June 2007 News Stories (page last updated June 22, 2007) (Back to Previous Month) (Back to Archived News Stories) (Back to Main News Page) (Forward to Next Month)(subscribe to N&A, 9/11 EA's bulletin)
EPA Misled New York City Residents on WTC Dust Contamination, ScoutNews LLC., June 21, 2007
http://www.dentalplans.com/articles/20215/
In the years after the collapse of the World Trade Center, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency misled thousands of New York City residents about the amount of dust contamination in their apartments and condominiums, says a Government Accountability Office (GAO) preliminary report released Wednesday at a Senate subcommittee hearing.
GAO investigators found that the EPA did not accurately report the results of a residential cleanup program conducted in more than 4,000 Lower Manhattan residences in 2002 and 2003, The New York Times reported.
The EPA said that unsafe levels of asbestos were detected in only a "very small" number of air samples taken in the residences. But the agency didn't reveal that 80 percent of those air samples were collected after the residences were cleaned, the GAO report said.
As a result of the misleading information, many residents did not have a true understanding of their risk, the GAO said. Because of that, only 295 apartment building owners and residents signed up for a new residential cleanup program, which halted enrollment in March. More than 20,000 apartments had been eligible to take part in the program, The Times reported.
Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews LLC. All rights reserved
White House Official Grilled on Alleged Censorship of Post-9/11 Contamination Risks, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now, June 21, 2007
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/21/1443257
A new congressional study has revealed the Environmental Protection Agency misled Lower Manhattan residents about levels of indoor air contamination after 9/11. The report was released during a Senate hearing Wednesday on the EPA's response after the collapse of the World Trade Center. James Connaughton, the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, was questioned about whether the Bush administration manipulated public information about the health dangers following the collapse. [includes rush transcript]
Senators Hillary Clinton and Frank Lautenberg both questioned Connaughton about a 2003 EPA Inspector General report which claimed that he personally edited EPA press releases. Prior to his confirmation as the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Connaughton worked as a lobbyist for the mining, chemical, utilities and asbestos industry.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes. A new congressional study has revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency misled Lower Manhattan residents about levels of indoor air contamination after 9/11. The report lambasted the EPA for giving residents “a false sense of security.”
The Government Accountability Office report was released during a Senate hearing Wednesday on the EPA’s response after the collapse of the World Trade Center. Senators repeatedly questioned James Connaughton, the chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality at the time, about whether the Bush administration manipulated public information about the health dangers following the collapse.
Senators Hillary Clinton and Frank Lautenberg both questioned Connaughton about a 2003 EPA Inspector General report, which claimed that he personally -- or his staff -- edited EPA press releases.
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: So, let me ask, did you convince EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones?
JAMES CONNAUGHTON: I think those characterizations by the Inspector General were incompletely formed and inaccurate.
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: But let me show you. The EPA IG report contains several specific examples of these type of changes, and one of them is reproduced on a chart that I’ve brought today. And let me see if -- it’s impossible to read, but as the chart shows, a draft September 13, 2001 press release stated that -- and I quote -- "preliminary results of EPA sampling activities” -- the thousands of samples that Ms. Bodine referred to -- “indicated no or very low levels of asbestos. However, even low levels, EPA considers asbestos hazardous and will continue to monitor and sample for elevated levels of asbestos and work with appropriate officials to ensure awareness and proper handling, transportation and disposal of potentially contaminated debris or materials.” That was the original draft. The final release stated that -- and I quote -- “EPA is greatly relieved to have learned that there appears to be no significant levels of asbestos dust in the air in New York City.”
SEN. FRANK LAUTENBERG: Why does the White House seem -- why do they seem so focused on preventing the raw truth to the public? Why did you feel it necessary in CEQ to review press statements and change things that were in there that might have been of more concern, but more candid?
JAMES CONNAUGHTON: We don’t.
SEN. FRANK LAUTENBERG: Well, you did then, according to the reports that we see, that there were modifications of words and statements, that you were the final decision-maker in terms of what was allowable, what could go to the press. There are lots of things that stress the fact that no releases were to go out without the approval of the administration, and that would have been you.
JAMES CONNAUGHTON: I disagree with your conclusion, Senator.
JUAN GONZALEZ: That was James Connaughton. Prior to his confirmation as the chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Connaughton worked the mining, chemical, utilities and asbestos industry. Almost six years after the attack, there has been no congressional funding devoted to the environmental health impact of the collapse on Lower Manhattan residents.
On Wednesday, Senator Clinton announced a subcommittee proposal requesting $55 million for precisely such a program that would screen and treat all individuals exposed to Ground Zero dust. Of the thousands of ailing 9/11 responders who have been getting sicker and sicker while waiting for treatment and benefits, does this hold any promise?
http://www.nysun.com/article/57028
WASHINGTON — Senator Clinton is stepping up her criticism of the federal government's response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, expressing dismay yesterday at testimony from a White House aide that, she said, contradicted official reports.Mrs. Clinton led a subcommittee hearing probing the Environmental Protection Agency's widely criticized assurances that the air in Lower Manhattan was safe to breathe a week after the attack, as well as its subsequent efforts to clean buildings in the area.
Much of the hearing centered on a 2003 report by the EPA inspector general that said the White House had revised an agency press release to downplay the risk of adverse health effects due to air quality.
"I recognize that EPA and everyone else involved were operating under unprecedented and extremely difficult circumstances," Mrs. Clinton said at the outset. "But I simply cannot accept what appears to have been a deliberate effort to provide unwarranted assurances — at the direction of the White House — to New Yorkers about whether their air was safe to breathe."
Under pressure from Mrs. Clinton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, James Connaughton, acknowledged that presidential aides, including the deputy chief of staff at the time, Joshua Bolten, were involved in drafting and editing public statements, but he said her characterization of the White House as unduly interfering with the agency was incorrect.
"The statement in the final press release was the accurate one," he said.
Mrs. Clinton said she doubted that to be true, citing the increasing number of studies that have indicated a link between respiratory illnesses and the toxic dust cloud that hovered in the Lower Manhattan air for weeks.
After the hearing, Mrs. Clinton said it was "clear that we are still confronted by contradictions, misstatements, denial" about the federal role after the attacks.
She did not address the role of city government in the hearing and, notably, the name of Mayor Giuliani, her potential presidential rival, was not uttered.
© 2006 The New York Sun, One SL, LLC. All rights reserved.
Report Says U.S. Misled Residents About the Dust From Sept. 11, by Anthony DePalma, New York Times, June 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/nyregion/21dust.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
WASHINGTON, June 20 — Federal environmental officials misled Lower Manhattan residents about the extent of contamination in their condominiums and apartments after the collapse of the World Trade Center, according to a preliminary report released on Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office.
According to the report, made public during a Senate subcommittee hearing, the Environmental Protection Agency did not accurately report the results of a residential cleanup program in 2002 and 2003. More than 4,000 apartments in Lower Manhattan were professionally decontaminated in that program, and the agency reported that only a “very small” number of air samples taken in those residences showed unsafe levels of asbestos.
But the agency failed to explain that 80 percent of the air samples were taken after the apartments had already been cleaned.
“That was misleading,” said John B. Stephenson, director of the natural resources and environment division of the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress. He spoke after testifying at a hearing of the Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which is reviewing the government’s response to environmental and health issues at ground zero.
The report concluded that the misleading information had left residents with an erroneous impression about risk. As a result, only 295 residents and apartment building owners asked to take part in a new residential cleanup program before enrollment ended in March. That number represented just a small portion of the 20,000 apartments eligible to participate.
“Residents are understandably reluctant to participate in what they consider to be a waste of time,” said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who led the subcommittee hearing. Senator Clinton, who has been sharply critical of the federal response to 9/11-related health issues, said the data in the report offered “a very different picture from what the White House would like us to believe.”
Susan P. Bodine, assistant administrator of the environmental agency’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, declined to comment on the report. “I would have to go back and check the numbers,” she said in an interview.
