Liberty Street Update # 39, Emily Brown, Community Development Programs & Relations Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, January 23, 2006 Work Progress Work at 130 Liberty St. site is progressing well. As of Friday, January 20th, scaffolding had reached the 38th floor and is expected to be complete this week, weather permitting. The netting has been completely removed and the south hoist is complete. Work on the north hoist is to begin this week. A 16-foot high sidewalk bridge has been completed along Greenwich Street (between Albany Street and Liberty Street) as well as "catch-alls" with wire mesh to provide added protection to vehicles and pedestrians on Greenwich Street. Site Safety Site safety continues to be the first priority for LMDC and all of the contractors working on the project. There will be a worker evacuation drill on Thursday January 26, 2006. CERT Training Spaces are still available for the Community Emergency Response Team training beginning tonight, January 23rd. To sign up, contact Sid Baumgarten at sidbaumgarten@aol.com or go to the High School for Leadership, 90 Trinity Place, at 7 PM. Community Forums LMDC will be providing an update on the project at the World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee of Community Board 1 meeting on February 6, 2006. Check with the Community Board for the location and time.
Ground Zero Workers from Triad Healthy, by Jim Schlosser, Greensboro, NC NewsRecord.com, January 21, 2006 http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060121/NEWSREC0101/601210307/1001/NEWSREC0201 GREENSBORO -- David Griffin Jr. and his crew have been breathing easy for more than four years, but Wednesday's newspaper headline made them skip a breath or two. "Workers at ground zero might be dying of toxicities," it read and included a reference to what's been dubbed "the trade center cough" that many who worked or lived near the World Trade Center in New York City still experience. Griffin, a leader in his family's D.H. Griffin Wrecking Co. of Greensboro, probably spent more time than anyone at the site where on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists crashed two jet airliners into the centers, which toppled. On that day, 2,801 people were killed, 2,261 injured. Now, the belated effects of the attack may be appearing. "You worry about it but it ain't nothing that consumes you," Griffin said of health dangers that might loom. "You trust in the Lord and get up and go to work and hope everything works out." He said he and other Griffin employees go to the doctor annually for respiratory monitoring. None has shown any signs of illness, Griffin said. Susan Smith, a Red Cross worker from Greensboro who spent a month at the site, said her initial reaction to Wednesday's story was "scary," especially the part about a worker coughing up gravel. She could relate to what's been dubbed "trade center cough." She had it awhile after returning home. She says at the Red Cross's urging she went through a battery of respiratory tests at Duke University Medical Center about a year later. She checked out fine. A few years later she was offered a chance later to repeat the tests, but declined. "I'm really not worried," she said. "I don't live my life that way." But the article made her think of the many people she met at the site. She wonders what has become of them. One worker sticks out in her mind. He came into the Red Cross facility "covered from head to toe in dirt and dust." He rested, then returned to the site. Has he suffered any from the experience? She observed that some workers wore respirators, others didn't. Everyone, including herself, was thinking of the moment, not the future. Smith's and the Griffin crew's good health appears to buck a trend. Wednesday's story cited three men who worked at the site and who all had died within the past seven months. They had complications that reportedly included bronchitis, emphysema and possibly cystic fibrosis, black lung disease and mercury poisoning. Two of the three had never smoked. Their families and colleagues blame dust and particles ingested at the ruins. The story said thousands of others who worked or lived near the site have reported respiratory problems. The story cited doctors who said it would take decades of monitoring to determine what permanent effect, if any, exposure to ground zero had on the 71,000 who worked there after the attack. Griffin said his crew began medical screening about 18 months ago at the request of New York City health officials. D.H. Griffin supervised 2,000 people in New York, but most weren't on the company payroll. Griffin declined to say how many of the company's workers were in New York. A story in the News & Record in May 2002, when David Griffin was still in New York, put the figure at about two dozen. The younger Griffin, whose father, D.H. Griffin Sr., founded the company, said the trade center assignment was the most dangerous in the company's 45-year history. The history includes demolition and implosion of more than 12,000 buildings. A recent job was the implosion of the 452,000-square-foot former Burlington Industries headquarters on West Friendly Avenue. After the two hijacked airliners struck the World Trade Center, the remains of the towers burned for 100 days, Griffin said. The ashes and dust contained human remains and asbestos. "We tried to be very adamant about wearing respirators," Griffin says. But he conceded that he and others often worked without masks. They made communications impossible. Words sounded garbled. He said good communications trumped constant wearing of a respirator. "You could get killed if you didn't communicate," he said, referring to the huge beams being cut up around him. He said despite the shock of Wednesday's story, he believes various factors unrelated to ground zero might figure into the chances of becoming ill. A person who inhaled some asbestos dust and other toxic particles and who also smoked two packs of cigarettes daily might be more prone to sickness than a nonsmoker. Firefighters face similar environmental dangers, he said, when they confront out-of-control fires. But they are only exposed for a few hours at a time and not every day. He said, during one stretch, his crew worked 16 hours a day for five months. "You get more exposure in that time than a firefighter might get in a 35-year career," he said. But he knew the risks in New York and elsewhere he works. He said the only occupation more perilous than demolition work is the opposite: erecting steel beams that wreckers remove decades later. "In New York," he said, "you were doing what you had to do. Everything in life has certain levels of danger. We're in a dangerous business." And the work goes on. His company is now taking down the 6-million-square-foot former Cannon Mills plant in Kannapolis. Contact Jim Schlosser at 373-7081 or jschlosser@news-record.com
'Significant Gaps' Reported in Disaster Responses, by Mimi Hall, USA TODAY, January 18, 2006 http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060118074309990047&cid=1976 Emergency medical teams that rush in to save lives after a natural disaster or terrorist attack don't have necessary supplies, training or staff and should be overhauled, according to members of Congress, former Bush administration officials and team leaders. The National Disaster Medical System, comprised of 55 medical and first responder teams, is designed to help in major catastrophes. Experts say the system "fell apart" when it became part of the Homeland Security Department. The National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), which includes 55 teams of doctors, nurses, emergency medical technicians and pharmacists who are sent in when hospitals are deluged, ran into major problems after Hurricane Katrina. Ten teams that handled thousands of evacuees needing immediate medical help at New Orleans International Airport experienced communications trouble and a shortage of basic life-saving equipment and medicine. Amid the continuing danger of terrorism and the specter of a flu pandemic, team members and health experts said it's essential that the government maintain a robust emergency medical response system. The teams often provide the only medical care during the first hours after a catastrophe. "The NDMS does not meet the expectations of our citizens," said Jeffrey Lowell, who served as senior medical adviser to former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge. "We need and expect much more." The system was created in 1984 and was run by the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) until 2003, when Congress moved it into the new Homeland Security Department. There, it was put under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Former HHS secretary Tommy Thompson said the system, which also includes mortuary and veterinary teams, "fell apart" after going to Homeland Security. A report written by Lowell a year ago found that the NDMS was in rough shape. Lowell warned of "significant gaps" in the system and said the medical teams, each of which operates with at least 35 members, were unprepared to handle major emergencies. He said teams lacked the supplies, training, logistics support, equipment and staff to operate effectively. In New Orleans, 23 of the city's 26 hospitals were knocked out. The 10 teams working round-the-clock at the airport ran out of basic supplies, such as heart medication. They also didn't have enough ventilators and other equipment. An Oregon-based team's "after-action report" on the situation complained that the "FEMA/NDMS operations at the airport were extremely disorganized" and poorly managed. Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the system is under review by department leaders looking at how to "retool" FEMA so that it responds better to future disasters. Knocke said the results of that review are expected as early as next month. Although Lowell had reported to Ridge that the system was suffering "under FEMA's inflexible and inappropriate management for medical response circumstances," Knocke said that the system has improved under FEMA and that "the American public can be very proud of NDMS." One improvement, he said, is that teams now have the authority to "pre-position" to potential disaster areas before a storm hits. Emergency Medical Technician Bill Engler, whose Seattle-based team flew into the region ahead of Katrina, said pre-positioning made little difference. Because the team's "cache" of medical supplies wasn't flown in with them and had to be trucked in from Washington state, team members had to share medicine and equipment with other teams. As a result, supplies ran out fast, he said. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who last month released a scathing report on NDMS, said it needs "new leadership and a major overhaul." Many team members agree. "It's a program that on paper looks very good," said Jake Jacoby, who heads a San Diego-based team that has responded to a dozen disasters, including the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina. "But we are getting abused by being sent into disaster-relief scenes without proper supplies." Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. All Rights Reserved. First Responders Suffering Health Effects from 9/11, AMERICAN MORNING, CNN, Aired January 18, 2006 - 09:30 ET http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0601/18/ltm.08.html THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_140/worktodemolish.html
