A Fallen Hero - Video Inside [Archive] - Page 2

Gold9472

06-20-2007, 11:01 AM

9/11's Lingering Cloud
Medical Evidence, Political Pressure Keep Mounting, But Sick Ground Zero Responders Face Grim Future

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/19/national/main2951940.shtml

6/20/2007

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 other half."

Gold9472

06-20-2007, 11:04 AM

Bush aide defends handling of 9/11 air woes

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/am-wtchealth0620,0,7411505.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

The Associated Press
June 20, 2007, 10:04 AM EDT

WASHINGTON -- A top White House official on Wednesday defended the government's handling of post-Sept. 11 air contamination at ground zero.

"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," James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in prepared testimony to a Senate panel led by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton, D-N.Y., has sternly criticized the government for not doing enough to protect ground zero workers and lower Manhattan residents from the tons of toxic dust released by the collapse of the World Trade Center.

An internal government investigation found the Environmental Protection Agency offered public assurances in the days after the attacks without scientific data to back up those claims.

A report released to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee by the Government Accountability Office faulted the agency's post-disaster cleanup plan for surrounding buildings.

Next week, a House panel plans to challenge then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman on her statements and actions in September 2001.

Gold9472

06-20-2007, 11:05 AM

LIAR

Gold9472

06-20-2007, 02:31 PM

Senate Environment & Public Works subcmte. hearing on EPA's Response to 9-11

Click Here (rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/ter/ter062007_911final.rm) (realplayer)

"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," James Connaughton (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=81794&postcount=254), head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in prepared testimony to a Senate panel led by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Oh really James?

"two devastating memos (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=69013&postcount=65), written by the U.S. and local governments, show they knew. They knew the toxic soup created at Ground Zero was a deadly health hazard. Yet they sent workers into the pit and people back into their homes."

LIAR!

Gold9472

06-21-2007, 09:18 AM

Clinton condemns response to 9/11 dust

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-usheal215264105jun21,0,5456654.story?coll=ny-health-print

BY MARTIN C. EVANS
June 21, 2007

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday 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 yesterday 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.

Gold9472

06-21-2007, 12:57 PM

9/11 Responders Speak Out on Government Failure to Address Environmental, Health Impact of World Trade Center Collapse

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/21/1444218

Video
Click Here (http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2007/june/video/dnB20070621a.rm) (realplayer)

6/21/2007

Two 9/11 responders join us to talk about the government's neglect of the thousands of people who volunteered for the Ground Zero rescue and recovery effort. Trained emergency medical technician Regina Cervantes is featured in Michael Moore's latest documentary SiCKO and traveled to Cuba for medical treatment. Leading advocate John Feal is president of the FealGood Foundation that assists 9/11 responders who have been denied government benefits. [includes rush transcript - partial]

Almost six years after the attacks, 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. For 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? To find out, we are joined today by two 9/11 responders.

Regina Cervantes. Trained emergency medical technician. She rushed to Ground Zero on September 11th and suffers from respiratory illnesses. She is featured in Michael Moore's latest documentary SiCKO and traveled to Cuba for medical treatment.

John Feal. Leading advocate for 9/11 responders. He is the president of the FealGood Foundation that assists 9/11 responders who have been denied government benefits. He was a first responder at Ground Zero and suffers serious health consequences.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of debates, today we’ll look at healthcare.

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?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, to find out, we’re joined today by two 9/11 responders. John Feal was a demolition supervisor who was one of the many volunteers helping with the recovery operation at Ground Zero. After a week of working in the toxic ruins, his foot was crushed by an eight-ton steel beam. He soon began to suffer serious respiratory illnesses, but did not qualify for the 9/11 relief fund. John is one the leading and most passionate advocates for 9/11 first responders. He’s president of the FealGood Foundation that assists 9/11 responders who have been denied government benefits.

Regina Cervantes is a trained emergency medical technician. She rushed to Ground Zero on September 11, but suffered respiratory failure after three days. Regina and her two children all suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and moved to Oklahoma City. Regina is featured in Michael Moore's latest film SiCKO. Michael Moore took her to Cuba for medical treatment.

John Feal and Regina Cervantes join us now in Washington, D.C. Welcome to Democracy Now. Regina, let’s begin with you. Why are you in Washington?

REGINA CERVANTES: Well, we came to hopefully have an impact on the elected officials when they viewed the film last night and hoped to advocate for the more than 50,000 responders who are now sick as a result of the toxic contamination.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us what happened to you on September 11. Where were you? How did you end up at Ground Zero?

REGINA CERVANTES: I was transported by the New York Fire Department to Shea Stadium, where I organized the medical component of the staging, and then I was transported on the first team out of there down to Ground Zero. My very first task at Ground Zero was assisting to help put Father Mychal Judge in an ambulance to go to the morgue. I restaged triage, and I continued to treat rescue workers and injured people at the scene until after 9:00 that evening.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, Father Mychal Judge, the fire chaplain who died on September 11, extremely popular in New York. So, Reggie, what happened then?

REGINA CERVANTES: I went home, and I returned on the 13th and then on the 14th. And by the 14th, my airway was so burned I could barely speak. I sought medical care on that Saturday, and I’ve struggled ever since to catch my breath when I walk, and I have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, gastroesophageal reflux disease, chronic asthma, bronchitis, sinusitis, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Regina, what kind of protection did you get in those early days from either the Fire Department or other emergency officials on the scene?

REGINA CERVANTES: I received nothing. On the 13th, I received a hard hat on the pier on the West Side prior to going in. I had never owned a hard hat before. I had my jump bag, my gear from my home, when I left on the 11th, and I had a dust mask in there, and I wore that for a few hours earlier on 9/11, but other than that, when it was too wet from the moisture from breathing and too clogged on the other side from the dust, I had to discard it. And then it was just a matter of continuously inhaling and gasping. And when you opened your mouth, you ingested the dust and the smoke. So there was no -- nobody dispensed any equipment to us.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And once you got sick, what was the response among the fire officials?

REGINA CERVANTES: Well, as a volunteer emergency medical technician, I fell outside the realm of organized Fire Department or EMS. As a volunteer, you know, basically we’ve been on our own ever since. No help.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s turn to John Feal for a minute, John Feal, who heads the FealGood Foundation. Tell us where you were on September 11 and what happened afterwards, John.

JOHN FEAL: Well, Amy, I just want to say thank you to you and Juan for having us on the show. In the 9/11 community, as journalists, you guys are a step above the rest. We put you guys at a high level, because you and Juan have really done a great job, and we’re humbled to be here today.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I also want to just say it’s Juan who’s done really the leading work, the crusading work, for the New York Daily News --

JOHN FEAL: Yeah, he’s a phenomenal man.

AMY GOODMAN: -- and here on Democracy Now!, bringing attention well before these hearings, right after 9/11, to the basically lies that were being told about the safety of the environment at Ground Zero.

JOHN FEAL: I was -- to answer your question, I was up in Nanuet when the towers came down, and then the following day I went to Ground Zero. I got hurt on the 17th of September. I spent five days there, and I never once wore a mask, nor did anybody ever say, “Hey, John, put on this mask.” But every day I was there, I said somebody would get hurt, and it wound up being me. And it was an unsafe workplace.

And looking back now, although it altered my life -- and, listen, you know, eleven weeks in the hospital changes anybody's life -- but I don’t look negative about it anymore. I think about solutions and problem-solving and what we could do now to correct a problem that’s lingered for six years. But that starts at the top. And the lack of compassion in helping brave souls like Reggie and the thousands others -- I mean, unless you’re a fan of mass murder or genocide, you’ve got to correct this now, because this is becoming catastrophic.

We’re here in Washington today, and we were helping promote Michael Moore's movie SiCKO, and that’s Americans at large, but there’s also that small segment of 9/11 responders. And with power -- because we are in Washington, and this is where all the power is -- comes responsibility. And they’re not -- as elected officials, you’re elected to serve and protect. And I’m going to say 90% of our country’s leaders are not serving and protecting. And more and more 9/11 heroes are dying because of that.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, John Feal and Regina Cervantes, we’re going to break, but we’re going to come back. We’re also going to show that clip, where Michael Moore stands with the three 9/11 responders, including Reggie, as he tries to get into Guantanamo to get healthcare for the 9/11 first responders. Stay with us.