Wednesday’s hearing was the first to look into the administration’s environmental response to the trade center disaster since Democrats took control of Congress. Christie Whitman, the agency’s administrator in 2001, is expected to testify at a committee hearing in the House on Monday about her handling of the disaster and the way she communicated the level of risk to the public.
Also at Wednesday’s hearing, Senator Clinton announced that a Senate appropriations subcommittee had included $55 million in the 2008 budget proposal for screening and treatment of people exposed to ground zero dust.
The money would, for the first time, cover residents of Lower Manhattan. The measure would also require the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a long-term screening and treatment plan.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Clinton condemns response to 9/11 dust, by Martin C. Evans. AM New York, June 20, 2007
http://www.amny.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usheal0621,0,7724375.story?coll=am-topheadlines
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usheal0621,0,1716853.story?coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton Wednesday chastised the Bush administration for failing to warn New Yorkers about toxic dust after the terror attack on the World Trade Center, but withheld criticism of the city's response under then-mayor and fellow presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani.
"Nearly six years after 9/11, we still don't have the whole truth about the toxic cloud of poison that filled the air after the towers fell," Clinton said Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health, which she chairs.
"We don't have an explanation for the misrepresentations that put countless people at risk of exposure to chemicals that we know are causing illness and death."
The chief of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, James Connaughton, defended the administration's handling of the toxic cleanup, saying its response was "conveyed real-time in fast-moving circumstances."
"In all instances, federal agencies acted with the best available data at the time, and updated their communications and actions as new information was obtained," he said.
Since the attacks, independent government reviews have faulted the EPA's handling of the immediate aftermath of the attacks and the agency's long-term cleanup of nearby buildings.
An estimated 20,000 people live within a half-mile of the collapsed towers, including nearly 3,000 children. A study of more than 20,000 people released in September by Mount Sinai Medical Center said as many as 70 percent of Ground Zero responders developed a new or worsened respiratory illness.
Giuliani has been faulted for failing to enforce regulations that would have required responders to wear respirators.
A separate medical study released last month found that rescue workers and firefighters contracted sarcoidosis, a serious lung-scarring disease, at a rate more than five times higher than the years before the attacks.
Clinton and other New York lawmakers have sought to pressure the agency to do more to clean apartment buildings in lower Manhattan.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes Ground Zero, will hold a hearing next week to question former EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman.
This story was supplemented with Associated Press reports.
Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.
$55 million for 9/11 workers, by Susan Elan, Politics on the Hudson, June 20, 2007
http://polhudson.lohudblogs.com/2007/06/20/55-million-for-911-workers/
A key Senate Committee has included an additional $55 million in federal funding for the mounting health needs of workers exposed to toxic substances during rescue and clean up following the Sep. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
The money would be used for treatment, screening, and monitoring administered by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The bill would require the Department of Health and Human Services to expand the program beyond rescue workers to provide services to area residents, office and commercial workers, volunteers, students, and other individuals who were exposed to environmental hazards.
Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer said the legislation would provide comprehensive medical services for the thousands of ill and injured as well as the development of long-term, comprehensive screening and monitoring.
More than five years after the attacks, thousands of area residents, rescue and recovery workers are suffering from asthma, chronic sinusitis, and gastrointestinal conditions. Post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and other health effects have also been diagnosed among many of those exposed.
NY Sen. Clinton faults feds, not Giuliani, on Sept. 11 air risks, by Devlin, Barrett, Associated Press, June 20, 2007
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--attacks-health0620jun20,0,2738868.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork
WASHINGTON -- New York Sen. Hillary Clinton ripped the Bush administration's response to Sept. 11 health risks but did not question the actions of the most prominent Sept. 11 figure, Rudy Giuliani, who like her happens to be running for president.
"Many who were exposed could have been protected," Clinton said Wednesday as she began the Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee hearing into the government's response to the toxic dust and debris from the collapse of the World Trade Center. "We can clear the air here in Washington and clear the way to help those affected and hold accountable those who did let New Yorkers and Americans down."
Clinton, a Democrat, and other New York lawmakers have long faulted the Environmental Protection Agency for providing assurances in the days after the 2001 terror attacks that the air contamination was not a public health risk.
A subsequent internal investigation determined that those assurances were not based on scientific data and were issued partly at the direction of the White House.
The head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, James Connaughton, defended the administration's handling of the cleanup.
"In all instances, federal agencies acted with the best available data at the time and updated their communications and actions as new information was obtained," Connaughton told the panel.
Connaughton insisted that the reassuring pronouncements were accurate.
"All of us were relieved," he said. "We feared that there would be quite substantial amounts of asbestos that people might be directly exposed to. As it happens the data was showing that was not the case."
Even as Clinton pressed federal officials, she steered clear of challenging New York's response, which was led by then-mayor Giuliani.
Clinton currently leads the Democratic field of 2008 presidential candidates. Giuliani leads the Republicans.
In two Senate hearings into Sept. 11 health issues, Clinton has avoided challenging Giuliani's record on the subject. Many of those with the worst post-Sept. 11 illnesses are city employees, including police officers and firefighters.
When asked after the hearing why she had not examined Giuliani's role, Clinton first said that would be handled by a separate House hearing next week. Told that hearing would not address the city's role, Clinton said she was focusing on what federal agencies have done.
"For years, everybody has basically been pointing fingers at everybody else," she said. "We are attempting to try to first, in our focus, deal with the federal agencies."
Citing recent studies about the health effects of Sept. 11 contamination, Clinton warned that the casualties of the attacks will continue to mount for years.
"Many people will die as a direct result of their exposures," she said.
A study of more than 20,000 people by Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York concluded that in the months and years after the attacks, 70 percent of ground zero workers suffered some sort of respiratory illness.
A separate medical study released last month found that rescue workers and firefighters contracted sarcoidosis, a serious lung-scarring disease, at a rate more than five times higher than the years before the attacks.
Since the attacks, independent government reviews have faulted the EPA's handling of the immediate aftermath of the attacks and the agency's long-term cleanup program for nearby buildings.
Clinton and other New York lawmakers have sought to pressure the agency to do more to clean apartment buildings in lower Manhattan, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes ground zero, will hold a Sept. 11 health hearing next week to question former EPA administrator Christine Whitman.
Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.
Federal environmental officials misled Lower Manhattan residents about the extent of contamination in their condominiums and apartments after the collapse of the World Trade Center, according to a preliminary report released today by the Government Accountability Office.
According to the report, which was made public during a Senate subcommittee hearing in Washington, the Environmental Protection Agency did not accurately report the results of a residential cleanup program in 2002 and 2003. More than 4,000 apartments in Lower Manhattan were professionally decontaminated in that program, and the agency reported that only a “very small” number of air samples taken in those residences showed unsafe levels of asbestos.
But the agency failed to explain that 80 percent of the air samples were taken after the apartments had already been professionally cleaned.
“That was misleading,” said John B. Stephenson, director of the Natural Resources and Environment Division of the Government Accountability Office. He spoke after testifying at a hearing of the Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which is reviewing the federal government’s response to environmental and health issues at ground zero.
The report concluded that the misleading information left residents with an erroneous impression about risk. As a result, only 295 residents and apartment building owners have asked to participate in a new residential cleanup program before enrollment ended in March. That number represents just a small portion of the 20,000 apartments eligible to participate.
The adequacy of air testing and cleaning in Lower Manhattan has long been controversial:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted an indoor clean and test program from 2002 to 2003. Several years later, after obtaining the views of advisory groups, including its Inspector General and an expert panel, EPA announced a second test and clean program in December 2006. Program implementation is to begin later in 2007, more than 5 years after the disaster.
The report warns:
Without careful planning for future disasters, timely decisions about data collection, and thorough communication of sampling results, an evaluation of the adequacy of cleanup efforts may be impossible.
The agency put the report [pdf] and highlights of the report [pdf] online.
Also at the hearing, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, announced that a senate appropriations subcommittee had included $55 million in the 2008 budget proposal for screening and treatment of individuals exposed to ground zero dust. The funding will, for the first time, cover residents of Lower Manhattan. The measure would also require the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a long-term screening and treatment plan.