City University of New York has taken steps to demolish a contaminated building damaged in the World Trade Center disaster and will present its plans to the Environmental Protection Agency as early as this week. Fiterman Hall, a 15-story Borough of Manhattan Community College building, has stood shrouded in black, with large gaping holes torn into its southern façade, since 9/11. Until last year, the school, a CUNY institution, had been unable to secure enough money to demolish the structure and build anew. The community has long expressed outrage that such a contaminated eye sore has remained in their midst with no end in sight. In May, the university cobbled together the last of $185 million it needed for the project and announced its intentions to move forward with the cleanup. Since then, the university has been working with environmental experts to hash out a cleanup and demolition plan that will meet regulatory standards. University officials will present their plan to E.P.A. this monthpossibly as early as this week, a CUNY environmental consultant saidand begin cleaning the building in May. CUNY expects to finish cleaning the building by September and demolish it by February 2007, making way for a new $125 million Pei Cobb Freed & Partners-designed structure. "Isn’t that nice? After all this time we’re getting ready to send the plans to the E.P.A.," said Claudia Hutton, a spokesperson for the New York State Dormitory Authority, the agency overseeing the demolition and rebuilding of Fiterman Hall. Fiterman Hall stands on the corner of West Broadway and Barclay St., gashed and shrouded behind the new 7 World Trade Center. Its façade was damaged when the original 7 W.T.C. collapsed, blasting Trade Center debris into the building’s interior. The building is likely contaminated with a similar cocktail of toxins that plague other Trade Center-damaged buildings: lead, mold, asbestos and dioxin. Because the building was in the final stages of a $50 million renovation project at the time of the attack, it was cleared of its own asbestos before the disaster. For four and a half years, little has happened at the building. In the initial weeks after the attack, the gaping holes were filled in from the inside, protecting the outside environment from seeping toxins, and black netting was erected. Since then, it has become one of a handful of 9/11-damaged buildings that remain standing Downtown, a glaring reminder to residents and workers of the slow pace of the redevelopment. In 2004, CUNY settled a lawsuit with its insurers for about $90 million, but it took the university until May 2005 to secure the remaining funds necessary from the state, city and Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. "Fiterman Hall has been the bane of my existence," said developer Larry Silverstein, sitting on the 25th floor of 7 World Trade Center last week. The Trade Center developer has designed and rebuilt a 52-story tower overlooking Fiterman and the Trade Center site that will open before the first wall of Fiterman is wiped clean. Silverstein has been slow to lease 7 W.T.C., renting only one and a half floors of the 1.7 million sq. ft. building since leasing began. "The government has not dealt with Fiterman Hall," Silverstein said, gesticulating, his soft-spoken voice rising in timbre. "In the time it took to build this building they have not been able to get that building down. Something’s wrong. There isn’t anybody who I bring to this building who doesn’t look across the street and say ‘What’s that?’ That’s really governmental failure." The cleanup of Fiterman will begin around the same time Silverstein dedicates a new park opening next to 7 W.T.C. "That’s pretty sad," he said of the delay. For nearby residents, Fiterman’s stalled demolition is a reminder of a redevelopment process that has been marred by delays and setbacks. "You’re constantly reminded of 9/11 by looking at this awful building," said Catherine McVay Hughes, chairperson of Community Board 1’s World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee and a Financial District resident. "It’s unfortunate that Fiterman was not able to address the demolition of this building until a design for a new building was determined…. It’s too bad it’s taken this long." Hutton insists CUNY did what it could to move the process along it could not begin work on a building until all the money was secured. "It’s a great disappointment to everyone how long this has taken, but we had to do the right thing and get an insurance settlement," she said, adding. "We’ve never had a building that got hit by piece of a falling jet." Submitting plans to E.P.A. is no guarantee that a demolition process will happen anytime soon. The agency has to approve the plans, which could take many rounds of reviews. "We expect that the approval process will take a few reviews, it generally does," Benn Lewis, a vice president for Airtek Environmental, an environmental consultant for Fiterman, told Downtown Express. Similar buildings have endured a painstaking E.P.A. approval process as they attempted to secure approval. E.P.A. rejected a demolition plan for 130 Liberty St., a contaminated building on the opposite side of the Trade Center site, last February. L.M.D.C., which owns the building, didn’t receive a go ahead from the agency until September. When the corporation purchased the building in August 2004, it had intended to begin demolition within the year. And developer Haysha Deitsch, owner of 133-135 Greenwich St., two buildings near the site, had his demolition permits revoked last spring after the city Department of Environmental Protection deemed his cleanup plan inadequate. Deitsch received E.P.A. approval in November. CUNY will select a contractor in March. Whoever is chosen must also submit a plan to E.P.A. for approval. The cleanup will begin after that plan is approved. Fiterman will likely come down in a similar fashion to 4 Albany St., a privately owned building that was cleaned and demolished early last year. Scaffolding will be erected around the building, and then it will be cleaned from top to bottom. Once it is fully cleaned, Fiterman will be dismantled floor by floor, making way for a new building. "We’re going to clean it, and once it’s cleaned and tested and cleared, then we’ll take it down," said Lewis. Ronda@downtownexpress.com Downtown Express is published by Community Media LLCWithin 7 Months, 3 Sept. 11 Workers Die, by Amy Westfeldt, Associated Press January 17, 2006 James Zadroga spent 16 hours a day toiling in the World Trade Center ruins for a month, breathing in debris-choked air. Timothy Keller said he coughed up bits of gravel from his lungs after the towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001. Felix Hernandez spent days at the site helping to search for victims. All three men died in the past seven months of what their families and colleagues say were persistent respiratory illnesses directly caused by their work at ground zero. While thousands of people who either worked at or lived near the site have reported ailments such as ``trade center cough'' since the terrorist attacks, some say that only now are the consequences of working at the site becoming heartbreakingly clear. ``I'm very fearful,'' said Donald Faeth, an emergency medical technician and officer in a union with two of the ground zero workers who died last year. ``I think that there are several people who died that day and didn't realize that they died that day.'' Some officials say it is too early to draw that conclusion. Doctors running different health screening programs say it will take decades to get a clear picture of the long-term health effects of working at ground zero. The city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which is tracking the health of 71,000 people exposed to Sept. 11 dust and debris, said last week that it is too soon to say whether any deaths or illnesses among its enrolled members are linked to trade center exposure. But Robin Herbert, who directs a medical-monitoring program at Mount Sinai Medical Center for more than 14,000 ground zero workers, said ``certainly it is not inconceivable'' that a person could die of respiratory disease related to Sept. 11. Karin DeShore said she does not need scientists to tell her what caused the death of her friend Keller, 41. DeShore was a Fire Department captain who took Keller to the trade center on Sept. 11, and barely escaped the south tower's collapse. ``He came back coughing'' two days later, she said. Faeth said that Keller told him that he coughed up debris so violently he could barely breathe on Sept. 11, and later developed emphysema. Keller went home to Levittown on medical leave in March. He died on June 23 of heart disease complicated by bronchitis and emphysema, the Nassau County medical examiner's office said. Felix Hernandez, 31, worked on rescue and recovery work at ground zero following the attacks, said his former supervisor, Lt. Regina Pellegrino. In 2002, ``it started with a cold he couldn't shake ... and it kept getting worse and worse and worse,'' she said. Hernandez was diagnosed with various respiratory diseases and was told by doctors at one point that he may have cystic fibrosis, Pellegrino said. He left the job in 2004 when he became too weak to climb stairs, and died Oct. 23 of respiratory ailments in Florida, said colleagues who spoke with his family. Both Keller and Hernandez, each with a decade on the job, were nonsmokers and had no previous health problems before Sept. 11, Faeth said. Zadroga, a 34-year-old New York detective, logged 470 hours at the site in 2001, including Sept. 11, and died Jan. 5. Family members and co-workers said he had contracted black lung disease and had high levels of mercury in his brain. Autopsy results have not been released. David Worby, an attorney representing more than 5,000 plaintiffs suing those who supervised the cleanup over their illnesses, said 21 of his clients have died of Sept. 11-related diseases since mid-2004. He said he was not authorized to release their names, but represented people who toiled at ground zero, at the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island where trade center debris was moved, and at the city morgue. "This is just the tip of the iceberg,'' Worby said. "Many, many more people are going to die from the aftermath of the toxicity.'' Rep. Jerrold Nadler, whose congressional district includes the trade center site, blames some of the illnesses on the failure to provide some workers with proper masks or respiratory protection. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found in 2004 that one in five workers wore respirators while they worked at the site to block out dust laced with asbestos, glass fibers, pulverized cement and other substances. "All the people exposed should be monitored for life so that we know what happened,'' Nadler said.