Gold9472

06-23-2007, 01:48 PM

Christie blasts Rudy on WTC air

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/06/23/2007-06-23_christie_blasts_rudy_on_wtc_air-1.html

BY ADAM NICHOLS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, June 23rd 2007, 10:25 AM

In an upcoming interview with WNBC-TV, former head of the EPA Christie Whitman says former Mayor Rudy Giuliani blocked her efforts to force WTC workers to wear respirators.

Former Environmental Protection Agency boss Christie Whitman says she urged Ground Zero workers to wear respirators, but then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani blocked her efforts.

She also said city officials didn't want EPA workers wearing haz-mat suits because they "didn't want this image of a city falling apart."

In an interview scheduled to run the day before Whitman testifies in front of Congress on Monday, she told WNBC-TV she warned the city of the risks almost every day.

And she said she believes illnesses killing first responders can be blamed on the city's lack of action.

"I'm not a scientist ... but I do [believe that]," she told WNBC's Brian Thompson.

"I mean, we wouldn't have been saying that the workers should wear respirators if ... we didn't think there might be health consequences."

She said the city had the responsibility to make sure workers wore respirators. But many took them off, complaining of heat. She said workers without respirators were barred from cleanup efforts at the Pentagon.

"We were certainly frustrated at not being able to get people to wear respirators because we thought that was critically important to workers on The Pile," Whitman said.

"Every day, there would be telephone calls, telephone meetings and meetings in person ... with the city when we repeated the message of the necessity of wearing respirators."

But her concern at the time only involved breathing air on The Pile.

Only seven days after the 9/11 attacks, as fires still raged at the site, she said, "I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C., that the air is safe to breathe."

Whitman also criticized Giuliani's handling of a suspected anthrax attack at NBC's Rockefeller Center headquarters weeks after 9/11.

"There was concern by the city that EPA workers not be seen in the haz-mat suits," she said. "They didn't want this image of a city falling apart. I said, 'Well, that's not acceptable.'"

Giuliani's former Deputy Mayor Joe Lhota rejected Whitman's claims.

"As the incident commander, F.D.N.Y.’s response was exemplary. They coordinated, conducted and affected a multi-agency response in a timely, safe and efficient fashion," Lhota said.

Despite initially refusing, Whitman agreed to testify about how her agency handled airquality issues at Ground Zero.

It will be the first time a top federal official will publicly respond to questions about the thousands of Ground Zero workers and lower Manhattan residents who believe they were sickened by toxins in the dust.

She will face Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan), who has already slammed her as a liar for calling the air quality safe.

"I don't think it's going to be any fun at all," she told Thompson. "[But] I'm tired of having to be on the defensive about something I think we did very well."

Gold9472

06-23-2007, 06:39 PM

9/11 workers from Moore film fear political attack

http://www.kten.com/Global/story.asp?S=6700972&nav=menu410_3

Associated Press - June 23, 2007 5:55 PM ET

NEW YORK (AP) - Three ground zero workers who accompanied filmmaker Michael Moore on a trip to Cuba for medical treatment featured in his new movie "Sicko" -- including one who now lives in Oklahoma -- are charging they are targets of the US government because of their participation.

Forty-6-year-old Reggie Cervantes, a Brooklyn-based EMT who lives in Oklahoma, was among the first responders performing triage on the street below the burning World Trade Center towers.

She now suffers from severe pulmonary diseases, as well as kidney and liver problems. She says workers' compensation and Social Security don't cover the medical tests she needs.

She has no regrets about her Cuban excursion, where she says she saw nine specialists.

Moore and the ailing 9/11 workers went to Cuba for treatment in March despite a US trade embargo restricting travel to the communist country.

The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control sent Moore a letter in May notifying him that he was under investigation for travel violations.

Gold9472

06-23-2007, 08:09 PM

Isn't it funny how now that Christie is about to be put in the spotlight regarding what she did to the people of New York and 9/11 First Responders she suddenly starts pointing fingers at people like Rudy Giuliani who she says, "blocked her efforts to force WTC workers to wear respirators."

I'm reminded of the family members' call for the declassification of documents. Specifically the CIA Inspector General's report. If Tenet is pushed like Christie, don't you think he would crack as well?

To think of all of those alleged members of the movement who don't think it's important to support the families. That it's too "LIHOP." Makes me sick.

Gold9472

06-24-2007, 05:32 PM

Former EPA Head Christine Whitman Talks About 9/11 Cleanup

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=71047

June 24, 2007

Former EPA head Christie Whitman is stirring up controversy with former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's camp over the way cleanup was handled at the World Trade Center site.

In an interview on WNBC, Whitman talked about criticism she's received over the years – that the EPA didn't require cleanup workers to wear respirators. She says workers were asked to wear them, but refused because it was hot, and the large equipment made communication difficult.

Whitman says in any case, only the city could have forced workers to wear the respirators.

"It wasn't nearly as clear who was in charge. The city is the primary responder,” said Whitman. “And then you have OSHA can't enforce – interestingly enough OSHA regulations can't be imposed on public servants and those were mostly, by the time you started the real clean-up, firefighters, emergency responders. EPA was not in charge of being able to enforce that."

But in an angry response, former members of the Giuliani administration say Whitman is practicing revisionist history.

They say Giuliani and his staff repeatedly told workers to wear their respirators. He also says city officials never blocked the EPA from making this a requirement and says Whitman never voiced any of these concerns at the time.

Gold9472

06-25-2007, 03:55 PM

Whitman defends Ground Zero statements

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/06/whitman_defends_ground_zero_st.html

by J. Scott Orr
Monday June 25, 2007, 1:54 PM

WASHINGTON - Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman relied on sound scientific data when she told residents of Lower Manhattan that the air around Ground Zero was safe to breath after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the former New Jersey governor told Congress this afternoon.

Testifying before a House Judiciary subcommittee, Whitman denied that the administration pressured her to present rosy air quality assessments, even though she knew the collapse of the twin towers after the attacks had released tons of hazardous chemicals into the air.

"I am disappointed at the misstatements, innuendo and outright falsehoods that have characterized the public discussion" over the EPA's post-9/11 behavior with regard to air quality assessment, Whitman said.

She defended the work of EPA and other federal agencies, saying they did everything possible to get accurate information to the public, even posting the results of air quality tests on a Web site.

"There are people to blame: They are the terrorists who attacked this nation," she said.

Recently Whitman has attempted to make a distinction between her statements regarding the smoldering rubble piles at Ground Zero and the residential neighborhoods nearby. Tests, she said, showed the air in the neighborhoods was relatively clean, but the air at Ground Zero was not and she lacked the power to force recovery workers to wear respirators.

"It is utterly false, then, for EPA critics to assert that I... set about to mislead New Yorkers or rescue workers," Whitman said.

But the committee's chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who represents Lower Manhattan, suggested the White House pushed Whitman and the EPA away from sounding alarms about the air quality.

He said the administration continues in its "desire to cover up its misstatements and misdeeds in the days after the attack."

"We have accumulated a mountain of evidence that tens of thousand of people are suffering" because of exposure to the pollutants. "The deaths of at least two individuals," Nadler said, "have been linked unquestionably to World Trade Center dust."

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) recounted some of Whitman's many statements about the safety of the air in Lower Manhattan: "Those quotes were dead wrong, they were literally 'dead' wrong," he said.

Weiner dismissed Whitman's recent statements that she urged city officials to provide workers with respirators: "It looks very honestly like what it is an unseemly attempt to rewrite the public record."

Tina Kreisher, the EPA communication director at the time now director of communications at the Department of the Interior, confirmed Whitman's statement that the agency relied on appropriate air quality tests in communicating with the public.

"As a political appointee, I was not, and others were not, scientists. We relied on the professionals to guide us through the testing procedures and processes. When we were told the tests showed air quality within normal range, we accepted those findings," Kreisher said.

She added that, while the White House Office of Environmental Quality did "edit" some of her press releases on the topic of air quality, none were rendered false.

"While editing changes were made based on recommendations by the Council on Environmental Quality, I believed those changes to be upsetting in some cases, but not false. I still believe that to be true," she said.

Whitman served as Bush's EPA administrator for about two-and-one-half years ending in 2003. During that time she was frequently at odds with the White House and came under harsh criticism from environmentalists who had hoped she would be a more potent protector of the environment.

She was sharply criticized by the federal judge in a lawsuit brought by residents of Lower Manhattan, who charged that her pronouncements that the air was safe needlessly exposed them to dangerous airborne pollutants. A federal appeals court judge ruled that Whitman is immune from suit over her post-9/11 remarks.