1. June 20th, 2007, 6:38 pm
The information given by the EPA was not just misleading, it was a lie and a deliberate attempt
give false, as well as misleading information about the area near ground zero.
I don’t see what the administration had to gain by giving this information out to those who live in this area.
At that time everybody was naive about this administration, especially after 9/11 and people trusted the federal government to tell them the truth. Of course, most of the American people are no longer trusting of this administration, but so much damage has been done in the meantime.
I just hope that the people adversely affected by this ‘information’ are able to gain their health back and they have federal help in doing so.
Ruth Beazer— Posted by Ruth Beazer
2. June 20th, 2007, 7:08 pm
I’d like to know what is to be done for all of the people who worked in Lower Manhattan at that time. Not only were the residents exposed to these harmful substances, but people like myself (I often worked seventy hours a week not far from the WTC site) were breathing in the dust.
I didn’t want to return to work for that reason, but given the horrible state of the economy at that time, what was one to do?
— Posted by Rachel
3. June 20th, 2007, 7:10 pm
It wasn’t just the federal government that was lying. Guiliani was lying as well. The city’s air tests showed problems too, which he covered up. He knew the dust was bad.
— Posted by Lynn
4.June 20th, 2007, 7:46 pm
I’ve lived 10 blocks from WTC for 25 years and was here 9/11 and after. Everyone I spoke to in the neighborhood knew instantly that the feds claim that the air was safe was a lie, there hadn’t been enough time to perform thorough testing. It was clear they wanted Wall Street to reopen asap, more concerned with damage to the economy than citizens’ health - which was no surprise.
— Posted by Doug E. Gee
5.June 20th, 2007, 7:46 pm
I’m wondering if other people are experiencing any of the many symptoms of multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS),after 9/11. These might include sinus problems, fatigue, digestive disorders, sleep impairment, etc.
— Posted by Elaine
6. June 20th, 2007, 8:29 pm
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Clinton Blames Feds For Sept. 11 Related Air Risks, CBS/AP Jun 20, 2007
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_171160904.html
(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON New York Sen. Hillary Clinton ripped the Bush administration's response to Sept. 11 health risks but did not question the actions of the most prominent Sept. 11 figure, Rudy Giuliani, who like her happens to be running for president.
"Many who were exposed could have been protected," Clinton said Wednesday as she began the Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee hearing into the government's response to the toxic dust and debris from the collapse of the World Trade Center. "We can clear the air here in Washington and clear the way to help those affected and hold accountable those who did let New Yorkers and Americans down."
Clinton, a Democrat, and other New York lawmakers have long faulted the Environmental Protection Agency for providing assurances in the days after the 2001 terror attacks that the air contamination was not a public health risk.
A subsequent internal investigation determined that those assurances were not based on scientific data and were issued partly at the direction of the White House.
The head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, James Connaughton, defended the administration's handling of the cleanup.
"In all instances, federal agencies acted with the best available data at the time and updated their communications and actions as new information was obtained," Connaughton told the panel.
Connaughton insisted that the reassuring pronouncements were accurate.
"All of us were relieved," he said. "We feared that there would be quite substantial amounts of asbestos that people might be directly exposed to. As it happens the data was showing that was not the case."
Even as Clinton pressed federal officials, she steered clear of challenging New York's response, which was led by then-mayor Giuliani.
Clinton currently leads the Democratic field of 2008 presidential candidates. Giuliani leads the Republicans.
In two Senate hearings into Sept. 11 health issues, Clinton has avoided challenging Giuliani's record on the subject. Many of those with the worst post-Sept. 11 illnesses are city employees, including police officers and firefighters.
When asked after the hearing why she had not examined Giuliani's role, Clinton first said that would be handled by a separate House hearing next week. Told that hearing would not address the city's role, Clinton said she was focusing on what federal agencies have done.
"For years, everybody has basically been pointing fingers at everybody else," she said. "We are attempting to try to first, in our focus, deal with the federal agencies."
Citing recent studies about the health effects of Sept. 11 contamination, Clinton warned that the casualties of the attacks will continue to mount for years.
"Many people will die as a direct result of their exposures," she said.
A study of more than 20,000 people by Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York concluded that in the months and years after the attacks, 70 percent of ground zero workers suffered some sort of respiratory illness.
A separate medical study released last month found that rescue workers and firefighters contracted sarcoidosis, a serious lung-scarring disease, at a rate more than five times higher than the years before the attacks.
Since the attacks, independent government reviews have faulted the EPA's handling of the immediate aftermath of the attacks and the agency's long-term cleanup program for nearby buildings.
Clinton and other New York lawmakers have sought to pressure the agency to do more to clean apartment buildings in lower Manhattan, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes ground zero, will hold a Sept. 11 health hearing next week to question former EPA administrator Christine Whitman.
Sen. Clinton Blasts Administration for Misleading Public About Ground Zero Air, WNYC, June 20, 2007
http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/80929
NEW YORK, NY June 20, 2007 —On Capitol Hill today, federal officials defended their handling of the World Trade Center site following September 11th. James Connaughton, a White House liaison on environmental issues, told the Senate Health Committee that he had not doctored statements to make the air quality seem safer than it was.
REPORTER: Senator Hillary Clinton reminded Connaughton that an Inspector General in 2003 found evidence that some officials had downplayed the danger.
CLINTON: Did you convince EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones?
CONNAUGHTON: I think those characterizations by the I.G. were incompletely formed and inaccurate.
REPORTER: Today’s Senate hearing comes less than a week before Christie Whitman, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, will testify for the first time about her role in the aftermath of September 11th.
Senate Holds Hearings On Federal Response To Post-9/11 Air Quality, NY1, June 20, 2007
http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=70903#
Senator Hillary Clinton criticized the federal government's handling of post-September 11th air contamination in Lower Manhattan during a Senate hearing Wednesday in Washington.
Clinton led the hearing, where senators questioned federal environmental officials. She says the Environmental Protection Agency did not do enough to protect first responders and residents from the toxic dust released after the World Trade Center collapse.
“Nearly six years after 9/11 we still don't have the whole truth about the toxic cloud of poison that filled the air after the towers fell,” said Clinton. “We don't have an explanation for the misrepresentations that put countless people at risk of exposure to chemicals that we know are causing illness and death.”
In the days after 9/11, the Environmental Protection Agency sent out a press release that stated that the air in Manhattan was safe to breathe. But a government investigation later found there was no scientific proof to back up that claim.
A top White House official defended the government's actions.
“I have to tell you all of us were relieved. We feared that there would be quite substantial amounts of asbestos that people might be directly exposed to,” said James Connaughton of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “As it happens, the data was showing that that was not the case. And I think it was the statement in the final press release that was the accurate one.
Next week, a House panel plans to challenge former EPA Administrator Christine Whitman on her involvement after the attacks.
9/11's Lingering Cloud, by Stephen Smith, CBS News, June 20, 2007
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/19/national/main2951940.shtml
NEW YORK--
It has been a cruel year for 5-year-old Tylerann Zadroga, and last week proved especially difficult. At her suburban New Jersey day care center, Tylerann could only watch as the other children made Father's Day cards.
"She's been upset the last few days," said her grandfather, Joseph Zadroga. "She's really been missing him."
Tylerann's dad, James Zadroga died last year at the age of 34. A decorated NYPD detective, the 9/11 rescue worker's death was the first to be directly linked to exposure to the toxic air at ground zero. (Zadroga's wife died of a heart ailment in 2005, leaving the job of raising Tylerann to her grandparents.)
Seventeen months after James Zadroga died of a respiratory disease triggered by World Trade Center toxins, doctors and politicians have gradually awakened to the ballooning health crisis stemming from the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. The debilitating — and increasingly deadly — illnesses plaguing recovery workers are now well documented.