Toll from 9/11 climbs, albeit too quietly, by Rosie DiManno, Toronto Star, January 13, 2006
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It was long ago that the funerals ended for the victims of 9/11. But in a New Jersey church this past week, a police officer was laid to rest who may have been the 2,753nd casualty of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. His family believes it. His employer the NYPD believed it, at least insofar as providing a disability pension for pulmonary disease "related to 9/11." And certainly James Zadroga, aged 34 when he died last Thursday in his parents' Little Egg Harbor home, believed it. "No one cares at the job," Zadroga, a decorated cop, had written in a letter one year after the 9/11 atrocity. "They tell me I'm fine, go back to work. But, truthfully, I haven't felt this bad in my life. ... And what thanks do I get now that I'm sick?" There's an old joke about the inscription on a tombstone: "I told you I was sick." Zadroga told them and told them and told them. Finally, with supporting letters from doctors, there was agreement and retirement in 2004, his tax-free pension benefits equivalent to about three-quarters of the salary he'd been earning as a detective with the elite Manhattan homicide unit. Still, this young, widowed father of a 4-year-old, left behind some $50,000 in medical bills. "Nobody's stepped forward to take responsibility for what happened to my son," Joseph Zadroga, himself a retired chief with the North Arlington, N.J., police force told the Star in an interview yesterday. "I hope somebody will do that because we have such a sense of betrayal. He felt a sense of betrayal. I can't begin to tell you how that feels. Is this how we treat heroes?" Zadroga, among the first responders, was in Building 7 of the WTC complex when it collapsed Sept. 11, 2001, after Al Qaeda operatives flew two planes into the 110-storey Twin Towers. He narrowly escaped death. In the first month after that attack on America, Zadroga spent 470 hours at Ground Zero, aiding in rescue and recovery. The officer was among those assigned to picking over the ruins, but also volunteered so many extra hours that he was often at the site from morning till night. "He wanted to help as much as he could," his father recalls. That exposure to toxic contaminants, Zadroga's family asserts, directly caused the black lung disease and mercury on the brain allegedly responsible for the premature death of a man who never smoked and who was hardly sick a day before 9/11. Autopsy results are still pending. Zadroga was far from alone, of course, at Ground Zero. Thousands of others, from across the city and across the country, had arrived at the smouldering crevice in Lower Manhattan to do the same, in what was a long, long clean-up and debris-trucking process. How many of them are ailing now? How many of them might die because of illnesses attributable to the contaminants they inhaled, or the particles absorbed into their skin, at a time when many frantic responders weren't even wearing proper protective gear or respiratory apparatus? "I've talked to the father of one firefighter who died like my son," Zadroga says. "And they treated him like they treated my son like hell." `Nobody's stepped forward to take responsibility for what happened to my son.'Joseph Zadroga, father of James Zadroga Only New York Senator Hillary Clinton has called to offer condolences, Zadroga says. The health status of disaster responders and residents of Lower Manhattan is being tracked by several agencies, and they have drawn various levels of public confidence. "We are concerned about the emergence of more long-term diseases such as cancer," says Dr. Robin Herbert, director of Mount Sinai hospital's World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program (clinical division), in New York City. "It's too early to say yet. We might not start seeing these illnesses for another 10 to 20 years." While she can't speak specifically to the Zadroga case, with which she had no direct involvement, Herbert told the Star: "It is certainly conceivable that people could develop respiratory problems severe enough to cause death." None has yet been formally recorded. But, after examining thousands of workers over the past four years (beginning in July 2002), Herbert says the program's medical staff are "very surprised" about the severity and persistence of respiratory illnesses in particular. "There's no question that emergency responders were in contact with quite toxic exposures a toxic soup of combustion particles and dust." One survey, of 1,138 responders, from the period of July to December 2002, showed 60 per cent reported lower airway breathing problems and 74 per cent reported upper airway breathing problems. Federal employees were told not to participate in the Mount Sinai program, that a separate monitoring agency would be established for them. But such an agency appeared and disappeared with fewer than 600 people seen, according to one of the 9/11 civilian watchdog groups. In the 10 days immediately after 9/11, the Environmental Protection Agency put out five press releases reassuring the public that air and soil samples indicated no heightened levels of cancer-causing agents in the air or soil anywhere beyond the immediate Ground Zero area. Some EPA officials have since admitted those assurances were unfounded and may have been influenced by political pressure. Certainly the Sierra Club has alleged a cover-up of what was clearly an acute environmental disaster, even though the environment was hardly foremost in people's minds at the time, as relatives searched for loved ones and the White House planned a military response. What became quickly known as the "WTC cough" was prevalent among emergency responders. A later study undertaken by a private environmental firm at the behest of a company contracted to perform some of the cleanup found more alarming developments, with positive tests for significant asbestos levels. That firm suggested the sheer force of the tower explosions shattered asbestos into fibres so small they evaded the EPA's ordinary testing methods. Ground Zero inhalation tests of ambient air showed WTC dust consisted predominantly (95 per cent) of coarse particles and pulverized cement, with glass fibres, asbestos, lead, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polychlorinated furans and dioxins. James Zadroga must have inhaled a ton of it. On the morning his son died, Joseph Zadroga broke the news to his 4-year-old granddaughter, a child who'd lost her mother to cancer a year earlier, a child who would often lie on the floor alongside her ailing dad's bed. "At first she said, `No, no, Daddy's just sleeping.' But about an hour later, she said, `He's gone to be with Mommy.'" Descending the stairs afterwards, Tylerann Zadroga also said this, according to her grandfather: "I knew my daddy was gonna die. I didn't know it would happen so fast." Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved.
‘World Trade Center Cough' a growing concern, An Eyewitness News exclusive, The Eyewitness News Investigators' Jim Hoffer, New York- WABC, January 11, 2006
There is more evidence that the number of people sick with 9/11 related illnesses is growing dramatically. So much so - there's a name for it -- "the World Trade Center cough". And there is a waiting list for victims seeking medical help.
It's similar to what may have killed NYPD Officer James Zadroga who spent hundreds of hours at ground zero. His funeral was yesterday. The Investigators’ Jim Hoffer has the story. It is a warning sign of what's to come: more and more people seeking help for deteriorating lung problems and chronic coughs linked to their work at ground zero. The numbers appear to be growing and the long term diagnosis is not good. Dr. Robin Herbert: "There is a certain core group of people who have become very ill as result of their World Trade Center exposure and aren't getting any better." That core group, according to the co-director of Mt. Sinai's World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program, is estimated to be in the hundreds and growing. Dr. Herbert, Mt. Sinai Hospital: "We have a three to four month waiting period for new patients to come into our treatment program because the demand is so tremendous." John Graham: "My lungs are burnt from the concrete dust." John Graham is not getting any better. John: "I have a severe breathing problem ... the tests are clear I had no breathing problem before 9/11." As a carpenter, he helped in the clean-up at ground zero for months breathing in the toxic mix of fumes he says destroyed his lungs and made it impossible for him to work. His fear now is a battery of powerful drugs will eventually fail to keep him alive. John: "Every breath I take hurts that much more it's exhausting." Marie Pellegrino: "His health went downhill starting with that cough, and that cough started at ground zero." Chris Pellegrino worked for months as a cable installer at ground zero, months of breathing in poisonous smoke and dust. He developed "the World Trade Center cough," his lungs disintegrated, he lost his job. When he died at age 42, he looked nearly as old as his mother. Marie Pellegrino, mother: "If I could change places with him I would have." The NYPD said goodbye to one of its detectives yesterday. His friends and family believe "the World Trade Center cough" killed him at age 34. And last summer, an Eyewitness News investigation broke the story on the death of a 41-year-old FDNY medic from the killer cough. Mt. Sinai is currently treating 1,600 people with similar symptoms, and hundreds more are on a awaiting list. With that list growing, the government has yet to spend a dime on medical treatment. Dr. Herbert: "To date at this point there's been no public funding available to provide treatment for WTC responders with illness and it's really a sad and terrible situation." There is some hope that Congress will set aside some funds for the treatment of those with World Trade Center illness, but more than four years after 9/11, they're still trying to work it out. Copyright ©2006 ABC Inc., WABC-TV New York.What If They Poisoned our Neighborhood and Nobody Told Us? Politicians and Scientists Say the Environmental Protection Agency Is Reneging on its Post-9/11 Promises, by Yori Yanover, Grand Street News, January 2006 http://grandstreetnews.com/scripts/grand/paper/Article.asp?ArticleID=383 A friend of mine was at work on Church Street the morning of 9/11. He was in the much-photographed crowd running uptown, away from the bellowing clouds of crushed masonry and burnt interiors. He later described those clouds as a mythical, yellowish beast, roaring up the Manhattan canyon after its victims. Those of us who lived here at the time will never forget the permanent pillar of greasy soot that emanated from the urban valley of the shadow of death. It permeated everything, physical as well as psychic. Nearly four and a half years later, after what we thought had been a massive cleaning and rebuilding effort, it turns out that the roaring beast may never have left. About a dozen journalists and a similar number of scientists and political activists braved a Friday morning snow storm last month, to gather in Congressman Jerry Nadlers downtown office (on Houston and Varick), where New Yorks Junior Senator, Hillary Clinton, alongside Nadler, blasted the Environmental Protection Agency for reneging on its commitment to clean up Lower Manhattan. "The plan announced by EPA was extremely disappointing," Senator Hillary told us. "It ignores many of the concerns of residents and workers who experienced the fallout from the collapse of the World Trade Center first hand, as well as the advice of the independent experts who served on the panel." According to Dr. Marc Wilkenfeld, who lives in East River Houses, and is a board certified occupational/environmental physician, an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University Medical Center, and has been serving on a 21-member advisory panel to the EPA, it all began when the feds went a bit mad-hatter. "The EPA has hinged their cleanup efforts on developing a chemical signature which would determine whether asbestos, mercury, or any other contaminant discovered in the tested area came from the WTC collapse," Wilkenfeld explains. In essence, the agency was saying, "We only want to spend the Federal Emergency Management Agency funds set aside for the 9/11 cleanup on 9/11 contaminants. If we find something that preceded 9/11, we wont touch it." The EPA went ahead and spent a lot of money identifying a signature: The manmade mineral fiber slagwool, which was, they claim, present in the Trade Towers and not elsewhere in downtown Manhattan. "They decided, if we find slagwool near deposits of asbestos and other contaminants, we have to clean it up, because its there as a result of 9/11," says Wilkenfeld. The problem was that the data on the slagwool signature was rejected by the EPAs own peer review panel of six scientists. The EPAs hired panel, much like the volunteer panel on which Wilkenfeld was serving, at the behest of City Councilmember Alan Gerson, were also aghast at other problems in the agency's plan of action. "Their boundaries are very tight," explains Wilkenfeld. "Theyre excluding the Lower East Side, Chinatown, and Brooklyn. There will be no testing north of Canal Street." Congressman Nadler joked that the EPA might be imagining a 30,000-foot high wall north of Canal Street, blocking the advance of poison particles beyond Zone One. And they're not testing work places, only residential buildings, maintains Wilkenfeld, "although, interestingly enough, the EPA did test their own office building." The testing, restricted to residences, is voluntary. "Now, what's the incentive for a landlord other than a co-op, which is tenant-owned to test his building and discover that its contaminated?" Wilkenfeld is asking. This and other aspects of the EPAs decision making process may be tested in court soon. According to Congressman Nadler, there are a few lawsuits already pending. Back in March, 2004, a group of 12 Manhattan residents and workers filed a class action suit against the EPA for its alleged failure to ensure that environmental hazards resulting from the collapse of the WTC had been properly removed before it allowed residents back into the area. Senator Clinton and Congressman Nadler described the EPA actions in that instance as blatant deception. Our own Dr. Marc Wilkenfeld is a bit more reserved when he suggests the EPAs information at the time was not consistent with the truth. Is the same EPA, which placed in jeopardy the health of thousands of New Yorkers back in 2001, about to condemn the rest of us to long-term health risks? It depends, according to Wilkenfeld, on where you live. A satellite image of the smoke plume which emanated from ground zero after the bombing, clearly shows it drifting westward, away from Chinatown, the Lower East Side and Brooklyn'’s West Side. But does this mean that less visible poisonous particles didnt' get past Canal Street? "We suggested that the dividing line of Canal Street was a little bit silly," says Wilkenfeld. "Ideally we should have done concentric circle testing, to determine the radius of the contamination. But they don’t want to do that."