Gold9472

06-25-2007, 06:24 PM

Whitman on hot seat over 9/11 aftermath

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070625/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/attacks_health

By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer 57 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Ex-EPA chief Christie Whitman was bombarded by boos and a host of accusations Monday at a hearing into her assurances that it had been safe to breathe the air around the fallen World Trade Center.

The confrontation between the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency and her critics grew heated at times. Some members of the audience shouted in anger, only to be gaveled down by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who chaired the hearing.

For three hours Whitman faced charges from Nadler and others that the Environmental Protection Agency's public statements after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks gave people a false sense of safety.

Whitman maintained the government warned those working on the toxic debris pile to use respirators, while elsewhere in lower Manhattan the air was safe to the general public.

"There are indeed people to blame. They are the terrorists who attacked the United States, not the men and women at all levels of government who worked heroically to protect and defend this country," Whitman said.

Since the attacks, independent government reviews have faulted the EPA's handling of the immediate aftermath and the agency's long-term cleanup program for nearby buildings.

A study of more than 20,000 people by Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York concluded that, since the attacks, 70 percent of ground zero workers have suffered some sort of respiratory illness. A separate study released last month found that rescue workers and firefighters contracted sarcoidosis, a serious lung-scarring disease, at a rate more than five times as high as in the years before the attacks.

Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes the World Trade Center site, called the hearing after years of criticizing federal officials for what he says was a negligent and incomplete cleanup.

He said the Bush administration "has continued to make false, misleading and inaccurate statements and refused to take remedial actions, even in the face of overwhelming evidence."

Whitman called such allegations "misinformation, innuendo and downright falsehoods."

Her responses were mostly calm and deliberate. But under questioning from Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., Whitman angrily raised her voice, saying she based her statements on "what I was hearing from professionals," not the whims of politicians.

Whitman pointed out that her son was in the World Trade Center complex that day, "and I almost lost him," at which point Ellison said he would not "stand here and allow you to try to obfuscate."

"I'm not obfuscating," Whitman shot back. "I have been called a liar even in this room today."

She has long insisted that her statements that the "air is safe" were aimed at those living and working near ground zero, not those who actually toiled on the toxic pile that included asbestos.

"Was it wrong to try get the city back on its feet as quickly as possible in the safest way possible? Absolutely not," she said, drawing catcalls from the crowd.

Dozens of activists and Sept. 11 rescue workers came to the hearing, and some in the audience hissed when Whitman said she felt former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's administration "did absolutely everything in its power to do what was right" in handling the health concerns.

Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary subcommittee, said he worried that assigning blame to Whitman could mean, in future crises, that "officials might default to silence."

Gold9472

06-25-2007, 07:15 PM

Whitman Met by Boos and Catcalls as She Defends Post-9/11 Statements

http://www.nysun.com/article/57273?page_no=1

By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press
June 25, 2007 posted 6:16 pm EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) - Ex-EPA chief Christie Whitman was bombarded Monday with boos, hisses, and a host of accusations at a congressional hearing after making assurances it was safe to breathe the air around the ruined World Trade Center.

The confrontation between the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency and her fiercest critics grew heated at times, with members of the audience shouting out in anger, only to be gaveled down by the hearing chairman, Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York who represents lower Manhattan.

For three hours Ms. Whitman faced repeated charges from Nadler and others that the EPA's public statements in the wake of the attacks gave people a false sense of safety.

Ms. Whitman stuck to her long-held position that the government warned those working on the toxic debris pile to use respirators, while elsewhere in lower Manhattan the air was safe to the general public.

"There are indeed people to blame," Ms. Whitman said. "They are the terrorists who attacked the United States, not the men and women at all levels of government who worked heroically to protect and defend this country."

Mr. Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes the World Trade Center site, called the hearing after years of criticizing federal officials for what he says was a negligent and incomplete cleanup after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

He charged the Bush administration "has continued to make false, misleading and inaccurate statements, and refused to take remedial actions, even in the face of overwhelming evidence."

Ms. Whitman, the main focus of much of that criticism, called such allegations "misinformation, innuendo and downright falsehoods."

Her responses were for the most part calm and deliberate, but she answered with anger to questions from Representative Keith Ellison, Democrat of Michigan.

"These were not whims, these were not decisions by a politician. Everything I said was based on what I was hearing from professionals," said Ms. Whitman, her voice rising.

"My son was in Building 7, congressman, and I almost lost him," she said, at which point Mr. Ellison jumped in and said he would not "stand here and allow you to try to obfuscate."

Ms. Whitman shot back: "I'm not obfuscating. I have been called a liar even in this room today."

She has long insisted that her statements that the "air is safe" were aimed at those living and working near ground zero, not those who actually toiled on the toxic pile that included asbestos.

"Was it wrong to try get the city back on its feet as quickly as possible in the safest way possible? Absolutely not... We weren't going to let the terrorists win," she said, which led to catcalls from the crowd.

Dozens of activists and Sept. 11 rescue workers came to the hearing, and some in the audience hissed when Ms. Whitman defended Mayor Giuliani's handling of the health concerns.

"I think the city of New York did absolutely everything in its power to do what was right by the citizens of New York," Ms. Whitman said.

Representative Trent Franks, Republican of Arizona, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary subcommittee, said he worried that assigning blame to Ms. Whitman could frighten future leaders from giving public statements after another crisis.

"Officials might default to silence," Mr. Franks argued.

Those who believe they were sickened by Sept. 11-related contamination found little in Ms. Whitman's testimony to change their opinion of her.

"It's probably one of the best dancing performances I've seen in a long time," said retired NYPD narcotics detective John Walcott, who now has leukemia.

"We are stunned that she's sticking to her story," said community activist Kimberly Flynn."

Since the attacks, independent government reviews have faulted the EPA's handling of the immediate aftermath and the agency's long-term cleanup program for nearby buildings.

A study of more than 20,000 people by Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York concluded that since the attacks, 70 percent of ground zero workers have 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 as high as in the years before the attacks.

Gold9472

06-26-2007, 04:44 PM

House Judiciary Subcmte. Hearing on EPA Response to 9/11 Attacks

Click Here (rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/ter/ter062507_epa.rm) (real player)
6/25/2007: WASHINGTON, DC: 5 hr.

Christine Todd Whitman, former Environ. Protection Agency Admin., testifies about her agencies response to the 9/11 attacks. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), conducts a House Judiciary subcmte. investigation into due process violations by the EPA regarding air quality. Whitman directed the EPA from 2001–2003.

Gold9472

06-26-2007, 04:54 PM

Nadler Chairs First Comprehensive Hearing on Federal Environmental Response at WTC

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ny08_nadler/FedEnvironRespWTCWhitman062507.html

6/25/2007

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, today gaveled in the first comprehensive House hearing on the actions of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) and other federal agencies that may have harmed the health of individuals living and working in the vicinity of the World Trade Center on or after September 11, 2001. Congressman Nadler represents the district where the World Trade Center once stood.

"I sincerely hope today the truth telling begins," said Rep. Nadler. "Six years after 9/11, too many questions remain about who in the federal government was really responsible for key decisions about the handling of post-9/11 air quality. We owe it to the heroes and victims of 9/11 – especially those that have now become sick – to uncover what went wrong, and ensure that it never happens again."

At the hearing, Former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and other key governmental actors in the federal government's World Trade Center response were sworn in to give testimony. Ms. Whitman's appearance marks the first time she has testified at a Congressional hearing dedicated solely to the EPA’s response to the World Trade Center attacks in New York.

Today’s hearing is the companion to one held last Wednesday by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health which focused on the lack of a proper testing and cleaning program for indoor toxins. Together, these hearings mark the first comprehensive Congressional oversight investigations into these environmental matters since the immediate aftermath of the attacks.

"The Republican-led Congress was quick to use 9/11 to score political points, but grossly failed to investigate what went wrong in the days, weeks and months after the attacks," Rep. Nadler added. "Together with Senator Clinton, I hope to bring the truth to light."

Rep. Nadler’s full opening statement follows:OPENING STATEMENT OF U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JERROLD NADLER (NY-08)

Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

Hearing on "Substantive Due Process Violations Arising From the Environmental Protection Agency’s Handling of Air Quality Issues Following the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001"

June 25, 2007Today, the Subcommittee begins its investigation into possible substantive due process violations arising from the Environmental Protection Agency’s handling of air quality issues following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

I want to welcome our witnesses and thank them for their willingness to participate.

This hearing continues the work begun in a hearing chaired last week by New York’s Junior Senator, Hillary Clinton, which also looked at the federal government’s failures in responding to the environmental crisis that resulted from the World Trade Center attacks.