Of the 70,000 people taking part in Mount Sinai Medical Center's World Trade Center health study, 85 percent are suffering some kind of respiratory problem. Medical experts now say the toxic cloud sparked at ground zero has not only caused severe breathing problems in the short term but also will likely spawn diseases like cancer in the years to come. The mounting medical evidence has put pressure on lawmakers to fund monitoring and treatment for sick responders.
Still, resentment and desperation lingers among the ailing workers and the families of 9/11's delayed health casualties. They say not enough is being done to treat, support and honor the terrorist attack's forgotten victims.
"If Bush can send $15 billion to Africa over five years for AIDS treatment, I'm sure he could find $1 billion a year to help these people," Joseph Zadroga said.
For the workers besieged by ground zero-related illnesses, the pain has been increasingly unbearable. Bonnie Giebfried was buried alive in the debris of the Trade Center's south tower. The former EMT suffers from numerous ailments, including asthma, nerve damage and sciatica. But Giebfried says the emotional fallout has been equally as draining for sick responders. Surviving 9/11 responders are falling into dark clouds of depression, drugs and even suicide, she says, and with disabled parents unable to work, family dynamics are crumbling.
The struggles are also financial. Because Giebfried was employed by a private hospital on Sept. 11, 2001, she was not considered a "uniformed" city worker and thus did not qualify for three-quarter salary benefits afforded to sick responders who worked for the city. She lost her chance at getting a disability pension at work because she fell six months shy of qualifying. Her union cancelled her medical and prescription drug benefits. Red tape and unbalanced assistance programs aren't just hurting Giebfried: In February, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office released a report showing that 40 percent of sick ground zero workers have no insurance or inadequate coverage.
"People don't know how we're existing every day, trying to pay bills, keep family structure and keep our heads above water," said Giebfried, who has lost all her savings to medical bills. "The government left us buried at ground zero."
Earlier this month, Mayor Bloomberg appointed a new World Trade Center health czar for New York. Jeffrey Hon, a former spokesman for the Red Cross Sept. 11 Recovery Program, has the task of ironing out inconsistencies in the city's health benefits as well as working with programs tracking ground zero workers' health. That effort may be hampered by a statistic released just last week: Only half of roughly 70,000 members in the registry tracking post-9/11 illnesses have responded to follow-up surveys. The dwindling numbers are making the city's already-complex task of gauging the long-term health effects more difficult.
Despite the monitoring challenges, the evidence already collected is indisputable. According to a major Mount Sinai study released last September, 70 percent of the roughly 10,000 ground zero workers tested said they experienced new or substantially deteriorated respiratory problems. More than one in four nonsmokers reported breathing problems — double the rate of nonsmokers in the general population. Also, the head of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program said last month that several workers had developed rare blood cell cancers.
The sick are slowly dying. Though the toll is undoubtedly higher, the deaths of at least four police officers (including Zadroga), a communications worker, an attorney and a nun have been directly linked to ground zero exposure. A class-action lawsuit claims dozens more have died from inhaling toxic debris from the Trade Center. Giebfried says she personally knows more than 20 colleagues who have lost their lives since becoming ill.
Dr. Michael Baden, chief forensic pathologist for the New York State Police and the former chief medical examiner of New York City, has reviewed several ground zero-related autopsies, including Zadroga's. He says the growing list of victims should make cities rethink their disaster-management plans in the future. "Three thousand people may have died, but 100,000 others may have been exposed," he said.
Baden cautions that it could take two decades to gauge the long-term effects of the ground zero cocktail of asbestos, mercury, lead and other contaminants. Identifying and analyzing the plethora of potentially carcinogenic chemicals that wafted over the World Trade Center is a painstaking process, so festering diseases such as lung cancer can only be conclusively linked to the 9/11 down the road.
But medical experts are already sounding alarms. Last month, the co-director of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program warned that cancer would likely become the "third wave" of illnesses plaguing ground zero workers. Dr. Robin Herbert said the first wave refers to coughing and respiratory problems developed immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, and the second wave includes severe chronic lung diseases. One such disease, sarcoidosis, claimed the life of New York attorney Felicia Dunn-Jones in 2002. Last month, the city medical examiner added her death to the official list of 9/11 victims — the first such casualty added to the city's tally.
That acknowledgment has prodded the government to provide more assistance. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, co-chair of the Congressional 9/11 Health Caucus, said there are many more victims that the city has not documented. Earlier this month, she and other New York delegates helped get $50 million for 9/11 health care and medical monitoring included in a new appropriations bill. Though Maloney is encouraged by the political progress on Capitol Hill, she expressed frustration with the administration's sluggish response to calls for a comprehensive long-term plan to monitor and treat sick workers.
"Everyone who breathed deadly toxic fumes deserves to be monitored and examined and everyone who is sick deserves to be treated," Maloney said. "We've been promised a plan for well over a year, but we have yet to see it."
Maloney and Rep. Vito Fossella recently re-introduced the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. The bill would extend and improve the federal government's long-term medical monitoring, treatment and compensation for those afflicted by ground zero toxins. So far, however, the measure has languished in Congress.
Maloney has also urged New York's medical examiner to reconsider James Zadroga's death as a homicide. (New York still has not recognized his death as 9/11-related, despite a New Jersey medical examiner's ruling that it was.) Only an acknowledgment by the city would include Zadroga in the "official" tally of 9/11 victims. Only then would his name be added to the Sept. 11 memorial.
"That's an honor he deserves," Joseph Zadroga said.
Nearly six years after 9/11, the death toll from the terrorist attack continues to grow. NYPD Det. Robert Williamson died last month of pancreatic cancer his family says was caused by his recovery work at ground zero. The 20-year police veteran toiled for more than 100 hours on the World Trade Center's pile of toxic debris before retiring in 2002 and ultimately falling ill.
Williamson, 46, left behind a wife, Maureen, and three children. He was finally awarded a disability pension last September — just days before the fifth anniversary of Sept, 11, 2001. Maureen Williamson says her husband was never angry about his condition even though he predicted the impending crisis while he was working among the ground zero toxins.
"He said within weeks, 'A lot of people are gonna be very, very sick.' It was that obvious, he just knew it," she recalls.
Maureen Williamson says doctors and lawmakers are finally confronting the magnitude of the problem. She credits the New Jersey medical examiner who conclusively linked Zadroga's death last year to ground zero exposure as a "monumental" turning point. Still, she says, the wake-up call may be too late for some.
"We're coming around to admitting it and fessing up to it. It's taken this long to say people are dying from exposure down there," she said. "They're getting sick and they're so young. They've lived half their life, and they're getting robbed of the other half."
By Stephen Smith
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Michael Moore's Cuba Expedition, by Julie Deardorff, Chicago Tribune Blog, June 19, 2007
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/features_julieshealthclub/2007/06/why_michael_moo.html
Near the end of the new documentary "Sicko," filmmaker Michael Moore brings ten ailing Sept. 11 Ground Zero rescue workers to Cuba for medical treatment after learning that Al Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo Bay receive what he calls, "free, universal health care."
"The (rescue workers) just want medical attention!" Moore shouts into a loudspeaker, in a futile attempt to win over the security guards. "The same kind Al Qaeda is getting!"
It’s one of the funnier scenes in the movie, which opens June 29 and lambasts the sick state of our mostly private healthcare system. But what Moore really wants to know is:
"How can we treat our heroes like this?"
Contaminated dust from the destruction of The World Trade Center left a legacy that touched volunteer responders who came from nearly every state, Canada, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Now, nearly six years after the disaster, many are still suffering persistent respiratory effects. And concerns have risen about the longer-term health risks, including cancer.
Chicago’s Ashley Muenstermann recounted how her brother-in-law, David, a non-smoking union member who was called to help with the cleanup, came down with a bad cough in 2004.
"He was hospitalized and within a short time was diagnosed with long cancer," she wrote to People magazine in March. "People need to realize that there is a devastating illness killing Ground Zero workers and volunteers."
At least one of the sick rescue workers Moore took to Cuba didn't get health care coverage because he slipped through the cracks in the U.S. programs, said Katherine Kirkland, director of the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics (AOEC).