© Yanover Consulting Inc.
Link Deaths of 3 Firemen, Cop To WTC Site; Health Officials Urge Screening, Offer Free Treatment, by Ginger Adams Otis, The Chief-Leader, January 20, 2006 http://www.thechief-leader.com/news/2006/0120/News/004.html The Uniformed Firefighters' Association announced Jan. 13 that two of its members and a Battalion Chief have died in recent months due to lung illnesses the union believes are linked to toxic exposures from Sept. 11 and its aftermath.
The UFA's declaration came a week after the Detectives' Endowment Association said the death of retired Detective James Zadroga, 34, was tied to the 450 hours he spent at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Sudden Illnesses UFA Vice President James Slevin said the recent deaths of Firefighter Walter Voight, 55, Firefighter Stephen Johnson, 48, and Battalion Chief Joe Costello were unexpected and quick. All three men were involved in either the initial response or rescue and clean-up efforts at Ground Zero. Firefighter Voight and Firefighter Johnson were among the many Fire Department members who retired a few years after 9/11. Both left the FDNY in good health, on normal service pensions. "That's part of what makes their deaths such a cause for grave concern," Mr. Slevin said. "They retired in late 2003, early 2004, and then sickened and died within the span of a year. From what we've been told, their diseases progressed very rapidly." Mr. Slevin said doctors had advised the union that a rash of lung illnesses - Reactive Airway Distress Syndrome (RADS), asthma and others- would turn up among some members almost immediately, but cancer-related diseases would not start appearing for four to five years. 'Worried We'll See More' "The union has been actively involved with the pension board and initially we did not see deaths, only disability cases," Mr. Slevin confirmed. "Now we are concerned that the doctors' timeline is right and that we will see a spike in cancer related deaths." Battalion Chief Costello also died of lung-related disease. He left active service in 2005 on a disability pension and died this month, according to the union. he FDNY has not confirmed any deaths among its members due to 9/11 exposures, but the UFA said it's unlikely the men had pre-existing conditions that weren't picked up by the comprehensive medical exam to get on the job, or the yearly qualifying physicals firefighters must pass to stay on the job. Autopsy results are still pending on Mr. Zadroga, but union leaders now consider him the sixth possible fatality among city workers who were at Ground Zero. Two EMTs Died Two Emergency Medical Technicians, both non-smokers, died last year from respiratory-related diseases. EMT Timothy Keller, 41 and EMT Felix Hernandez, 31, responded to the World Trade Center on 9/11. Mr. Keller's autopsy listed the cause of death as a heart attack linked to respiratory distress. The details of Mr. Hernandez's death haven't been released by the family, but he was on medical leave from the Fire Department for a lung-related illness. The city has not acknowledged the possibility that these first responders might have died as a result of their work at Ground Zero. Last week Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, speaking to the press after a graduation ceremony which saw 1,121 new recruits inducted into the NYPD, admitted that "it is an issue that we probably have to come to grips with." Mr. Kelly declined to talk about what role the city should take in helping the families of first-responders who may have died as a result of 9-11 related diseases. "It's a big issue, and I don't think I'm prepared to make a statement now. It affects not only the Police Department, but other agencies as well. I think the determination of the cause of death is critical here," the Commissioner said. Meanwhile, private-and-public sector health officials are urging all workers who responded in any way to the Ground Zero site, either on 9/11 or in the following days and months, to sign up for free screening and monitoring examinations provided by the Mount Sinai Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine and other area occupational medicine providers, if they haven't already done so. Assistance Programs Listed below are a number of ongoing programs that were set up to help World Trade Center workers and volunteer-responders, including rescue and recovery emergency personnel, as well as those engaged in essential service restoration and debris removal and clean-up around Ground Zero and the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island. The Fire Department runs similar programs for its members, administered by the FDNY Bureau of Health Services that conducts ongoing medical health screenings of firefighters and Emergency Medical Service personnel. Members should contact the department if they haven't already to sign up for monitoring. The Mount Sinai World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program provides free, confidential medical monitoring examinations. WTC responders who participate in the program at Mount Sinai or with other area providers will receive comprehensive and confidential medical examinations at regular intervals. If you are then diagnosed with any physical or mental health problems, you may be referred to one of the adjunct area treatment programs also run by Mount Sinai. Who is Eligible?: You may be eligible if you were engaged in first-response, rescue and recovery, service restoration or any of the clean-up efforts at Ground Zero and related sites. If you've previously enrolled in the WTC Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program, your health can continue to be monitored under this program. How Do I Sign Up?: Call the Registration Hotline at 888-702-0630. If you've already signed up, but want to change your contact information, you can call the hotline or go online to www.wtc .exams.org. What's the Cost?: The program is free of charge. Manhattan: Mount Sinai - I. J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 10 East 101st St., 2nd Floor. Phone: (212) 241-155, Web site: http://www.mssm.edu/cpm/selikoff - clinical - center/ (Exams also conducted in Spanish and Polish); Bellevue Hospital Center/NYU School of Medicine Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 462 First Avenue at 27th St., Phone: (212) 562-3849 (Exams also in Spanish). Queens: Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, Queens College, 163-03 Horace Harding Expressway. Phone: (718) 670-4216 (Exams also in Spanish). Suffolk County: The State University of New York, Stony Brook, Long Island Occupational and Environmental Health Center. Phone: (631) 6429100 Web site: http://www.lioehc.org. In Eastern Suffolk: 625 Belle Terre Road, Suite 207, Port Jefferson, NY 11777. In Western Suffolk: 3002 Expressway Drive North, Suite 200A, Islandia, NY 11749. Nassau County: Nassau University Medical Center Pulmonary and Critical Care Division, 2201 Hempstead Turnpike, Phone: (516) 572-8714. New Jersey-Piscataway: University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, 170 Frelinghuysen Road, Phone: (732) 445-0123 Ext. 601 Web site: http://www.eohsi.rutgers.edu/. Responders may also change where they want to have their exams by filling out a location change form or by calling 888-702-0630. The World Trade Center Health Effects Treatment Program was designed for workers and volunteers who have health problems caused or aggravated by their participation in WTC-related efforts. The program treats WTC-related sinus and breathing difficulties; WTC-related throat irritation; WTC-related feelings of sadness or depression; and WTC-related feelings of nervousness or anxiety. Who is Eligible?: You may be eligible if you were engaged in first-response, rescue and recovery, service restoration or any of the clean-up efforts at Ground Zero and other WTC-related sites. What Kind of Treatments Can I Expect?: The program provides diagnostic and ongoing medical treatment services for WTC-related medical conditions. The physicians are specifically trained in the identification and treatment of workrelated illnesses. The program can also help you apply for a range of benefits and entitlements, get financial assistance for medication and, if you are eligible, apply for health insurance if currently uninsured. What's the Cost?: No out-of-pocket charges for WTC-related conditions. If you need outside testing or referrals that can't be conducted at the clinic, the Health Effects Treatment Program staff will help you arrange for payment. How Do I Sign Up?: The program has offices in Manhattan, Queens and Yonkers. Call any of these numbers: Manhattan: (212) 241-9059, Queens: (718) 278-2736, Yonkers: (914) 964-4737. Similar treatment programs given in concert with other area occupational medicine centers also providing medical monitoring examinations. The Mount Sinai World Trade Center Mental Health and Screening Intervention Program is designed to help people cope with the psychological effects of 9/11 and the stress that can come from being diagnosed with an illness, or fearing that you might be. Who is Eligible?: You may be eligible if you were engaged in first-response, rescue and recovery or any of the clean up effort at Ground Zero and other WTCrelated sites. This program is staffed with psychiatrists and social workers who, aside from offering counseling services, can also help people get the necessary paperwork to file Workers' Compensation claims, authorize medications and treatments and assist with the filing of documentation for Social Security and other benefits. There is no out-of-pocket charge for WTC-related conditions. How Do I Sign Up?: The best way is to go through the Mount Sinai World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program, but you can also call the program directly at (212) 241-8462. Mount Sinai also has programs available for WTC-affected area residents and workers who had to work in the area in contaminated offices, and residents who live in the affected area. Services offered through the center as well as at other New York State Network of Occupational Health Clinics can be reached by calling Mount Sinai at (212) 241-5555. For a list of other providers, call (800) 458-1158 or go online to www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/environ/occupate.htm.Free Emergency Training for Downtowners, by Chad Smith, Downtown Express Volume 18 Issue 36 | January 20 - 26, 2006 http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_141/freeemergencytraining.html In its efforts to attract more members to ensure a safer neighborhood, the Community Emergency Response Team of Lower Manhattan will be offering free training courses for anyone who lives or works in the Downtown area. CERT provides citizens with the basic skills necessary to respond to their communitys needs in the aftermath of a natural or man-made disaster when first responder emergency services are not immediately available. "Community members are essential in this type of group," said Sidney Baumgarten, founder of Battery Park Citys CERT. Although the Downtown CERT draws many professionals from the medical world, like an N.Y.U. pediatrician as well as several working E.M.T.s and nurses, lay citizens shouldnt be discouraged. "We even have a woman who is wheelchair-bound," said Baumgarten. "In case of an emergency, she can she can go into the command center and chart the progress of the CERT teams, work on the logs or make phone calls." The Lower Manhattan Development Corporations plans to dismantle the badly damaged former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty St. a complicated and potentially dangerous project has heightened concerns about community preparedness near the World Trade Center site. "The L.M.D.C approached us, and we were glad to help," said Baumgarten. The L.M.D.C. is paying for the course and to expand the CERTs coverage to the area near 130 Liberty St. After 9/11, Baumgarten believed that forming a locally based, vigilant group would provide a new and more encompassing safety element to the community. The Downtown CERT currently has 182 members, the largest response team in New York, which includes retired cops and working firefighters. The free course starts on Monday, Jan. 23 at 8 p.m. and will be held at the High School for Leadership at 90 Trinity Pl. It will continue for nine weeks every Monday night, and new members need a total of 27 hours of class time. People can register by e-mailing Baumgarten at sidbaumgarten@aol.com. Downtown Express is published by Community Media LLC.