This hearing will examine whether the federal government, by its actions, violated the "substantive due process" rights of first responders, local residents, students and workers. Specifically "[d]id the federal government itself, by responding inadequately or improperly to the environmental impacts -- knowingly do bodily harm to its citizens, and thereby violate their constitutional rights? And, if so, which government actors were responsible?" We will look into what was known about the quality of the air versus what was communicated to the public, and whether federal government "risk communications" properly communicated necessary and legal precautions.

So, why are we asking these questions about events that happened nearly 6 years ago?

These hearings represent the first comprehensive Congressional oversight investigations into these matters since the immediate aftermath of the attacks. Indeed, Congress and the American people have heard very little on the record from the key players in this controversy.

Today marks the first time that former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman has testified at a Congressional hearing dedicated solely to the federal government’s response to the environmental and health dangers caused by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

The heroes and victims of 9/11, and the families and workers who continue to live with the consequences of that environmental disaster, deserve to know the truth; to hear from the officials who provided the assurances on air quality, and to learn why, and on what basis those assurances were made.

Finally, we must address the future. What can we learn from the government’s response? How will our government respond to future environmental disasters like this? The Administration seems to be headed in the wrong direction already. For example, they have now mandated that public health communications during a terrorist attack be "coordinated" through the Department of Homeland Security and they are developing standards for toxic cleanups in national emergencies that may be weaker than current federal standards.

I represent the site of the World Trade Center and the surrounding communities. The World Trade Center collapse propelled hundreds of tons of asbestos, nearly half a million pounds of lead, and untold amounts of glass fibers, steel and concrete into a massive cloud of toxic, caustic dust and smoke which blanketed parts of New York City and New Jersey, and was blown or dispersed into surrounding office buildings, schools, and residences. In addition, fires that burned for many months emitted particulate matter, various heavy metals, PCBs, VOCs, dioxin, benzene and other deadly substances.

Tens of thousands of my constituents and others from around the country who responded to the call have already begun to suffer severe illnesses as a result of this environmental disaster. I have, unfortunately, had to spend the better part of the last five plus years attempting to cajole the federal government into telling the truth about 9/11 air quality, insisting that there must be a full and proper cleanup of the environmental toxins remaining in apartments, workplaces, and schools that, to this day, are poisoning people, and demanding that the government provide long term, comprehensive health care to those already sick -- be they first responders or area residents, workers or school children.

In the six years since the attacks, we have accumulated a mountain of evidence that tens of thousands of those exposed are suffering from chronic respiratory disease, and, increasingly, a variety of rare cancers. The sick includes 10,000 firefighters. And, the deaths of at least two individuals -- James Zadroga and Felicia Dunn-Jones (whose family joins us today) have been linked unquestionably by government medical examiners to World Trade Center dust. Nonetheless, the federal government still refuses to respond appropriately.

End Part I

Gold9472

06-26-2007, 04:55 PM

The Administration continues to conceal and obfuscate its misstatements, its failure to follow applicable laws, and its failure to take standard protective actions in the days and weeks following the attacks. Even worse, the Administration still fails to act to protect the health of the community and our first responders. Whatever may have been known at the time, the evidence available today mandates action.

The Administration’s continuing lack of responsiveness stems directly, I believe, from a desire to cover up its misstatements and misdeeds in the early days after the attacks. The Administration has continued to provide false, misleading and inaccurate statements, and refused to take remedial actions, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, so that it would not have to admit that it failed to follow applicable laws and to utilize basic precautionary principles in the first place. It continues, to this day, to endanger the lives of American citizens, so it can deny that other White House concerns trumped its legal mandate to protect public health. That is why this hearing seeks to re-examine what happened back in those early days of September and October of 2001.

Following the attacks, Administrator Christine Todd Whitman repeatedly assured New Yorkers that the air was "safe to breathe." On September 14, 2001, the New York Times concluded from Administrator Whitman’s assurances that, "tests of air and the dust coating parts of Lower Manhattan appeared to support the official view expressed by. . .federal health and environmental officials: that health problems from pollution would not be one of the legacies of the attacks."

EPA’s Inspector General found that these statements were falsely reassuring, lacked a scientific basis, and were politically motivated. The IG said, "When the EPA made a[n] announcement that the air was ‘safe’ to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement." She called this EPA assurance, "incomplete in that it lacked necessary qualifications and thus was not supported by the data available at the time." She concluded that "EPA’s basic overriding message was that the public did not need to be concerned about airborne contaminants caused by the WTC collapse. This reassurance appeared to apply to both indoor and outdoor air."

I believe that the IG was quite generous here. In a March, 2002 "White Paper," I detailed how Administrator Whitman’s statements not only "lacked sufficient data" and "qualification," but how she also mischaracterized what data she did have, withheld critical data from the public, and ignored a wealth of information available at the time that directly contradicted those assurances.

The IG’s report described a process by which the White House, through the Council on Environmental Quality and the National Security Council, ". . . influenced . . . the information that EPA communicated to the public . . . when it convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones." It concluded that, "competing considerations, such as . . . the desire to open Wall Street, also played a role in EPA’s air quality statements."

Other observers have surmised that the cost of a proper government-financed cleanup of indoor spaces, given the scope of the potential contamination, and concerns about Manhattan real estate values, were other "competing considerations."

These EPA statements, and a series of subsequent EPA misdeeds, lulled Americans affected by 9/11 into a dangerously false sense of safety, and gave other government decision-makers, businesses and employers the cover to take extremely perilous short cuts which did further harm. After making those initial safety claims:

EPA continued to make materially misleading statements about air quality, long-term health effects, and EPA’s alleged lack of jurisdiction for remediating indoor contamination;

EPA illegally delegated its responsibility to clean indoor environments to New York City, which, in turn, dumped that responsibility onto individual home owners, tenants, and employers; and

EPA conducted two so-called "indoor cleanups" that the IG, EPA’s own scientific advisory panel, and, now, the Government Accountability Office, all found lacked a proper scientific basis and failed to ensure the proper de-contamination of tens of thousands of residences and workplaces.

The response of other federal agencies was similarly inadequate. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, for example, failed to enforce workplace safety regulations on the "pile" that it enforced at the Pentagon (where every worker was required to wear respirators and nobody has become sick). OSHA also allowed indoor workers to re-occupy workplaces that had not been properly tested and cleaned. FEMA refused to pay for testing and cleanup of indoor spaces, a cost that was much too prohibitive for most residents and small businesses. FEMA also denied payments to residents to stay elsewhere even when their homes were full of World Trade Center dust.

New York City and State government officials followed suit by allowing re-occupation of buildings (including schools) that not been properly tested and decontaminated, advising people to clean asbestos-containing dust in their homes and workplaces with a "wet mop and a wet rag" -- illegal and unsafe advice endorsed by EPA and posted on its website -- and failing to enforce local environmental codes for worker protection.

Based on EPA assurances, insurance companies refused to cover individual claims for proper indoor cleanups. And building owners and employers, citing the federal safety statements, did not properly test and clean the spaces for which they were ostensibly responsible.

Finally, hundreds of thousand of people, not wanting to imagine that their government could act with such reckless disregard for their welfare, believed the false assurances, and continued to work on the pile with inadequate Personal Protective Equipment and returned to their homes, schools and workplaces that had not been properly tested and cleaned -- and have still not been.

Six years later, we are just beginning to see the enormous consequences of these actions. Our government has knowingly exposed thousands of American citizens unnecessarily to deadly hazardous materials. And because it has never admitted the truth, Americans remain at grave risk to this day. Thousands of first-responders, residents, area workers and students are sick, and some are dead, and that toll will continue to grow until we get the truth and take appropriate action.

Those false statements continue to the present. Ms. Whitman herself has rationalized the White House’s soft-peddling of risk in EPA statements, proclaiming to Newsweek in 2003 that she did not object to the White House changing her press releases and that, "the public wasn’t harmed by the White House’s decision to adopt the more reassuring analysis." Even now, they try to rewrite history, arguing, for example, that their reassuring statements were "only talking about air on the ‘pile,’ not in the surrounding neighborhoods" or that they were "only talking about outdoor, not indoor air" or that they had "always told residents to get their homes professionally cleaned." The IG reached a different conclusion, and the statements speak for themselves. Governor Whitman has even gone so far as to blame the victims themselves for their illnesses.