"He didn't know about our program and should have been treated in the U.S., which drives me crazy," she said.
But Kirkland’s group is working to alleviate the problem. In 2005, the America Red Cross provided the AOEC with grants to help provide medical and psychological care for volunteers involved with rescue recovery and restoration of essential services.
The member clinic at the University of Illinois at Chicago, which provides treatment and also conducts medical monitoring and surveillance, has seen 31 people in the past two years.
So far, 369 people in all but four states have sought help for dozens of conditions, including upper respiratory disorders, the World Trade Center Cough, Gastro-esophageal Reflux Disorder (GERD), asthma, post traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety disorder.
If you or someone you know was a first responder—this does not include tourists or people who lived in Lower Manhattan during the time of the attacks--the first step is to call the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring program at 888-702-0630.
You’ll be asked some questions, including the location and days you worked. If you're eligible, program personnel will help you register and set up an appointment for an exam with an occupational specialist. Clinics are located throughout the country but if there’s not one nearby the American Red Cross grant provides funds for travel.
One caveat: The AOEC program covers diagnosis, prescriptions, physical therapy, and counseling. But prescription drugs are not the only way to treat some physical and mental health conditions. It would be nice to see the funds alos cover holistic treatments such as yoga, tai chi or massage.
For more information contact AOEC 888-347-3632 or Kirkland at kkirkland@aoec.org
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Prosperity Studios Agrees $124 Million To Provide EMS 9/11 Victims With Detox Treatments. Firefighting News, June 20, 2007
http://www.firefightingnews.com/article-US.cfm?articleID=32824
Ambassador Hope has agreed a private sector investment to pay for detox treatments for up to 24,000 EMS workers still suffering from 9/11. According to Gill Hope, Chair of Prosperity Studios, Inc., The Health Security of New York is at risk and most importantly the quality of life for the brave Emergency Service teams and their families and colleagues. She continued, "Raising funds at a local and national level has provided incremental access for those seeking treatments, however, the combined membership of 6 unions is 45,450 of which 24,000 are affected. So we chose to propose a private sector funding package of $124 million over 2 years so that any Union member could access the treatment regardless of ability to pay."
"The New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project will manage the centers and treatments," noted Hope. "And we will provide them with an agreed Fee per Service."
Ambassador Hope analyzed the needs from the NYRW Detox Project plus 6 unions, wrote the business plan, and raised the funds from Wall Street.
"Public policy," she says, "has come to understand that unless we address this level of suffering at the scale and speed of the need, then we are making the Rescue workers lives tougher and the security of New York more vulnerable. This is a great opportunity to recognize that the Human Assets of the City are priceless, you cannot replace highly qualified and trained workers, it takes years and million of dollars to get men and women prepared to this level of skill."
Hope says, "In the spirit of compassion and collaboration more Detox Centers can be opened in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Long Island, Orange County, Queens and Rockland County. We are encouraging libraries, clinics, even grocery stores that have vacant accommodation to share resources.
"Jim Woodworth is a hero, he's overcome so much ignorance and so many obstacles to serve those in desperate need and we are honored to empower him to ramp up and serve all the needs," she concludes.
The 6 Unions focused on improving their members 'quality of life' are: FDNY Firefighters and Officers, Detective Investigators Association, EMTs and Paramedics Local 2507, Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, and the Sergeants' Benevolent Association.
Written by Market Wire
Courtesy of © 2007, YellowBrix, Inc.
9/11 health czar named: Mayoral appointee vows 'to get answers for people', by Jordan Lite, New York Daily News, June 11, 2007
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/06/11/2007-06-11_911_health_czar_named.html
Mayor Bloomberg has tapped veteran publicist Jeffrey Hon as his pointman on World Trade Center illnesses - "the go-to person in city government for people who have issues related to health care," Hon confirmed to the Daily News yesterday.
"I want to do a lot of listening. I want to take a lot of concerns back to the city," said Hon, 53, a former spokesman for the American Red Cross September 11 Recovery Program. "I want to get answers for people."
Hon said he will try to smooth out inconsistencies in pension benefits among city agencies whose employees responded to the terrorist attacks.
"We want to make sure that everybody who worked for the city who was affected by 9/11 gets treated in the same way," Hon said.
The appointment comes four months after Bloomberg's advisers recommended that someone be named to coordinate city policy as it related to Ground Zero illnesses.
But even as he tries to speak for ailing workers, Hon will work for City Hall.
The city faces a raft of lawsuits alleging negligence at the World Trade Center site and numerous complaints about its rejection of pension and workers' compensation claims for people who toiled there.
"Is he going to be able to implement change?" asked Marianne Pizzitola, the pension and benefits coordinator for Uniformed EMS Officers Union Local 3621.
"It sounds extremely positive that he wants to jump in to this and find out what our problems are and how they should be remedied," she said. "But if they're not going to be remedied, we still have a big fight ahead of us."
A Bloomberg spokesman declined to comment.
Hon said he will create a "one-stop shopping" Web site about the science behind 9/11 illnesses.
In addition to aiding New Yorkers, the site will help volunteers from around the country whose doctors may be unfamiliar with treatment guidelines developed by the city, he said.
"It's going to be an extremely complicated, challenging position," Hon said.
"It's called a coordinator position. I see it sort of as a wrangler position, that the city is a really complex operation, and we just need to make sure that everybody is on the same page," Hon said.
"I was in New York on 9/11," he said. "I really believe that this is a position that can make some real difference, and I plan to give it my very, very best shot."
9/11 Health Tsar Selected, WNYC Newsroom, June 11, 2007
http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/80381
NEW YORK, NY June 11, 2007 —Mayor Bloomberg has picked a 9/11 health tsar. According to the Daily News, veteran publicist Jeffrey Hon will be the "go-to person in city government for people who have issues related to health care."
Hon was previously the spokesman for the American Red Cross September 11th Recovery Program. His appointment comes 4 months after the mayor was advised to have someone coordinate city policy and Ground Zero-related illnesses.
Hon told the Daily News that he wants to create a Web site to explain the science behind 9/11 illnesses. The city currently faces several lawsuits from people who worked at Ground Zero in the weeks and months following September 11th.
©2007 WNYC Radio
Filmmaker's Lawyer Claims Discrimination, by David Germain, AP Movie Writer, June 11, 2007
http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=114&sid=1164264
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Michael Moore's attorney said Monday that the filmmaker's criticism of the Bush administration may have prompted a federal investigation into his trip to Cuba for the upcoming health-care documentary, "Sicko."
In a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, attorney David Boies noted that Moore has been a critic of President Bush in his books and films, which include 2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11," a harsh indictment of White House actions regarding the Sept. 11 attacks.
"For this reason, I am concerned that Mr. Moore has been selected for discriminatory treatment by your office," Boies wrote in response to a letter sent to Moore last month from Dale Thompson, OFAC chief of general investigations and field operations.
The OFAC letter notified Moore that he was under investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba.
A copy of Boies' letter was obtained by The Associated Press in advance of an afternoon news conference at the attorney's New York office by Moore, Boies and Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of the Weinstein Co., which is releasing "Sicko" on June 29.
"I am requesting that you provide to me information regarding the person or persons who participated in making the decision to send Mr. Thompson's letter, the nature of the discussions that took place, and the knowledge your office had of Mr. Moore and his trip to Cuba at the time the letter was sent," Boies wrote.
Moore went to Cuba in March to obtain health care for three ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers. He claims in the film that the U.S. government had left the workers to fend for themselves on ailments that resulted from their work at Ground Zero.
Last fall, Moore had asked the Treasury Department for permission to go to Cuba under U.S. rules permitting travel there by journalists. OFAC's letter noted that Moore went to Cuba without having gotten any response from the office.
(Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
L.M.D.C. needs more change, by Bettina Damiani, Letter to the Editor, Downtown Express, Volume 20 Issue 4 | June 8 - 14, 2007
To The Editor:
Re “The L.M.D.C. under Spitzer” (editorial, June 1 - 7):
I applaud your enthusiasm for the much-needed overhaul of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation board. And the appointment of a Community Board 1 member is a good first start. Yet, as Downtown Express has documented over the years, the allocation of L.M.D.C. resources has not benefited all residents of Lower Manhattan equally. Low-income residents, especially in Chinatown and the Lower East Side, were disproportionately impacted by the attacks yet have had no representation on the L.M.D.C. board.
I hope Downtown Express will also urge Gov. Spitzer to appoint board members with expertise in affordable housing and workforce development. This would be an important step toward balancing the scales for those constituencies without the political clout currently represented on the L.M.D.C. board.
Bettina Damiani
Project director, Good Jobs New York
© 2007 Community Media, LLC Downtown Express is published byCommunity Media LLC.
Deutsche’s neighbors speak out, Downtown Express, Volume 20 Issue 4 | June 8 - 14, 2007
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_213/deutscheneighbors.html
Pat Moore, a Community Board 1 resident who lives near the former Deutsche Bank building, said that after a pipe fell into a firehouse, officials’ initial instinct was to build a shed to protect the tourists visiting the site rather than everyone including nearby residents. Moore and another Deutsche neighbor, Downtown Express columnist David Stanke, spoke about the project and other issues related to the World Trade Center site on the latest edition of the “Downtown Express Community Report” Internet radio show, which is available at downtownexpress.com and tribecaradio.net.
© 2007 Community Media, LLC Downtown Express is published byCommunity Media LLC.
Work resumes at Deutsche site, by Skye H. McFarlane, Downtown Express, Volume 20 Issue 4 | June 8 - 14, 2007
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_213/workresumesat.html
Deconstruction work resumed at the former Deutsche Bank building on May 31, after contractors on the site adopted additional safety measures to protect nearby pedestrians and buildings.
Work was halted at the 41-story office tower on May 17, when a 15-foot section of pipe fell from the building and crashed through the roof of the 10/10 firehouse next door, injuring two firefighters. The contractor, Bovis Lend Lease, and the subcontractor, John Galt Corp., were issued city Department of Buildings violations for failing to protect public safety and property.
According to the D.O.B., Bovis has agreed to exercise more oversight on the project. Most of the previous violations on the site were issued to John Galt. In addition, the contractors have installed plywood coverings around the demolition floors, to prevent future loose objects from falling.
The D.O.B. also required the Deutsche Bank project to install protective sheds over the sidewalk on Greenwich St., where tourists often walk to visit the firehouse’s 9/11 memorial plaque, as well as on the roof of the firehouse itself. While the sheds and shoring are under construction, no pedestrians will be allowed on Albany St. near the 130 Liberty St. site during construction hours. According to the Department of Transportation, the pedestrian restriction is expected to last another week.
The building at 130 Liberty St. was heavily damaged and contaminated on 9/11. It is being taken down to make way for a public park, a tour bus parking facility and an office tower. The D.O.B., the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (which owns the building) have all investigated the cause of the pipe accident, but none of the agencies have released their findings as yet.
© 2007 Community Media, LLC Downtown Express is published byCommunity Media LLC.
Attention WTC Site Workers & Volunteers: The World Trade Center Worker & Volunteer Medical Screening Program, WNBC.com, June 8, 2007
http://www.wnbc.com/News/1530028/detail.html
If you were active as a worker of volunteer at or near the World Trade Center site or Staten Island landfill in New York City following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and you were involved in rescue, recovery and/or restoration of essential services, may be eligible for this federally funded program.
To be conducted by a sortium of occupational medicine providers, under the direction of the Mount Sinai Center of Occupational & Environmental Medicine with the support of the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Healthy, The World Trade Center Worker & Volunteer Medical Screen Programming will offer medical assessments, diagnostic referrals and occupational health education at no cost for eligible participants thought to have sustained exposure to a range of hazards, posing possible short and/or long term risks to their physical and psychological well being.
Call the toll free WTC Medical Screening Hotline today for more information and to register: 1-888-702-0630
Federal funding for this program supports a limited number of 7,500 screenings to begin July 8 in the great NY-NJ metro region, with 1,000 added exams offered elsewhere in the US through the Association of Occupational & Environmental Clinics.
Metro Area participating partners and exam locations include:
Manhattan: Mount Sinai Center for Occupational & Environmental Medicine Bellevue/NYU Occupational & Environmental Medicine Clinic
Queens: Queens College Center for the Biology of Natural Systems
Long Island (Stony Brook/Nassau): SUNY Stony Brook/L.I. Occupational & Environmental Health Center
Westchester (Yonkers): Mount Sinai Center/Hudson Valley-St. John's Riverside Hospital
New Jersey (Piscataway): UMDNJ Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences Institute
Congress Takes Up Safety Issues for First Responders, by Mike Hall, AFL-CIO Now, June 7, 2007
Workers and their unions are getting more opportunities to be heard by Congress on important work and family issues now that a decade-plus of a Republican majority in both House and Senate is over.
So far this week, Fire Fighters (IAFF), Air Line Pilots (ALPA), Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) and the AFL-CIO testified on workers’ rights, safety and global trade. Today, Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) President Baldemar Velasquez is set to testify on U.S. and guest worker rights before the full House Education and Labor Committee.
Here’s a quick look.Public Safety Workers:
Across the country, tens of thousands of firefighters, police officers and other first responders have no collective bargaining rights—state laws deny these workers those basic rights. But H.R. 980, the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, would give public safety workers the right to discuss workplace issues with their employers
.Kevin O’Connor, IAFF assistant to the president, told the Education and Labor’s Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions what happens when first responders have collective bargaining rights:
Almost every day in almost every corner of America, representatives of frontline fire fighters are sitting down with their fire chief or public safety director to discuss how to do their job more effectively and more safely.
The purpose of this bill is to have 50 state laws that give fire fighters and police officers access to a bargaining process that fosters cooperation between public safety officers and the agencies that employ them, a process that is working well in 30 states and creating an atmosphere in which all parties are stakeholders in improving safety and making communities more secure.
Subcommittee Chairman Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) says the public safety demands of a post Sept. 11 world have markedly increased workplace pressures on public safety workers—and bargaining rights provide an avenue to deal with these demands. These brave men and women, who risk their lives each day and serve as our first line of defense against natural disasters, terrorists, criminals, medical emergencies, etc., deserve more than the status quo. The least Congress can do is provide the right for every public safety officer to meet at the table with their employer to discuss ways to improve the safety of their community and the well-being of their families.
Check out Andrews testimony on Youtube. and click here to read O’Connor’s full testimony and here for his comments on Youtube.
Health Time Bomb: Urge 9/11 first responders to register for future claims, by Sana Saleh, Staff Writer, New Jersey Journal, June 7, 2007
http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1181201858264220.xml&coll=3
Warning people that it could take years or even decades to feel the health effects of working at Ground Zero, state legislators and health officials yesterday urged 9/11 first responders to stay eligible for federal workers' compensation benefits.
"The fact is no one can know when and if a person may experience a health breakdown as a result of their exposure to toxic air and dust in Lower Manhattan six years ago," said David J. Socolow, commissioner of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
He and other officials held a news conference yesterday at Exchange Place, fittingly just across from the skyline that was irrevocably altered that September morning. Their urgent message was this: Go on the Internet to www.nj.gov/labor, print and fill out the form, have it notarized and mail it to the New York State Workers' Compensation Board.
The deadline for registering is Aug. 14.
Legislators emphasized that registration does not amount to filing an actual claim, but protects the right to claim benefits should health problems develop in the future.
"Register now, even if you're feeling well," said New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services Commissioner Fred Jacobs. "We can't quantify the dust inhaled, there's no safe exposure level."
Jersey City Police Deputy Chief Peter Nalbach, one of about 150 Jersey City police officers who spent extensive time at Ground Zero, said that he had not heard of the process to register. "We've had information before that you can be tested, but I just didn't bother. Since it's in Piscataway, it's inconvenient. I don't think anybody was aware."