Copyright 2006 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
High Court Rules Against 9/11 Radio Suit, CBS Radio January 17, 2006http://1010wins.com/topstories/local_story_017120349.html
Families of New York firefighters killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, failed Tuesday to persuade the Supreme Court to allow them to go forward with a lawsuit against New York City and Motorola for supplying the rescuers with faulty radios. The high court let stand a decision by a lower appellate court that dismissed the lawsuit, which had blamed the city and Motorola for supplying firefighters with handheld communications devices that prevented them from hearing evacuation orders while they were in the north tower trying to rescue people. A three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said the families had waived their right to sue when they accepted money from the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund. The fund was created when Congress passed the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act, which was designed to keep airlines from being ruined financially and sending the nation's economy into further chaos. The firefighters' families argued that the lower courts had misinterpreted the law and Congress' intent. The families accused New York and Motorola of entering into a fraudulent, no-bid contract that supplied firefighters with ineffective radios that city and company officials knew for years did not work in high-rise buildings. The Sept. 11 Commission, created by Congress to investigate the government's performance leading up to the attacks, devoted a portion of its report to the communications problems. The equipment carried by firefighters on Sept. 11 was the same model that had been used by rescuers during the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. It didn't work then, the commission said, and it didn't work on Sept. 11. In court filings, Motorola didn't address the complaints about the radios but argued that Congress had given the families a choice of filing a lawsuit or accepting money from the fund. By opting for compensation from the fund, the company said, the families ``waived their right'' to sue. New York's Fire Department lost 343 members on Sept. 11. The case is Virgilio v. New York and Motorola, 05-488. (TM & © 2006 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO & EYE Logo TM & © 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. In the interest of timeliness, this story is fed directly from the newswire and may contain occasional typographical errors. ) Ground Zero Crews Say They Weren’t Protected from Dangerous Toxins, by Thomas Zambito and Robert F. Moore, Daily News, January 15, 2005 WORKERS' LAST GASP 5,000 in suit over WTC illnesses RUSSELL FOX worked in the dusty tombs of debris left by the collapse of the World Trade Center for six months. He helped build makeshift piers for the barges that would ferry rubble from Ground Zero to a Staten Island landfill. And when that work was done, he drilled holes deep into the concrete wall that formed the basin where the towers had been. For the veteran construction worker from Co-op City in the Bronx, the cleanup of Ground Zero turned into a big payday. "It was great," said Fox. "I was making a lot of money." Four years later, Fox is the one who's paying. His 49-year-old body, has been ravaged by ailments. His hands have become so arthritic he can't twist the plastic cap off a bottle of water. And his nonstop coughing spasms have so eroded the linings of his throat that the inhaler he carries with him does little good. Fox is among more than 5,000 Ground Zero workers who have signed up for a class action lawsuit pending in Manhattan Federal Court that accuses government officials and construction contractors of exposing workers to dangerous levels of toxins at Ground Zero and the Fresh Kills landfill. Their lawyer, David Worby, says many workers were not even given protective masks. And he says Latino day laborers dug through asbestos with bare hands. An estimated 40,000 people responded to the collapse and worked on the recovery for months afterward. Twenty-three of them have died, according to attorneys and relatives of WTC recovery personnel. City officials and doctors who have treated Ground Zero workers warn that a medical connection has yet to be establshed. Affected workers face the likelihood of expensive medical treatments for years to come, but the federal government has put little aside to pay their health care tab. But many workers are frightened, unsure whether the everyday cough could turn to something far worse. Robert McCracken served 32 years with the city Fire Department, finishing as the chief of emergency services in 2004 and now spends his days going from one air-conditioned room to another. The Rockaway, Queens, man has severe respiratory problems as well as tiny nodules on his lungs that might indicate cancer. Acid reflux wakes him up repeatedly in the middle of the night. But he says he would do it all over again, no questions asked. "You take the oath," he said. But every day, with every breath, he's reminded of his sacrifice. "Rarely a minute goes by that you're not thinking about it." NYPD Detective Michael Valentin, 41, of Rockland County, provided security at Ground Zero and also brought supplies to a nearby firehouse. He worked there for about two months. Two years later, the married father of three was struck by night sweats, leg swelling, congestion and sinus infections. "My doctor told me to get a chest X-ray and they found a mass in my chest," he said, coughing through most of a recent interview. Valentin has had four operations, including the removal of his gall bladder. He has chronic asthma, acid reflux and often loses his voice by the end of the day. Out on sick leave, Valentin said three other detectives in the same division have similar symptoms. He held a photo of one of them. "I hope he lives," Valentin said, referring to his friend and fellow detective Ernie Vallebuono, who is hospitalized with lymphoma. "I hope I do, too." CHECKING UP ON HEALTH Six programs have monitored the health of responders to the World Trade Center collapse at a total cost of $130 million through 2009. Three programs remain active: WTC HEALTH REGISTRY WHO'S ELIGIBLE: Ground Zero workers, residents living near the WTC and students who attended nearby schools. So far, 71,437 of an estimated 385,000 people who qualify have enrolled. Administered by the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the registry is developing plans to track participants' health through 2023. FDNY WTC MEDICAL MONITORING PROGRAM WHO'S ELIGIBLE: Monitored 15,284 firefighters and EMTs through June 2005 and did 522 followup exams. Will offer followup exams in three sessions through June 2009. Administered by the FDNY Bureau of Health Services. WTC WORKER AND VOLUNTEER MEDICAL MONITORING PROGRAM WHO'S ELIGIBLE: Cops and emergency rescue workers from New York City and surrounding areas, firefighters from outside N.Y.C., building and construction workers, press and news media, health care and food service workers, and anyone who worked in the immediate vicinity of the WTC site. (Excluded are FDNY members and federal and employees because they were eligible for other grams.) Now allows state employees to participate. Administered by Mount Sinai's Selikoff Clinical Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Monitored 14,110 workers through June 2005 and did 1,699 followup exams. Source: Government Accountability Office reports.The Pit's toll rising, by Robert F. Moore and Thomas Zambito, Daily News, January 14, 2005
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nydailynews/969512281.html?did=969512281&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&date=Jan+14%2C+2006&author=ROBERT+F.+MOORE+and+THOMAS+ZAMBITO+DAILY+NEWS+STAFF+WRITERS&pub=New+York+Daily+News&desc=THE+PIT%27S+TOLL+RISING
James Zadroga, the 34-year-old Manhattan homicide detective buried this week, is believed to be the first member of the NYPD who worked on the Ground Zero cleanup to die. But the Daily News has learned that an additional 22 men, mostly in their 30s and 40s, have died from causes their families say were accelerated by the toxic mix of chemicals that lodged in their bodies as they searched for survivors or participated in the cleanup after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Among them are private employees, a sanitation worker, a correction officer, a Con Ed worker, transit workers, firefighters and cops. They died from black lung and cancers of the esophagus and pancreas. David Knecht, a Lucent Technologies employee, worked for two months to reestablish communications at businesses near Ground Zero. He died in March, leaving behind two girls, now ages 3 and 4. "My husband was only 35 when he was diagnosed with lung cancer," said Cathleen Knecht, 38, of Berkeley Heights, N.J. "He was a nonsmoker and a swimmer." Thousands more are sick, suffering from respiratory illnesses. Nearly 400 firefighters and paramedics have left the job because of career-ending illnesses that followed their work at Ground Zero. "This was a toxic waste site," says David Worby, the attorney for some 5,200 Ground Zero workers. "People should have been walking around in moon suits. "These guys are the tip of the iceberg." Worby's firm has a class-action lawsuit pending in Manhattan Federal Court that accuses government officials and construction contractors of exposing workers to dangerous levels of toxins. An estimated 40,000 people worked at the site in the months following the attacks. But city attorneys urge caution, saying a medical link is still to be established. "Those 22 people did great work and I sympathize with their families," said Gary Shaffer, the attorney who's handling the city's defense of the claims. "I'm sympathetic to their desire to want to find a cause, but I think you need to be careful before making those connections." Doctors who've treated the Ground Zero workers remain skeptical, particularly because cancers can remain dormant for 15 to 20 years, but they are alarmed at the large numbers of young people who've died. "It's still too early to say if WTC responders are at increased risk for cancer," said Dr. Robin Herbert, director of the World Trade Center Health Effects Treatment Program at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "But we remain very concerned. " Bob Shore, a city correction officer, worked at the makeshift morgue at Ground Zero for at least two weeks, wearing only a paper mask. At the end of his first day handling body parts, Shore climbed into the shower fully dressed and cried for two hours. "He never regretted doing it," said his wife, Michelle Shore, 53, of Suffolk County, L.I. "He was my hero, the city's hero." The 53-year-old father of two died last August of pancreatic cancer, which Shore's doctor said was related to his post-9/11 assignment. Cancer ate away at his body, reducing the 300-pound former bodybuilder to about 110 pounds. His gallbladder, spleen and pancreas were removed. Like other relatives of Trade Center recovery workers, Shore's widow says she's strapped with medical bills she can't imagine being able to pay. "I don't even open the envelopes anymore," she said, estimating the debt at at least $200,000. "I write 'deceased' on them and send them back." All contents © 2005 Daily News, L.P. Sept. 11 workers die of health problems; direct link to ground zero unclear, by Amy Westfeldt, Associated Press, January 13, 2006http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--attacks-dyingwork0113jan13,0,7413799,print.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork
NEW YORK -- James Zadroga spent 16 hours a day toiling in the World Trade Center ruins for a month, breathing in debris-choked air. Timothy Keller said he coughed up bits of gravel from his lungs after the towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001. Felix Hernandez spent days at the site helping to search for victims. All three men died in the last seven months of what their families and colleagues say are persistent respiratory illnesses directly caused by their work at ground zero. While thousands of people who either worked at or lived near the site have reported ailments like the "trade center cough" since the terrorist attacks, some say that only now are the consequences of working at the site becoming heartbreakingly clear. "I'm very fearful," said Donald Faeth, an emergency medical technician and officer in a union with two of the ground zero workers who died last year. "I think that there are several people who died that day and didn't realize that they died that day." Some officials say it's too early to draw that conclusion. Doctors running different health screening programs say it will take decades to get a clear picture of the long-term health effects of working at ground zero. The city department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which is tracking the health of 71,000 people exposed to Sept. 11 dust and debris, said this week that it is too soon to say whether any deaths or illnesses among its enrolled members are linked to trade center exposure. But Robin Herbert, who directs a medical-monitoring program at Mount Sinai Medical Center for more than 14,000 ground zero workers, said "certainly it is not inconceivable" that a person could die of respiratory disease related to Sept. 11. Karin DeShore said she doesn't need scientists to tell her what caused the death of her friend, Keller, 41. DeShore was a Fire Department captain who took Keller to the trade center on Sept. 11, and barely escaped the south tower's collapse. "He came back coughing" two days later, she said. Faeth said that Keller, who worked as an EMT out of a battalion at a Queens hospital, told him that he coughed up debris so violently he could barely breathe on Sept. 11, and later developed emphysema. Keller went home to Levittown on medical leave in March. He died on June 23 of heart disease complicated by bronchitis and emphysema, the Nassau County medical examiner's office said. Felix Hernandez, 31, an EMT in the Bronx, worked on rescue and recovery work at ground zero following the attacks, said his former supervisor, Lt. Regina Pellegrino. In 2002, "it started with a cold he couldn't shake ... and it kept getting worse and worse and worse," she said. Hernandez was diagnosed with various respiratory diseases and was told by doctors at one point that he may have cystic fibrosis, Pellegrino said. He left the job in 2004 when he became too weak to climb stairs, and died Oct. 23 of respiratory ailments in Florida, said colleagues who spoke with his family. Both Keller and Hernandez, each with a decade on the job, were nonsmokers and had no previous health problems before Sept. 11, said Faeth. Zadroga, a 34-year-old city police detective, logged 470 hours at the site in 2001, including Sept. 11, and died Jan. 5. Family and co-workers said he had contracted black lung disease and had high levels of mercury in his brain. Results of an autopsy aren't available yet. David Worby, an attorney representing more than 5,000 plaintiffs suing those who supervised the cleanup over their illnesses, said 21 of his clients have died of Sept. 11-related diseases since the middle of 2004. He said he was not authorized to release their names, but said he represented people who toiled at ground zero, at the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island where trade center debris was moved, and at the city morgue. "This is just the tip of the iceberg," said Worby. "Many, many more people are going to die from the aftermath of the toxicity." Rep. Jerrold Nadler, whose congressional district includes the trade center site, blames some of the illnesses on the failure to provide some workers with proper masks or respiratory protection. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found in 2004 that one in five workers wore respirators while they worked at the site to block out the dust laced with asbestos, glass fibers, pulverized cement and other chemicals. Nadler has asked the federal government to renew air-quality testing for ground zero dust in and around the trade center, and said more monitoring is needed. "All the people exposed should be monitored for life," said Nadler, "so that we know what happened." Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc. City Wins in Ground Zero Case, by Jarrett Murphy, Village Voice, January 12, 2006 http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/powerplays/archives/002322.php A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit charging that the city's Office of Emergency Management helped cause the collapse of Seven World Trade Center on 9-11 by storing diesel fuel for its emergency generators in the 47-story building. The Port Authority and developer Larry Silverstein are still on the hook in the suit, which was filed by insurers for Con Edison, which had a substation under WTC7 that was severely damaged. The city Law Department hailed the ruling, which it says is the last property damage claim against the city related to 9-11. A statement from the department says the move by District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein "allows New York City to better plan for events like September 11th without being subject to liability based on hindsight." WTC7 was the last building to fall on 9-11. No one was killed there. Compared to the twin towers it was a relative nobody among New York skyscrapers, but it has enjoyed posthumous notoriety because of the mystery of why exactly it fell. Thanks to the neat and sudden collapse of the building, WTC7 is central to alternative theories about what happened on 9-11and particularly to the notion that the buildings in lower Manhattan were brought down by planned demolitions. Mainstream inquiries also find puzzlement on WTC 7. The national investigation of Ground Zero building collapses has yet to issue its final report on building seven. An earlier study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency punted on trying to explain the collapse definitively. Not struck by planes, WTC7 appears to have collapsed solely because of fireapparently a first for a steel-framed skyscraper. The diesel fuel was the most likely culprit, even though FEMA said this "best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence." The city's OEM command center used a 6,000-gallon diesel tank; this was one of several in the building. Hellestein's ruling doesn't delve into whether the diesel fuel caused the collapse, or if it was a particularly bright idea to have it there, but finds that the city is immune under a state law, the New York Defense Emergency Act: Although there may be some dispute in the record as to the details of how the OEM and generator system were designed and built in their particulars, the undisputed facts are clear: the Mayor decided that the City needed an OEM and command center to facilitate civil defense functions, and City officials, pursuant to that decision, engaged in a series of good faith negotiations and contracts with property holders, architects, engineers and outside consultants to design an effective and self-sufficient command center. Further, there is no allegation that the City acted in bad faith in carrying out its activities related to civil defense. The Port Authority argued it should be cut out of the suit, partly on the grounds that the decision by FDNY to stop fighting the fire in WTC7 was the reason it collapsed, not the diesel tanks. But while he removed the Port from part of the suit, Hellerstein refused to grant the request in full, saying that putting blame on FDNY or anyone else "is a determination that can emerge only after a full factual record has been developed." Citigroup, whose subsidiary Salomon Brothers had an office and a diesel tank at WTC7, is also still on the hook. Silverstein is rebuilding WTC7. He just signed his second tenant. So far, a mere 100,000 of the 1.7 million square feet in the new building is spoken for. The Con Ed insurance suit is far from the only case concerning WTC7 on the docket. Federal courts are still trolling through a bunch of cases concerning Silverstein, his insurance company, the airlines, and others who blame or are blamed for the myriad pains inflicted when Mohammed Atta and company struck their targets. Copyright © 2006 Village Voice Media, Inc. Chinatown gets left in the dust, by Brian Kates, NY Daily News, January 8, 2006http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/380855p-323412c.html
So close to WTC, yet so far from needed funds Despite its proximity to the fallen twin towers and its obvious need for assistance, Chinatown has received less grant money and loans than any other affected neighborhood, according to an ongoing Daily News investigation into how the $21.4 billion federal aid package to New York was spent. Mom-and-pop shops and restaurants, the lifeblood of Chinatown's economy, continue to struggle to survive. Also, hundreds of small garment factories have closed since Sept. 11, 2001, and the garment industry, a major employer, has been left to fend for itself. The News has previously documented repeated examples of how small businesses were neglected or awarded small amounts of recovery aid while big businesses some with less urgent needs and better political connections garnered the lion's share of the disaster aid. Last week, more than four years after the terrorist attacks, the state designated Chinatown as an Empire Zone, allowing qualified businesses that add jobs to avoid most state and local taxes for up to 10 years.Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who represents lower Manhattan, said the designation came "after four years of battling partisan politics" and said the long wait represented a "lack of leadership" by Gov. Pataki. Robert Weber, director of the Rebuild Chinatown Initiative, called the belated measure "the last great hope for the garment industry and light manufacturing" in the neighborhood. He added, however: "This is part of the solution but not a total answer." Indeed, some local leaders expressed concern that Chinatown has had to wait too long for too little.The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., charged with dispensing $2.7 billion to redevelop Ground Zero and the surrounding neighborhood, has allocated $39.6 million in federal Community Development Block Grant money for all of Chinatown. That's far less than the $70 million earmarked to develop recreational piers in Hudson River Park, a project opposed by environmental groups. Sierra Club's Green Small Screen, by Matthew Wheeland, AlterNet, January 12, 2006http://www.alternet.org/story/30711/