Administrator Whitman has said, "There has never been a subsequent study that disproved what agency scientists told us all along." She omits to note that what agency scientists and others told her, was very, very different from what she communicated to the public. A September, 2003 statement of 19 EPA union local heads reads:

Little did the Civil Service expect that their professional work would be subverted by political pressure applied by the White House. . . .These workers reported to senior EPA officials their best estimate of the risks, and they expected those estimates and the accompanying recommendations for protective measures to be released in a timely manner to those who need the information. The public was not informed of all the health risks. . . .This information was withheld . . .under orders of the White House. The Bush White House had information released, drafted by political appointees, that it knew to contradict the scientific facts. It misinformed. And many rescue workers and citizens suffered. Some citizens now face the long-term risk of asbestos-related lung cancer as well as other debilitating respiratory ailments as a result.

I want to conclude with a pronouncement made by then-Administrator Whitman in September 2001. She declared then, "The President has said, ‘Spare no expense, do everything you need to do to make sure the people of this City. . . are safe as far as the environment is concerned.’"

It is my fervent hope that after some of the truth begins to come to light through these hearings; we will see that this promise, made to the victims and heroes of 9/11, is finally kept.

Thank you.

End

Gold9472

06-26-2007, 04:57 PM

Really good opening statement by Nadler. I have to give credit where credit is due.

Gold9472

06-26-2007, 05:36 PM

Gold9472

06-27-2007, 09:01 AM

Whitman: EPA Knew 9/11 Contamination Put Workers, Residents at Risk
News: At a House hearing, the former EPA head defends her decision not to warn the public; rescue worker says she should have "stood on the pile and told us how bad it was."

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2007/06/whitman_rescue_workers.html

By Brian Beutler, The Media Consortium
June 27, 2007

The "rules of the House of Representatives" prohibit audience members from hoisting signs and from disrupting proceedings with applause, anger, or any other kind of outburst. To judge from his admonition to the crowd at the end of his opening statement, it seems clear that Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chair of the judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights, and civil liberties, suspected that Monday's proceedings might inflame emotions.

He was correct.

The hall was filled to capacity, largely with people—firefighters, police officers, and others—whose efforts atop the rubble of the World Trade Center ultimately devastated their health. Four attendees sitting near the back of the room tried to hold up pictures of relatives who had succumbed to their illnesses, but the rules prohibited even that gesture. They had come to hear Christine Todd Whitman, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), explain to the committee why city employees and volunteers were allowed to work amid the devastation without respirators, and why area residents were welcomed back into Lower Manhattan when evidence strongly indicated that harmful toxins still lingered both in the air and in the piles of dust and debris that had blown into apartments and businesses away from ground zero.

For nearly an hour, not a single Republican Congressman was present at the hearing, which was finally joined by ranking member Trent Franks (Ariz.) and, later, by Rep. Steve King (Iowa). Franks blamed the low turnout on the hearing's odd timing—a Monday afternoon.

The committee's inquiries focused on two main issues. Members quizzed Whitman about the EPA's efforts to inform volunteers and the public about the environmental hazard in the vicinity of the disaster site. Scientists had determined—and had informed EPA officials—that the air quality on the debris pile was harmful, and that dust from the site contained dangerous levels of asbestos and other carcinogens. But those findings were not reflected in the statements Whitman and other officials made at the time; instead, they reassured residents that the air in the neighborhood was safe, and that dust could be cleaned with wet wipes and HEPA-filtered vacuums.

Those statements were vetted by the White House (through the National Security Council), whose explicit interest was to allow commerce and investment to continue in and around Wall Street. At the hearing, Whitman downplayed the significance of a call she had received from a Bush economic adviser who was seeking to reopen the stock market in short order. "We weren't going to let the terrorists win," she noted, prompting the second of several illicit uproars from the audience, despite Nadler's order. She reiterated her contention that the area outside the rubble pile—enclosed by a so-called "green line"—was safe for inhabitants.

In response, Rep. Nadler suggested that since the law requires asbestos to be disposed of professionally, and that since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had already concluded that dust in the area contained asbestos, implying that residents could safely dispose of that dust themselves might have been a "crime." Whitman ultimately did recommend the use of professional cleaners—in late October, a month and a half after the attacks.

The other point of contention concerned the workers themselves. Few of them were provided with the shoulder-borne respirators that would have protected them from asbestos, pulverized concrete and other contaminants.

John Henshaw, who headed OSHA at the time, testified that his office could not compel rescue workers in Manhattan to wear respirators because they were city employees—police officers and firefighters under the purview of Mayor Rudy Giuliani's office, which had not mandated respirators. According to experts at Mt. Sinai Medical Center, today nearly three-quarters of 9/11 first responders have contracted some kind of illness, usually respiratory and often chronic.

At one point, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) suggested that Whitman, who claims she knew how deadly the inhalants were, could have wrested control of the clean-up effort from the city and insisted that all workers use respirators, as was the standard at the Pentagon. Whitman struggled to address the point, suggesting that she wasn't then certain that she had a legal basis for such a drastic step. She added that she didn't believe the public would have accepted such an incursion from the federal government.

Outside the hearing room, I spoke with several members of the World Trade Center Rescuers Foundation; officers, firefighters, and EMTs who say they have been forced to retire by of debilitating illnesses caused by their work on the pile. None were impressed with Whitman's performance. Retired Lieutenant Bill Gleason of the New York Fire Department, thin and pale, told me he suffers from hyper-reactive airway disorder. He said he takes $7,000 worth of medication every month and has had seven surgeries—including on his sinuses, lungs, and appendix—since 2002. Detective Michael Valentine, who left the pile in early 2002 and was stationed in neighborhood precincts for three years thereafter, suffers from lymphatic tumors. Both men are under 50, and both claimed that, contrary to the testimony they'd just listened to, working with a full respirator would have been no trouble had they known just what was in the air. Valentine said he never saw an EPA representative during four months at the site, nor was he asked to take preventive measures.

"She blamed the victim," said Gleason. "If she had stood on the pile and told us how bad it was, she could have saved tens of thousands." Instead, Whitman—who emphasized at the hearing that in a war-like situation it was important "to speak with one voice"—toed the administration's, and Giuliani's, line. As a result, argued Suzanne Mattei, a former New York City Sierra Club executive present at the hearing, the EPA "encouraged people to ignore their own common sense. The air looked bad and smelled bad. Using common sense, many people would have guessed that the air was unsafe for themselves and their children. … The sad irony is that if the EPA had said nothing at all, the public would probably have been better off."

Gold9472

06-27-2007, 03:20 PM

Ground Zero victims: 'A little too late'

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-liair0626,0,940545.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

BY JASON DEL REY
jason.delrey@newsday.com
June 25, 2007, 8:44 PM EDT

Reggie Hilaire wasn't too interested in tuning in to watch ex-EPA chief Christie Whitman testify before a House panel Monday. Neither were John Feal or Chris Baumann. They said they'd heard it all before.

The three area residents all worked at or near Ground Zero in the days or months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and each of the men said they didn't expect to learn anything new from Whitman's testimony.

"I think it's a little too late in the game," Hilaire said. "When it happened, or just after, she should have stepped up and become a leader."

Hilaire, 36, a New York City cop from Briarwood, Queens, battled through thyroid cancer but now suffers from multiple myeloma.

Hilaire worked more than 800 hours on security details near Ground Zero and in recovery efforts at the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island in the year after 9/11. He wore a protective suit and respirator at the landfill, he said, but wore no protective equipment when he worked near Ground Zero and said he was never told to do so. He said he believes his illnesses were caused by his work.

Monday, at the congressional hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Whitman said the government instructed workers on the pile to use respirators.

Since Whitman's infamous comments that the "air is safe to breathe" on Sept. 18, 2001, she's insisted that she was referring to the air in surrounding areas -- not to conditions at the actual pile.

"She's playing with words," said Baumann, a retired NYPD traffic control officer from Lindenhurst. "The air quality down there was so bad to burn a couple of layers of my eye away. I cannot see how she, with any conscience at all, can say the air quality down there was fine."

Baumann, 44, said he was on the scene three minutes after a jet hit the North Tower and was partially blind for more than a year after the attacks. He said his lungs are scarred, there's a mass between them that doctors are monitoring and he has post-traumatic stress disorder.

Feal, 40, of Nesconset, briefly watched Whitman's testimony before becoming agitated by her "excuses." "There's not a word that comes out of her mouth that I believe," Feal said.

Feal was a demolition supervisor at Ground Zero from Sept. 12 to Sept. 17, 2001, when a steel beam fell on his left foot, and doctors had to amputate half of it, he said. He now runs the FeelGood Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group for 9/11 responders.