Few 9/11 first responders have registered so far, officials said. Legislators said there's been a lack of urgency because many responders are symptom-free. Nalbach said the announcement convinced him to register.
"When you hear stuff like this, you start to wonder," Nalbach said. "You just ignore coughs, sneezes, chalk it up to old age. I might not want to know if I'm really ill, but at the very least I'll register."
Fire Chief William Sinnott, who is registered, called the announcement a "wake-up call and after five, six years they're using this as a capstone to let people know this is out there."
Despite establishment of a federal fund to compensate responders who develop illness from or incurred emotional trauma in the aftermath of rescue and recovery efforts, long-term health effects from exposure to on-site toxins are still unknown to medical personnel.
© 2007 The Jersey Journal
© 2007 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.
Registration Deadline Nears for 9/11 Program, by Beth Fitzgerald, (Newark NJ) Star-Ledger, June 7, 2007
http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-6/1181196567176640.xml&coll=1
The estimated 100,000 emergency workers and volunteers who responded to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York face an Aug. 14 deadline to register for a special federal workers' compensation program.
The program will cover medical bills and wages if they fall sick someday due to exposure to the toxic dust unleashed on Lower Manhattan when the World Trade Center was reduced to rubble six years ago, state officials said at a gathering yesterday on the Jersey City waterfront, directly opposite the World Trade Center site. They urged everyone who joined in the rescue and recovery effort to register in order to protect their right to file a workers' compensation claim in the future.
Congress in 2002 created a special $175 million workers' comp fund for 9/11 responders -- both professionals and volunteers. The fund is administered by New York, but the two-page registration form can be downloaded from the New Jersey Department of Labor Web site (www.nj.gov/labor) or a copy can be obtained by calling (877) 632-4996. The registration form has to be filled out manually, notarized and mailed to the New York State Workers' Compensation Board. Registration isn't the same as filing a workers' comp claim -- it just preserves the individual's right to file such a claim if an illness strikes in the future.
So far, only 15,880 have registered, mostly New Yorkers, and New Jersey Labor Commissioner David Socolow estimated "tens of thousands of New Jerseyans are eligible," but very few have registered.
State Health Commissioner Fred Jacobs said those who worked at Ground Zero "were exposed to massive amounts of dust and debris, metal dust, pulverized glass and concrete and 400 airborne substances including dioxin and asbestos. Many people are already sick, and others may yet become sick, and they need to register to protect themselves and their families."
© 2007 The Star Ledger
Ten More Potential Human Remains Found At WTC Site, NY1 News, June 05, 2007
http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=70415#
As the search for human remains around the World Trade Center site moves underground, ten more bones were recovered from the site yesterday.
The medical examiner’s office says crews found them in a sewer line near the site.
Last week, workers began scouring three sewer lines after searching the former Deutsche Bank building and a service road that led into the site.
Crews will also search the roofs of 130 Cedar Street and Fiterman Hall.
So far, more than 1,400 bone fragments have been found since the searches resumed last year.
Copyright © 2007 NY1 News. All rights reserved.
The World Trade Center: The Dust of Tragedy Lingers - The NEJM Says That More than 71,000 People Signed up to Be Monitored for Lingering Health Effects Following 9/11, by David Ewing Duncan,Technology Review, June 6, 2007
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/duncan/17621/
Nearly five years ago, thousands of people rushed in to the site of the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center in New York City. As thousands of survivors and locals fled the burning and collapsing towers, a heroic effort was already under way to, first, save as many people as possible, then scour the ruins for survivors and bodies, and finally clean up the horrific mess.
Throughout most of this, the ruins smoldered, creating a long-term impact of this attack that few predicted at the time.
On September 14, 2001, I arrived in New York and breathed in lungfuls of the acrid stew of chemicals and ash. It made my nose tingle, and when I walked downtown to the disaster site, my eyes burned slightly, and I wished I had something to put over my mouth.
I was in Lower Manhattan for only a couple of days. Many workers labored there for weeks and months. Many of them have since come down with respiratory problems and other ailments possibly associated with a project that emphasized quick response and cleanup more than it did safety.
Now a Perspective column in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) sums up some of the findings of the past five years about the dust and its aftermath. It cites studies that have measured the content of the air in the days and weeks following the attack, as well as studies that assess the health impact.
The composition of the air was mostly "coarse particles and pulverized glass fibers, asbestos, lead, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and polychlorinated furans and dioxins," a toxic stew reported in great detail in a 2004 study in Environmental Health Perspectives. The dust was highly alkaline--pH 9/11.
Some of the materials were known or suspected carcinogens; others were nanoparticles of toxins that lodged in blood and cells. Most damaging were particles large and small that damaged airways and lungs. For instance, in one study, a group of firemen have 10 times the level of reduced lung function than would normally occur with age. Thousands of New Yorkers, from schoolchildren to police officers, have a persistent hacking known as the "World Trade Center cough."
According to the NEJM article, many questions linger about this long-term collateral damage inflicted by the terrorists.
Still, there are some things we will never know for certain;indeed, we do not even know with any certainty the size of theexposed population. Continued tracking of the responders shouldprovide a clearer picture of the natural history of World TradeCenter cough syndrome and should guide selection of the mosteffective therapies. The registry will be informative regardingbroad questions of health, but although it includes more than71,000 registrants, analyses of follow-up data will not revealthe existence of relatively infrequent consequences unless theadditional risks are very high. The long-term risks of cancerwill be difficult to measure with any precision, although quantitativerisk-assessment approaches should prove useful for estimatingthe maximum potential burden of cancer. But even the full suiteof research efforts in progress may never provide the evidenceneeded to answer all the questions that will be raised aboutthe long-term health effects of the events of September 11.
Curiously, no one seems to have run genetic tests to gauge the susceptibility of victims to cancer and other maladies when exposed to environmental toxins. This science, called toxicogenomics (see my May 7 blog), is in its infancy, but it may already provide some clues into who will have the worst long-term effects. Someday, testing for genes that make one more or less susceptible to environmental toxins might help in the selection of who responds to disasters that involve ash and chemicals raining down.
Of course, genetic screening for job suitability is both a positive and a negative, since the same testing process could also be used to discriminate. But in the case of disasters such as the World Trade Center and Katrina, this might be a good use of this new science.
Articles cited:
Samet, Jonathan M., et. al., "The Legacy of World Trade Center Dust", New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 356:2233-2236, May 31, 2007, Number 22
Landrigan, PJ, et. al., "Health and environmental consequences of the world trade center disaster", Environmental Health Perspectives, 2004 May;112(6):731-9
Copyright Technology Review 2007.
Members and Family Say: Toxic 9/11 Dust Killed Glen Pennington, by Gregory N. Heires, Public Employee Press, June 2007
http://www.dc37.net/news/pep/6_2007/9_11Pennigton.html
Health care experts believe that it is too soon to say whether the 2006 passing of the 49-year-old Radio Repair Mechanic is an early sign of a coming wave of cancer-related deaths among World Trade Center rescue, recovery and cleanup workers.
Many health experts fear that the long-term effects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks could include a high incidence of cancer among the tens of thousands of workers who toiled at Ground Zero.
Today, co-workers and the sister of Radio Repair Mechanic Glenford Pennington believe he is one of the initial cancer victims. Pennington died last August after a bout with lymphoma. He was only 49.
"It killed him," said his sister, Valorie Pennington, about her brother’s work at Ground Zero and subsequent cleaning of equipment from the site. "Glen was never sick before this. But it’s not just Glen. Look at all these people who are dying every day."
While not discounting the possibility of an eventual wave of cancer victims, health care experts warn that it is premature to draw a certain link between the cancer illnesses of rescue, recovery and cleanup workers and their exposure to the contaminated air of the 9/11 site.
Astonishingly, nearly six years after the destruction of the World Trade Center, an official count of later deaths caused by 9/11 does not exist, although a year ago, the state Health Dept. was mandated to establish a mortality registry.
When the federal government approved funding for the tri-state and nationwide medical treatment programs for rescue, recovery and cleanup workers, it did not include cancer as one of the covered illnesses.