One of 9/11's most lingering national tragedies is also its least visible. Not the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, nor our increasingly surveilled and militarized "homeland," but the thousands -- or tens of thousands -- of people who were left physically and mentally wounded by the World Trade towers' collapse. Take Mike McCormack. He was a member of the team of rescue workers who uncovered the flag that once flew atop the World Trade Center. That same flag appeared at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah, even as McCormack was struggling with chronic, debilitating health problems. McCormack is one of the four first-responders profiled in a new television show debuting tonight at 8:30 p.m. EST on satellite television channel LinkTV. (It will be rebroadcast Jan. 26 at 8:30 p.m. EST.) Tonight's episode is the first of the seven-part series, "Sierra Club Chronicles," a partnership between Sierra Club's media team, Sierra Club Productions, LinkTV and Brave New Films, Robert Greenwald's film company. [Full disclosure: Greenwald is a member of the board of directors of the Independent Media Institute, AlterNet's parent organization.] Greenwald is the filmmaker behind the muckraking documentaries Outfoxed and Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price. Explaining why he got involved with the project, Greenwald said, "I believe passionately in what the Sierra Club does, in their commitment to telling a story about the environment. And their stories are human, they're personal, they take you behind the headlines and into people's lives, and most importantly they give you an opportunity to do something about it." The project has been a long time coming. "Chronicles" producer Adrienne Eramhall said the Sierra Club has long sought a way to broadcast its own unique stories. "We're trying to highlight grass-roots efforts on the ground that are also solution-based," she said. "It's directly in line with the way the club approaches our environmental activism." Sierra Club spokesperson Orli Cotel added that the series is intended to give hope to environmental activists across the country. "We have a vibrant local environmental movement that doesn't get much coverage in the media. Our goal is to show that we are winning very concrete environmental victories, that there is hope, but it's happening at the local level and not in Washington." Painful Truths Tonight's episode, "9/11's Forgotten Heroes," suggests a painful truth about our national priorities: the fallen heroes -- those justly lauded firefighters, police officers and paramedics who died in the line of duty -- as well as the more than 2,800 civilians who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, seem easier to praise than the legions who survived. The men featured in "Forgotten Heroes" are just four out of thousands of 9/11's long-suffering survivors. They have fallen afoul of the media's short attention span, as much as of the president's desires for quick vengeance and an even quicker return to the appearance of normalcy. "Forgotten Heroes" depicts powerful, authentic stories of courage that have been rewarded by indifference at best, and often outright neglect. The half-hour show revolves around four men drawn together by their shared experiences after the disaster: Mike McCormack was a member of a search-and-rescue team, John Feal was a demolition supervisor horribly wounded at Ground Zero, John Sferaza was an iron worker who participated in the demolition, and Marvin Bathea was a paramedic who was trapped under the debris of the fallen second tower. After 9/11 the four had to navigate even stranger territory: the halls of Washington, D.C., seeking money allotted for their ongoing health care that the government has since rescinded. Viewers also learn how the White House downplayed the risks posed by the site's air quality. As John Sferaza says in the show, "In my entire life, I have never witnessed, nor ever heard of green smoke. I witnessed this on many occasions [at the WTC]." Just three days after the towers' collapse, as the first workers were returning to Lower Manhattan, cleanup crews had not received adequate respirators. Even those with masks found them clogged so quickly in the dirt-, ash- and smoke-ridden environment that they became useless within hours. As the nation has seen repeatedly over the last five years, disaster response is not the Bush administration's strong suit. The health precautions taken by the government during the cleanup of the World Trade towers bordered on nonexistent. Even more disturbing is the sheer indifference survivors have to contend with. McCormack and the others are fighting only for the health care they were promised. Two of the men take between 12 and 22 different prescription drugs to help control their ailments. Like thousands of others who breathed the toxic air at Ground Zero, they suffer from chronic respiratory problems known as "WTC cough." Given all they've endured, it's appalling to see them scramble to reclaim the funding that the government pledged and then rescinded. Grass-roots Television Following the formula that worked so well for his feature films, Greenwald and the Sierra Club are organizing house parties to view the first episode of "Chronicles." Sierra Club's Orli Cotel believes house parties are changing the way people watch television: "TV doesn't have to be an apathetic, couch-potato media; it can be a grass-roots organizing and activism tool. You can watch TV, sure, but then you can discuss it with your friends and take action." Greenwald is convinced the grass-roots model reaches people who would otherwise miss these films. "Think about it for a minute," he said. "The people who are going to pay eight or nine bucks to see a movie already really want to see it or already agree with its message. But if your neighbor invites you to come over for a beer and the Wal-Mart film, you're much more likely to come." If you don't have satellite television or can't find a house party in your town, you can download the entire show from SierraClubTV.org. Future episodes of "Sierra Club Chronicles" will cover the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, DuPont's dioxin pollution in Mississippi, devastating oil drilling on public ranchlands in the West and more. As for the forgotten heroes of 9/11, Sierra Club official Suzanne Mattei says there is still much that people can do. "In my mind," she said, "people like John Feal and John Sferaza have really become heroes twice, because in their own pain, in their own grief, in their own distress over their loss of health, they're still fighting. They're not just fighting for themselves, they're fighting for everyone. And our country still won't do right by them."Matthew Wheeland is AlterNet's managing editor.
2006 Independent Media Institutehttp://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nydailynews/960648681.html?did=960648681&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&date=Jan+8%2C+2006&author=JONATHAN+LEMIRE&pub=New+York+Daily+News&desc=DAD%3A+NYPD+ABANDONED+SON
As the father of a retired NYPD detective prepares to bury his son, he insisted yesterday that the former cop died because of his work at Ground Zero - and that he was abandoned by the Police Department he used to love. James Zadroga, 34, died Thursday of brain and respiratory ailments that his family and union believe were caused by his assignment at the World Trade Center cleanup. His father, Joseph, a retired New Jersey police chief, says the NYPD turned its back on James, refusing to acknowledge the cause of death or pay his $50,000 medical bills. Autopsy results are pending, but NYPD officials said Zadroga was given a tax-free disability pension in 2004 and was responsible for his bills after leaving the department. "What I worry most about is his daughter," said Joseph, who is now caring for 4-year-old Tylerann. "She has been dealt a very tough hand." The child's mother is also dead. James Zadroga's wake will be 1 p.m.-5 p.m. today and 2 p.m.-4 p.m. and 7 p.m.-9 p.m. tomorrow at Armitage Funeral Parlor in Kearny, N.J. A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Queen of Peace Church in North Arlington, N.J.--Jonathan Lemire
All contents © 2005 Daily News, L.P.Retired Detective's Death Attributed to 9/11 Duty, by Kareem Fahim, New York Times, January 8, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00613FC34540C7B8CDDA80894DE404482
A detective who retired from the New York Police Department in 2004 because of illness related to Sept. 11 died last week, a union official said yesterday. The detective, James Zadroga, 34, who ended his career with an elite Manhattan homicide unit, died of pulmonary disease on Thursday at his parents' home in New Jersey, said Michael J. Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association. Other detectives have retired from the department because of disabilities resulting from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but Mr. Zadroga is the first emergency responder to die of a related illness, Mr. Palladino said. The Police Department could not immediately provide the number of officers who have retired because of 9/11-related injuries. "He was in Building 7 when it collapsed, and he narrowly escaped death," Mr. Palladino said. "For the next month, he worked 12 or 13 hours a day, a total of more than 450 hours, in the rescue and recovery effort." Soon afterward, Detective Zadroga complained of shortness of breath and was found to have fiberglass in his lungs, Mr. Palladino said. Detective Zadroga suffered from other health problems, including mercury in his brain, Mr. Palladino said, adding that autopsy results were expected tomorrow. Mr. Zadroga's death was reported yesterday in The Daily News and The New York Post. In July 2004, Detective Zadroga retired with a disability pension as a result of pulmonary disease related to Sept. 11, a tax-free benefit equivalent to three-quarters of his salary, the police said. His wife died of brain cancer in 2004, Mr. Palladino said, and they had a 4-year-old daughter. With 31 medals for excellence and seven others for meritorious duty, Detective Zadroga was considered an exceptional officer, a department spokesman said. His funeral is to be held on Tuesday. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Companyhttp://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/nyc-nypd0108,0,7113882,print.story?coll=nyc-homepage-breaking2