Gold9472

07-01-2007, 09:44 AM

Whitman stood up to panel bent on assessing 9/11 blame

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070701/OPINION/707010305/1030

BY CARL GOLDEN
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 07/1/07

Agree with her or not. Like her politics or despise them. But former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman deserves points for going before a congressional panel last week to answer questions about her role and that of the Environmental Protection Agency that she headed in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Whitman had to know she hadn't a friend in the room and that the hostile members of Congress were going to be pumped up by an audience stacked with people who were eager to continue to blame her for every health problem encountered since 9/11. Yet, she sat for three hours, answering questions and doing her utmost to fend off the snide comments and accusations that she had lied, failed and bore responsibility for the deteriorating health of hundreds of people who worked in or around the Trade Center rubble.

For most of the members of the panel, questioning Whitman was an opportunity they relished, even if it was nearly six years later.

First, they could be ferociously partisan while cloaking themselves in the self-righteous mantle of a quest for truth.

Second, it didn't require a high concentration of intellectual firepower to come up with questions about arguably the most cataclysmic event in American history.

Third, it was more high profile than the hearings or committee meetings any of them had ever been a part of.

To a person, their questions and accusations supported the belief that looking back and criticizing the actions of others in a crisis is far easier and more rewarding than looking forward toward finding answers and solutions.

After all, for some, their idea of a crisis is waiting an extra 10 minutes for a table in the congressional dining room at lunch hour, or getting a lousy tee time for a lobbyist-financed golf outing.

They were not at the center of a tragedy so immense it still sends shivers through one's body. None of them was called upon to make rapid and crucial decisions in the midst of unfathomable chaos. None of them was required to make judgments about whether additional and bloodier terrorist attacks were imminent. None of them was subjected to the mind-bending pressures of knowing that each decision could impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Whitman was part of an administration that was.

On Monday, committee members worked themselves into indignation overdrive, postured and played to the cheap seats by attacking her and claiming that she should be held singularly responsible for the illnesses and deaths that have befallen many of those who labored at Ground Zero.

It was an altogether pitiful performance, exposing some members of the panel as political hacks.

Whitman testified that her actions and comments with regard to the air quality in the immediate vicinity of Ground Zero were based on evidence and studies submitted by scientists whose expertise exceeded hers, not to mention the members of the committee.

Her accusers responded by citing medical studies demonstrating that serious respiratory ailments could be traced to the fouled air hanging over the rubble pile. If those studies are valid, the committee — and the public — would have been better served if the scientists advising Whitman had been called to justify their reports.

That wouldn't, however, have made for the kind of theater the committee obviously sought by calling Whitman and attempting to shift blame and responsibility to the Bush administration generally.

Whitman stood up under the congressional assault, responded with anger at some points and made clear that the decisions she reached and the actions she took relied on the best information available to her.

It is, of course, quite easy to look back six years later and argue that things could have and should have been done differently. But, that's what members of Congress are best at, particularly if they can put some cheap political points up on the scoreboard.

No one has suggested that every decision made in the hours and days immediately following the attacks was the best and correct one. Under the circumstances, that's an impossibility.

But, it's an insult to the memories of those who died on 9/11, to their families and to those who today suffer ill effects from the attacks to see members of Congress question as if the American government and some of its leaders undertook a deliberate and conscious effort to harm or kill its citizens.

No one — not President Bush, not Whitman, not members of Congress — is immune from being subjected to criticisms for their deeds. It is, however, the phony indignation, the snide comments, the feigned disbelief that undermine any claim to legitimate criticism.

Last week's hearing proved that.

Carl Golden, a Republican strategist and consultant, was director of communications for Gov. Christine Todd Whitman from 1994 to 1997.

Gold9472

07-01-2007, 09:45 AM

"it's an insult to the memories of those who died on 9/11, to their families and to those who today suffer ill effects from the attacks to see members of Congress question as if the American government and some of its leaders undertook a deliberate and conscious effort to harm or kill its citizens."

Where have we heard that before?

Gold9472

07-08-2007, 03:09 PM

Air of Truth

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/opinion/nyregionopinions/08CInadler.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

By JERROLD NADLER
Published: July 8, 2007

IN her recent testimony before the House subcommittee that I lead, Christie Whitman, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, played a shell game intended to create confusion about the federal government’s failure to protect rescue workers and others in New York after the World Trade Center towers fell on Sept. 11.

In the days after the attacks, the agency repeatedly gave blanket assurances about air quality. For example, Mrs. Whitman said on Sept. 18, 2001, that she was “glad to reassure the people of New York” that “their air is safe to breathe.” Such broad assurances contradicted government tests Mrs. Whitman had showing dangerous levels of asbestos both on the World Trade Center site — the so-called pile — and in surrounding neighborhoods. She now says that her statements referred to air quality in Lower Manhattan generally, not to air quality on the pile where rescue personnel were working.

But Mrs. Whitman’s very first post-9/11 press release, issued on Sept. 13, stated that “monitoring and sampling conducted” had been “very reassuring about potential exposure of rescue crews and the public to environmental contaminants.” If the heart of her defense is that she warned workers of the dangers on the pile and at the same time separately and responsibly reassured residents, this statement undermines both claims. Frankly, the idea that there was a distinction to be made — that the toxic air and dust from the pile was somehow blocked from the residential and commercial buildings across the street — strains credibility.

Most important, though, her falsely reassuring statements were made at a time when she could not be sure that anyone, on or off the pile, was safe. Her pronouncements contradicted the scant scientific data available. Indeed, 25 percent of the agency’s own dust samples showed asbestos levels even above the 1 percent threshold that the E.P.A. had arbitrarily set, and that was later debunked by the agency’s inspector general who said that no level of asbestos was safe. In addition to the E.P.A.’s testing, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection was showing that 70 percent of ambient air samples contained dangerous levels of asbestos. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Sept. 12 that very little was known about other deadly substances likely to be in the air and dust.

With more testing, it became clear the air was far from safe, but pressure from the White House kept that information from the public. A Sept. 14 draft of an E.P.A. press release referred to tests showing elevated asbestos levels and expressed concern for workers at the cleanup site and for employees who would be returning to their offices “on or near Water Street” on Sept. 17. The White House deleted that warning and replaced it with: “Our tests show that it is safe for New Yorkers to go back to work in New York’s financial district.”

For average New Yorkers living and working downtown, it was an outright lie; for rescue workers, it was a lie of omission. Mrs. Whitman testified that while the E.P.A. consulted with the White House on all press releases, neither she nor her top staff members knew who in the White House gave final approval for the changes.

In her testimony, Mrs. Whitman attempted to further confuse the public by making spurious distinctions like implying that high levels of asbestos in dust would have no effect on the safety of breathing the air. But the record is clear: in instance after instance following the attack on the World Trade Center, Mrs. Whitman gave irresponsible reassurances, either over the objections of scientists urging her to wait for more data or in contravention of clear evidence before her.

No wonder the E.P.A.’s own inspector general concluded that the agency’s early statements about air quality were falsely reassuring, lacked a scientific basis and were motivated by White House concerns other than public health — and that, as a result, people were unnecessarily exposed to deadly contaminants. To this day, according to the Government Accountability Office, the E.P.A. cannot reasonably conclude that a single building in Lower Manhattan is free of pollutants from the collapse of the towers.

We must ascertain why the federal government failed to protect the public and worsened a calamity. And we must provide for a proper inspection and cleanup of indoor spaces contaminated by the World Trade Center collapse and for long-term, comprehensive health care for the thousands of people who are already ill as a result of exposure to the pollutants.

Perhaps the most shocking data Mrs. Whitman selectively ignored when she testified was a 2006 Mount Sinai Hospital study that shows 70 percent of the first 9,000 workers examined reported some kind of respiratory problem after working on the pile. Thousands of people are suffering, at least in part, because of our government’s failures following 9/11, yet those responsible ignore the outcome just as they ignored the warnings.

And, just days after our hearing, the Government Accountability Office reported that the Environmental Protection Agency used the same playbook of lies about asbestos and air quality in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, four years after 9/11.

We can’t change history, but it is our government’s responsibility to admit mistakes and plan better for the future. Mrs. Whitman’s refusal to assume any culpability for error does nothing to ensure the same won’t happen again. Indeed, it may already have.

Gold9472

07-08-2007, 03:25 PM

Report: 9/11 Firefighters Battling Thyroid Cancer

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=71482

July 08, 2007

A staggering number of FDNY firefighters are now reportedly suffering from a cancer that may be linked to their work at the World Trade Center site.