Among DC 37 members, three EMS workers have died since the disaster because of 9/11-related respiratory illnesses. A lawsuit representing 10,000 rescue and recovery workers has documented fatalitiesattributable not only to respiratory illnesses but also to other health ailments, including cancer.
Five hundred of the rescue and recovery workers covered by the lawsuit against the city have cancer,according to the lead attorney, David Worby. More than 110 have died because of cancer, heart or respiratory illnesses. The lawsuit charges that the city failed to protect the safety and health of the workers.
Worby faulted politicians, including former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, for not ensuring workers had the proper safeguards against pollutants.
Glenford Pennington’s death "is on Giuliani’s head," Worby said. "He went to OSHA and said ‘I’m in charge,’ " mentioning how Giuliani fought to keep the cleanup under the city’s control and kept out the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Critics charge that in his zeal for the city — and especially Wall Street — to bounce back from the attacks, Giuliani failed to ensure that workers were protected from hazardous materials at Ground Zero. The Giuliani administration didn’t seriously enforce a federal requirement that they wear respirators.
In the class-action lawsuit, more than 120 workers with cancer have blood-cell cancers, such as lymphoma, leukemia and multiple myeloma.
Francine Laden, assistant professor of environmental epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, stressed that it is often very difficult to establish a cause of cancer. But the apparently high number of cancer cases among 9/11 rescue and recovery certainly merited study, she said.
Laden said that more than five years after the terrorist attacks, she would be skeptical about linking workers’ exposure to pollutants with lung cancer, which takes many years to develop. But blood-cell cancers like lymphoma can develop over relatively short periods, and she said it is not unreasonable to assume that exposure to toxins at Ground Zero has stricken workers with those forms of the disease.
"Lymphoma is relatively rare," Laden said. "If there is a cluster, then it is possible that it could be linked to chemicals and gas."
"We can’t establish a link right now," said Laura Crowley, medical director of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring National Program at Mt. Sinai, "but it’s certainly a good question."
Pennington was dispatched to Ground Zero on 9/11 to clean and repair Fire Dept. communication gear. In the three months following the attacks, Pennington returned periodically to Ground Zero to do repair work.
"I remember when Glen came back after a few hours down at Ground Zero, he was completely white and gray," said Radio Repair Mechanic Mike Rowinski, a Local 1087 member. "He looked like a ghost. He was completely covered by the debris."
Like many rescue and recovery workers, Pennington literally consumed a chemical cocktail cooked up by the collapse of the Twin Towers. The dust debris included asbestos, cement particles, ground-up glass from computers and windows, titanium, barium, gypsum and lead.
"They found glass in his lungs," Valorie Pennington said. "They found asbestos in his lungs. The pulmonologist said he hadn’t seen anything like it before."
Tests showed that he had parenchymal pulmonary calcification, which a medical report indicated "may be related to his heavy exposure to pollutants while he was at Ground Zero." The cause of his lymphoma isn’t certain, but the cancer has been associated with chemicals.
"Glen was in excellent health before 9/11," said Robert Moradfar, an RRM who, like Pennington, was sent to Ground Zero on the day of the attacks. "Many of us believe he was killed by being poisoned that day."
Around Sept. 1, 2005, Pennington’s deteriorating health became apparent one day when he stayed overnight at work because he was too weak to drive home to the Poconos Mountains in Pennsylvania. Later, when no one heard from him for two weeks, Moradfar, who has land near Pennington’s home, decided to visit.
"When I got to the house, I found him naked on the floor," Moradfar said. "He had lost so much weight that he looked like a Holocaust victim."
Pennington was treated immediately for kidney failure and diagnosed with lymphoma at Morristown Memorial Hospital in New Jersey. Because of a tumor, his right leg had ballooned to two or three times the normal size, and his right foot had to be amputated. His left leg was amputated below the knee because of an infection following the amputation of his left foot. Before his death, he spent months in the hospital and at a rehabilitation center.
Co-workers spoke warmly about Pennington. Shop Steward Tom Mecir described the reserved, 6-foot-2 man as "a nice giant bear, a gentle guy."
Pennington, who would regularly carry a digital camera and video camera, loved high-tech devices. It was a passion that dated from his childhood, when his mother once found him on the roof of their home communicating with Japan through a ham radio.
Pennington also was a weather enthusiast. On his vacations, he would travel to Georgia, Oklahoma and Florida to chase down storms and tornadoes. He posted his photos on Web sites he maintained.
His co-workers were shocked by Pennington’s deteriorating health. Local 1087 Treasurer and Shop Steward Manny Roman helped Pennington file a disability claim that attributed his medical condition to his work at Ground Zero. But Pennington died before the Fire Dept. could make a decision on the claim. As a civilian employee, Pennington wasn’t eligible for the department’s medical program, which federal regulations restrict to Firefighters and Emergency Medical Service workers.
"What makes a Radio Repair Mechanic any different from a Firefighter? I don’t understand. It’s ridiculous," Valorie Pennington said. "I feel in my heart of hearts if Glen had been in the medical monitoring, they could have discovered the cancer sooner," Mecir said.
© District Council 37, AFSCME, AFL-CIO
WTC Trauma Grips Co-Workers, by Gregory N. Heires, Public Employee Press, June 2007
http://www.dc37.net/news/pep/6_2007/WTCtrauma.html
Radio Repair Mechanics who worked at Ground Zero live with deep emotional scars. Co-workers of RRM Glenford Pennington were devastated by his death from cancer, which they attribute to his work at Ground Zero. Meanwhile, they cope with their own health problems related to their work at the 9/11 disaster site.
Pat Muñiz has been hospitalized three times for posttraumatic stress since he worked at Ground Zero.
A Vietnam War vet, Muñiz said the 9/11 blazes at the World Trade Center triggered a flashback of a 1971 missile attack that wiped out a small barracks near his quarters and killed 12 soldiers.
Muñiz worked three straight days at Ground Zero. Feeling awful and with his blood pressure high, on Sept. 14, 2001, he checked himself into the hospital where physicians concluded that his post-traumatic stress from his military days had recurred. He remained on sick leave until December.
Since 9/11, Muñiz visited a psychiatrist and took medication to ease the psychological trauma for three years. He also had two additional hospital stays.
Concerned about the side effects, Muñiz doesn’t regularly use medication for the post-traumatic stress anymore, although he is probably permanently scarred by Vietnam and 9/11. "Anything that reminds me of 9/11 affects me," he said. "I don’t even watch the news."
RRM Tom Mecir, a Local 1087 shop steward and a 12-year veteran of the Fire Dept., also worked at Ground Zero. He suffers from post-traumatic stress, sleep apnea, high blood pressure, an ear illness and the upper respiratory problems that affect the lungs of many who breathed the dust-laden fumes of 9/11. He uses an inhaler to increase his breathing capacity, which he said was 20 percent below normal.
Mecir said he was learning to cope with his illness. However, as the breadwinner of his family, Mecir’s principal worry is what would happen to his wife and 5-year-old daughter if he goes on disability or dies.
"We are the orphans of the Fire Department," said Mecir, hurt and resentful that nonuniformed employees are excluded from its 9/11 medical program. Another sore spot for civilian workers is that they didn’t get the service awards given to Firefighters and Emergency Medical Service employees. Pennington’s death warranted only a brief mention in the department’s newsletter.
"We are very dedicated to our jobs, but unfortunately there is a wall between the uniformed and civilian employees," said Radio Repair Mechanic Robert Moradfar, who was with Mecir on the day of the 2001 terrorist attacks.
"It is outrageous that our members weren’t included in the medical program, and it is unconscionable that the Fire Department has never really acknowledged their contribution to the disaster response," said Victor Emanuelson, president of Local 1087. A study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that about half of rescue and recovery workers showed signs of mental illness, including post-tra
What??
Someone in the Bush administration was lying???
I wonder who instructed them to do that ?????
Impeach
Convict
Hang
— Posted by hedd