NEW YORK -- A young police detective who spent nearly 500 hours sifting through rubble at Ground Zero has died of a lung disease connected to his cleanup efforts, police union officials said Saturday. James Zadroga, 34, who died Thursday at his parents' New Jersey home, retired from the NYPD in July 2004 because of his deteriorating health. He is the first emergency worker to die from constant exposure to the Sept. 11 wreckage at the World Trade Center, said Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association. A high-ranking police source said the department does not have the medical authority to link Zadroga's death to his work at Ground Zero. An autopsy was being done by the Ocean County, N.J., medical examiner's office. Zadroga was inside Building 7 at the World Trade Center when it began to collapse on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001. After narrowly escaping death, he spent nearly 500 hours over the next month and a half at the site, searching for victims amid tons of debris and dirt, Palladino said. Palladino said many detectives even stayed at the site beyond their daily tours of duty, working on their own time. "A lot of our detectives are now suffering from cancers and respiratory ailments," Palladino said. Zadroga became ill about a month after returning to the Manhattan South Precinct in late 2001. He died at his parents' home in Little Egg Harbor, N.J., of black lung disease and mercury on the brain, Palladino said. Zadroga joined the force in January 1994, working in the street crime unit of Greenwich Village's Sixth Precinct, the Bronx anti-crime unit, the 25th detective squad in Harlem and the Manhattan South homicide task force, his final stop. Zadroga's wife died in 2004. He is survived by his 4-year-old daughter, his parents and his brother. His funeral is scheduled for Tuesday morning in North Arlington, N.J. Copyright © 2006, The Associated PressA cop dies & kin blame 9/11 debris, by Robert F. Moore, NY Daily News, January 7, 2006
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/380761p-323303c.html
Retired NYPD detective James Zadroga - who leaves behind a young daughter, Tylerann - wrote a letter about his work at Ground Zero. A retired NYPD detective, who worked more than 450 hours at Ground Zero, died Thursday from brain and respiratory complications that his family insists were linked to the World Trade Center cleanup. While autopsy results are pending, union officials maintain James Zadroga's death is the first post-9/11 death of a city officer linked to hazardous material from Ground Zero. "Our detective is a hero," said Mike Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association. "He had a disregard for his own health and life and tried to save others. "In a chilling letter Zadroga wrote about a year after the terror attacks, he described his deteriorating health - including a constant cough and sore throat. "No one cares at the job," he wrote. "They tell me I'm fine, go back to work. But, truthfully, I haven't felt this bad in my life.... And what thanks do I get now that I'm sick?" NYPD officials said Zadroga, 34, was given a tax-free disability pension of three-quarters pay in 2004. His pension was the result of a pulmonary disease related to 9/11, a police official said. After leaving the NYPD, Zadroga was responsible for his own medical bills."The department afforded the detective every medical option available," said NYPD Chief Michael Collins, a department spokesman.Still, Zadroga's parents said he left behind $50,000 in medical bills. They also said neither the city nor the NYPD has ever acknowledged to them that their son's illness was tied to Ground Zero. "They didn't treat him well," said his father, Joseph Zadroga, a retired police chief in North Arlington, N.J. James Zadroga is survived by his 4-year-old daughter, Tylerann, who was her daddy's little nurse. She told him when his head felt warm and knew from his dependence on oxygen when he wasn't doing well, relatives said. "I thought Daddy was only sleeping," she told her grandmother, Linda Zadroga, after her father's death. Zadroga died at his parents' home in Little Egg Harbor, N.J. A funeral mass will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday in North Arlington. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has authorized an NYPD honor guard to attend the service.Zadroga was inside 7 World Trade Center as it began to collapse on 9/11. He returned to the site for weeks to help search for victims' remains.Palladino said he feared the deaths of more emergency workers could follow."We're just starting to learn now the long-term effects on first responders," he said.With Alison Gendar
All contents © 2005 Daily News, L.PEPA Testing to Begin Despite Panel Critics, by Etta Sanders, Tribeca Trib, January 6, 2006
http://www.tribecatrib.com/
The methods and scope of an Environmental Protection Agency plan to test Downtown apartments for remaining World Trade Center contaminants was widely denounced last month by the agency's own expert panel, elected officials and environmental activists.
"We are back to a situation where the EPA appears to want to spend the money and walk away from the problem," said Morton Lippman, a professor of environmental medicine at New York University and a member of the EPA WTC Expert Technical Review Panel. "If this is what is proposed, nothing should be done."
In spite of the criticism, which included denunciations by Sen. Hillary Clinton and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the agency said it will go ahead with its $7 million plan, first announced on Nov. 29 (see story in December 2005 Trib), to test Manhattan apartments below Canal Street for lead, asbestos, man-made vitreous fiber, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
If any of them exceed the government's benchmark levels, the agency will do a free cleaning. An outreach plan to inform community residents is expected to begin soon.
"We think this is a scientifically defensible program notwithstanding the comments of some of the panel members," said the panel's chairman, Timothy Oppelt, director of the EPA'S National Homeland Security Research Center.
But some panel members said the plan was so flawed that they could not advise residents to participate. They criticized the testing methods and the exclusion of commercial spaces and parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan that were reached by the plume of acrid smoke. "I can't in good conscience tell anyone they should be part of this," said Mark Wilkenfeld, an environmental and occupational physician at Columbia University.
Catherine McVay Hughes, the panel's community liaison, agreed. As an example of a flawed testing method, she noted that contaminants in an HVAC system could be missed because only frequently-cleaned common areas in buildings would be tested.
In the panel's contentious final meeting on Dec. 12, members told Oppelt that after 21 months of work, their input was ignored by the EPA. "I really feel like I've wasted my time the past two years on this panel," said Jeanne Stellman, professor at the Columbia University School of Public Health.
One of the main areas of contention was whether it is possible to distinguish WTC dust from dust that contains contaminants from other sources. The expert panel had said that a so-called "signature dust" could be identified by the presence of slag wool from the trade center, and recommended a plan for testing 150 locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan to determine how far the dust had traveled. But a peer review panel rejected the slag-wool marker, leaving the EPA without a way to pinpoint contamination by WTC dust.
Oppelt said that the decision may be revisited and left an opening for future "signature dust" testing, but not linked to any cleanup plan.
Asked after the meeting why the testing area would be limited to Manhattan below Canal Street, Oppelt said, "We decided it was important to focus the resources we have on the areas that were clearly heavily contaminated outdoors and where the prospect of indoor contamination is highest."
Agency to end 9/11 funds, Associated Press, January 6, 2006 The American Red Cross, which has taken in more than $1 billion in Sept. 11 donations, is ending some programs that have given $178 million primarily to victims' relatives before it phases out most of its Sept. 11 programs next year, a spokesman said.Proposed Asbestos Bill Doesnt Correct Past Flaws, op-ed by Linda Reinstein, Executive Director, Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, Muskogee Phoenix, January 5, 2006 http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060105/OPINION/60104027/1014 It's time for America to meet the real victims of asbestos disease. Asbestos continues to kill 10,000 men, women and children every year in the United States. For more than 70 years, asbestos exposure has been documented to cause cancers and respiratory diseases, yet corporations knowingly exposed workers and consumers to deadly asbestos. For too long, this issue has been described as litigation and a business crisis. Its essential we recognize asbestos has cause the largest man-made disaster in history. Decades have been spent on crafting trust fund legislation that reduces corporate liability and responsibility at the victims expense. The unfairness of these actions are glaring. We believe that S. 852, in its current form, has not only failed to correct for the past flaws, but is worse than prior bills considered in the Senate. During the past two years, more than 40 bargaining meetings were held with the four "stakeholders," manufacturers, labor, insurers and trial lawyers. Victims organizations were excluded from these meetings, yet we are the stakeholders irreversibly affected by trust fund legislation. Supporters claim it will be a no-fault system they are wrong. The burden of proof is shifted entirely to sick and dying victims who dont have the time, resources or strength to provide the trust fund administrator with the medical and occupational records that normally require a team of investigators. Instead, victims just wont qualify because of the newly imposed restrictive legal and medical standards. This bureaucratic maze is unworkable and bad public policy. The expected constitutional challenges, as cited during the judiciary hearings, will guarantee inordinate victims compensation delays. Meanwhile, innocent asbestos victims will be left in legal limbo for years no help from the fund and unable to take their case back to court. The lack of transparency is an enormous problem for businesses and victims. We have no idea which companies are contributing or how much money they will put into the fund. The corporate tiers have conveniently not been disclosed. Americans deserve corporate accountability in exchange for their civil right. This bill is also a powerful example of why politicians shouldnt try to practice medicine. Under the medical criteria as it is now written, thousands of people sick with asbestos diseases will be excluded from seeking compensation for one erroneous reason or another. In fact, this new version completely eliminates an estimated 30,000 lung cancer victims from the program and they will be prevented from taking their case to court. The $140 billion fund is grossly under-funded. The Bates White study demonstrates that actual entitlements of up to $695 billion would bankrupt the fund within three years. Victims are left to die with the uncertainty of recovery and no legal recourse. S. 852 inadequately addresses funding for education, prevention, outreach and research. Asbestos knows no boundaries. Every American is in danger. For now, prevention is our only cure. More than 30 million homes, schools and office building are still contaminated with deadly asbestos and asbestos has not been banned. For many sick and dying victims, their last wish is to be heard and to face those responsible for their sickness. It is a basic American right to seek justice through the court system. S. 852 is woefully unfair to present and future victims and the fatal flaws make this bill unsalvageable. Linda Reinstein can be reached at (310) 480-2989 or linda@AsbestosDiseaseAwareness.org.