The New York Post reports at least eight firefighters have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer over the past five years.

The paper says another five have had their thyroids either fully or partially removed because of abnormal cell growth that could lead to cancer. Attorney David Worby tells the paper that many of the firefighters were 9/11 first responders.

The National Cancer Institute says usually only four out of every 100,000 men get diagnosed with thyroid cancer. It is a more common form of cancer in women.

The Post cites the United Firefighters Association as saying at least 125 firefighters who worked at the site have contracted some type of cancer since the attacks.

Gold9472

07-09-2007, 04:39 PM

Doo Wop show for a great cause

http://www.queenscourier.com/articles/2007/07/06/news/news07.txt

http://images.townnews.com/queenscourier.com/content/articles/2007/07/06/news/news07_thumb.jpg

BY MICHELLE VARGA
Thursday, July 5, 2007 4:51 PM CDT

Want to hear Doo Wop artists that make you “FealGood,” and enjoy a concert designed to help many 9/11 First Responders and their families?

Friend Entertainment, Ltd., along with the FealGood Foundation, will be hosting a “Doo-Wop for the First Responders of 9/11” concert at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 21 at Queens College's Kupferberg Center for the Performing Arts/Colden Auditorium.

All of the profits from the show will go to foundations for the families of the First Responders of 9/11, said Norman Wasserman, creator of Friend Entertainment.

The concert will include performances by original Doo-Wop artists: Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge, The Duprees, Frankie Lymon's “Legendary” Teenagers, Jay Siegel and The Tokens, Vito Picone and The Elegants and Cleveland Still and The Dubs, according to Wasserman, who began the fund-raising organization 19 years ago.

Friend Entertainment organizes concerts for all kinds of events from New York to Las Vegas with mostly Doo-Wop and Motown acts, but this one, held at Queens College's Colden Center is a perfect venue because of its size and its “central location” to New Jersey, Manhattan and Long Island, Wasserman explained.

John Feal, creator of the FealGood Foundation, is the mastermind behind the First Responders Concert.

Feal was a construction worker who began demolition at the World Trade Center site on September 12. On September 17, an 8,000-pound steal beam fell on and crushed his left foot. He was hospitalized for 11 weeks and lost his foot.

“For a year, I was depressed and suicidal,” like many others who were injured at Ground Zero, Feal, explained. He tried to get worker's comp and appealed to the 9/11 relief fund, but he was turned down.

In 2003, he decided, “To stop feeling sorry for [him]self,” and devoted his life to making sure that 9/11 victims and their families received the care that they desperately need.

“It's time for people to help each other,” said Feal, who will also be donating a kidney to a man he met through his organization. “As a country, we took one on the chin and moved forward,” he explained, “but we cannot forget who we left behind.”

The FealGood Foundation, a non-profit organization Feal created to educate the public about the health effects of 9/11 First Responders, and gives 100 percent of their donations to First Responders to victims and their families, was born out of that determination to help others.

First Responders are anyone that was at Ground Zero, said Feal, “cops, firefighters, EMS, EMT, even civilians that were effected by 9/11 - we don't discriminate.

“This is no way for heroes to be treated,” he said of the men and women who worked tirelessly at Ground Zero - many even giving their lives.

Feal contacted Wasserman about the concert, he explained, as a way for the organization to “step it up a notch and make it bigger,” to help all who were affected. Along with other apparel, the foundation will also be selling limited edition Doo-Wop t-shirts on its web site, www.fealgoodfoundation.com (http://www.fealgoodfoundation.com).

“We're at 6 years, and its catastrophic now,” he explained of the problems 9/11 victims and their families deal with, and of the lack of help they receive. “Usually fundraising is a lot smaller,” he said about the organization. “We wanted to help on a bigger scale.”

Feal plans to hold another concert in December, and next year make them a more regular event.

The July 21 concert will be held at the Colden Auditorium of the Kupferberg Center for the Performing Arts at Queens College. Tickets are $40, $45 and $50 and can be purchased through the Colden Center box office at 718-793-8080, the FeelGood Foundation at 631-724-3320 or Friend Entertainment at 631-698-9696.

For more information, visit www.friendentertainment.com (http://www.friendentertainment.com) or www.fealgoodfoundation.com (http://www.fealgoodfoundation.com).

Gold9472

07-12-2007, 10:42 AM

Wield Your Mighty Pen for Us, Mr. President

http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/blog/2007/07/wield-your-mighty-pen-for-us-mr.html

By 9/11 first responder John Feal, founder of the FealGood Foundation

NEW YORK -- A pen in my hands could make some difference in the lives around me, and I work through the FealGood Foundation to make sure the documents I sign relieve some of the suffering of my fellow 9/11 responders. If I could, I would use my pen as you used yours last week. I would save my buddies.

In commuting the prison sentence of your friend Scooter, you said you believed the sentence imposed was too severe. Boy, can I relate.

When I look at the life sentences imposed on 9/11 responders suffering with acute illness, financial and emotional ruin and nearly six long years of neglect by their city, state and federal government leaders, I fill with rage and frustration. You've seen some of us in 'SiCKO,' so I know you are aware of our plight. My pen can only relieve tiny bits of their suffering. Yours could lift much more.

In an instant, Mr. President, you could use your mighty pen to affirm the faith you put in all of us in the hours, days, weeks and months after 9/11 to be what you called heroes and send a message to the world that Americans stand together in the face of threat.

With one stroke, you could issue and sign an executive order that would open clinic and hospital doors to 9/11 responders who are ill and without life-saving medical care.

Do you understand the betrayal of trust and confidence we feel? Just as Scooter took the hit for others in your circle of friends, my brothers and sisters took the dust and debris, the shock and the danger, the toxins and the smoke for everyone in America as we worked at ground zero so long ago.

We need you to feel for us – the folks you called out as heroes – the same passion and compassion that made you reach for your pen for Scooter. We need your help and we need it now. We have served a long sentence already. We have been punished for our actions on 9/11. We do not understand exactly what the crimes were in rushing in to help, nor do we understand how you can turn your back on us still. We were there with you. We believed what you told us. We trusted you with our lives.

So, Mr. President, won’t you please lift that pen again as you have done for Scooter Libby? The order could be simple, as a start:

“All 9/11 responders from this day forward shall be entitled to the care they need. A violation of this order will not be tolerated. These men and women are to be treated in every way as heroes, not unlike U.S. soldiers on the battlefield.” -- Signed...

A signature today would save lives. It would save dignity. It might even tell the world that you are a man of your word, and that a contract made with your nation’s heroes is not to be broken. Please use your pen today. Many lives depend on it.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but your signature on this action may well be worth more than a thousand lives. Stand aside, Scooter, your president has some more commutations to issue. And the 9/11 responders are finally first in line.

Gold9472

07-17-2007, 09:05 AM

Lawsuit Filed Against Company Overseeing 9/11 Insurance Fund
Sick Ground Zero Workers Want Their Money

http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=3794216&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

Created: Tuesday, 17 Jul 2007, 7:33 AM EDT

MYFOXNY.COM -- New York -- Ailing ground zero workers are going to court to demand that the company overseeing a $1B September Eleventh insurance fund spend the money to pay for their health care.

The workers have already filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the toxic dust from the World Trade Center site gave them serious, sometimes fatal diseases.

The latest action, expected to be filed today, seeks compensation from the company in charge of money appropriated by Congress to deal with September Eleventh health-related claims.

Attorneys for the workers argue that federal officials meant for the money in the WTC Captive Insurance Co. to be used as compensation for sick workers.

City officials have long said that the money must be first used to litigate claims before any are paid out.

Gold9472

07-17-2007, 09:06 AM

WTC INSURE 'WA$TE'
$1B FUND SQUANDERS CASH: SUIT

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07172007/news/regionalnews/wtc_insure_wate_regionalnews_susan_edelman.htm

By SUSAN EDELMAN

July 17, 2007 -- The $1 billion insurance fund set up for the World Trade Center cleanup has violated its congressional mandate to pay legitimate worker-injury claims and "squandered" millions on expenses, an explosive lawsuit is charging.

Controlled by Mayor Bloomberg, the WTC Captive Insurance Co. and its agents have "unethically profited" from the federal fund, draining money available for ill workers, alleges the suit, to be filed today in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The WTC insurance fund has spent close to $74 million on overhead and legal bills so far - but paid just $45,000 to one worker who fell off a ladder.

While letting the fund pay fat salaries and fees to its employees, consultants and lawyers, the mayor has wrongly exploited the unit to fight claims by thousands of workers with illnesses blamed on toxic exposure, the suit says.

"Congress gave Bloomberg a billion dollars to cover for the mistakes he and his predecessor, Mayor Giuliani, made in failing to protect tens of thousands of workers," lawyer David Worby said. "Now, adding insult to injury, he refuses to use the funds intended for that exact purpose - to help the sick and dying 9/11 heroes."

The suit will be filed by Worby Groner & Napoli Bern, a law firm already battling the city in a class-action negligence suit on behalf of nearly 10,000 ill WTC responders.

The plaintiffs in the new suit are former NYPD Detective John Walcott, who has leukemia, NYPD Detective Frank Maisano, who has severe lung disease, and Mary Bishop, a St. Vincent's Hospital worker with cancer, lung and digestive diseases.

"If it wasn't for the rescue workers and volunteers, our city would be in chaos," said Walcott, 42, whose daughter was an infant when he was diagnosed in 2003. "How can Mayor Bloomberg justify not releasing the funds Congress gave us when he could save lives and homes and families?"

Besides the fund and Bloomberg, the suit names the outfit's five-member board of directors - all appointed by Bloomberg - and Christine LaSala, the company's president and CEO.

LaSala rakes in a salary of $350,000 a year, plus $20,000 in health benefits.

Citing city records, the suit traces the firm back to its origin to prove its claim that Bloomberg has twisted its mission.

In May 2002, the city made a request to feds, saying "toxic chemicals emanating from the WTC debris site" made insurance "absolutely vital to protect the city and its contractors."

Congress appropriated $1 billion through FEMA.

Then-Gov. George Pataki pushed a bill to create the nonprofit firm to manage the fund. "This legislation is necessary for the city to expedite the payment of claims," Pataki and Giuliani said in a 2003 press release.

At a meeting in December 2004, minutes show, LaSala declared the firm's main purpose was to disburse the fund "in an equitable manner that maximizes compensation to those parties who suffered damages as a result of the WTC debris removal program."

Overall, the WTC fund has spent $73.8 million as of March 31, including $45.7 million on law firms, records show.

Much of the money has been poured into an ongoing court battle in which the city contends it has immunity from all WTC suits because it was responding to a terror attack.

Other expenses include $8.5 million paid to GAB Robbins, a risk-management firm, for "claims adjusting." But the firm has done little adjusting, the suit says - WTC Captive Insurance has refused to review the medical records of sick workers.

LaSala has said the firm has a "duty to defend" the city and its WTC contractors, and has "faithfully followed its mandate."

Gold9472

07-17-2007, 10:09 PM

Sick 9/11 Recovery Workers Take Lawsuit To State Supreme Court

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=71761

July 17, 2007

Workers who say the toxic air at the World Trade Center site made them sick took their claims to State Supreme Court Tuesday.

The lawsuit asks for money from a billion dollar federal fund to cover the workers' medical expenses.

The fund was set up four years ago and more than 10,000 workers attempted to collect money for their medical bills, but not one person has been reimbursed.

Lawyers representing the workers call the city's actions shameful.

"Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg knows that these men and women, thousands and thousands of them are suffering today from all kinds of respiratory problems, from cancers,” said Marc Burn, who is representing the Trade Center workers. “Many do not have the means to get medical treatment. Many people are looking and begging for medical treatment. With more than a billion dollars there Mayor Bloomberg has said, ‘no.’"

The mayor says that even though he supports the idea of coverage for 9/11 workers, the funds in question were set aside by Congress only to pay legal fees as a result of lawsuits against the city.

The money is controlled by the World Trade Center Captive Insurance Company.

The group is already part of a class action suit claiming the toxic environment is linked to a variety of disease and ailments.

Gold9472

07-18-2007, 01:15 PM

Health cost for ill 9-11 workers expected to soar: report

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/84291.html

7/18/2007

New York - The number of rescuers claiming illness from the 2001 collapse of the World Trade Centre towers is expected to increase to 65,000 in the next two years and deplete funds set aside for their medical care, the National Institute for Occupational Safety said Wednesday. The institute said health costs for the workers could soar to 20 million dollars a month by the end of 2007, up from the current 6 million dollars a month.

Currently the government provides health care to 37,000 ill workers, including firefighters and police officers, all of them involved in the frantic rescue operations when the 110-storey twin towers collapsed from the terrorist attacks nearly six years ago.

The institute said nearly 500 workers have been signing up each month since 2004 for programmes to monitor and treat their illnesses, mostly respiratory conditions, asthma and stress-related mental problems.

Documents from the institute show that the average annual health cost for each ill worker is expected to increase from 8,000 dollars today to 10,500 dollars in two years. The total health cost for 65,000 projected ill workers would be more than 700 million dollars a year.

The increasing health cost related to the September 11, 2001 destruction of the World Trade Centre has brought lawsuits against New York, which had received a 1-billion-dollar WTC Captive Insurance programme from Washington, under the control of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

News reports said this week that a law firm, which is already representing nearly 10,000 rescue workers, filed a lawsuit against Bloomberg, alleging that he failed to provide healthcare services to those who fell ill.

The law firm Worby Groner & Napoli Bern filed the lawsuit on behalf of two New York police officers and a hospital worker. One officer developed leukemia, the other has severe lung disease and the hospital worker has cancer, lung and digestive diseases.

The suit claims Bloomberg and the insurance company "unethically profited" from the federal fund and withheld money for ill workers.

New York's medical examiner last month admitted for the first time since 2001 that at least two police officers had died of respiratory problems after guarding ground zero in the months after the terrorist attacks.

Gold9472

07-19-2007, 01:05 PM

First 9/11 Heal Figures Released

http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/82433

WNYC Newsroom

NEW YORK, NY July 18, 2007 —The federal office in charge of 9/11 health problems has released its first-ever figures on how many people are ill, how much their treatments are costing -- and what that might mean in the future.

REPORTER: The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health says some 37000 rescue and cleanup workers are being monitored and treated, for $200 million a year. But it warned those numbers could balloon over time. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney says NIOSH is overlooking the health problems of residents.

MALONEY: Who you were on 9/11, what hat you were wearing, shouldn't matter, if you were exposed to the toxins you should get the care you need.

REPORTER: While NIOSH says current treatment costs are 200 million dollars a year, Congress has appropriated about 100 million dollars for this fiscal year.

Gold9472

07-24-2007, 07:30 PM

9/11 Health Programs Faulted

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4994815.html

By DEVLIN BARRETT Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press
7/24/2007

WASHINGTON — Federal efforts to coordinate health care programs for sick ground zero workers have been hampered by shaky cost estimates and unsteady spending to keep the programs running, a new report has found.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, on Tuesday released the results of its fifth study of 9/11 health programs, concluding that five years after the attacks the government still doesn't have a consistent set of programs _ or a good sense of what ground zero illnesses will cost.

The agency overseeing 9/11 health issues, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, "does not have a reliable cost estimate of serving responders," the 40-page GAO report found.

NIOSH's estimate of $230 million to $283 million a year "included potential costs for certain program changes that may not be implemented, and in the absence of actual treatment cost data, they relied on questionable assumptions," the investigators said, adding that it is unclear if the true cost will be higher or lower.

Others, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have put the figure at around $400 million a year.

The estimates vary widely based on assumptions about how many workers will join or remain in the program, and how often they receive check-ups or treatment for their exposure to the toxic rubble of the fallen World Trade Center.

GAO also determined "NIOSH has not ensured the availability of screening and monitoring services for nonfederal responders" who live outside the New York City area.

While the government has worked with a national network of occupational health clinics, such work has proceeded in fits and starts as congressional funding dried up, or the work was given to a new private contractor.

The GAO review was requested by New York Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Vito Fossella as well as Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays. The lawmakers have been pushing for a greater federal commitment to treating sick 9/11 workers.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which includes NIOSH, responded to the findings in writing, saying that they are working to improve cost estimates but that such figures are "unquestionably imprecise."

The agency also asserted that roughly 60 percent of nationwide, non-federal workers who were at ground zero have been screened, though the GAO investigators said there is no way to verify such a figure.

According to New York City officials, some 400,000 were exposed to ground zero dust, and 71,000 have enrolled in a long-term health monitoring program for people with and without health problems. Most experts believe the number of people still sick years after ground zero exposure is in the thousands.

Gold9472

07-25-2007, 08:34 AM

$$ JUMBLE PLAGUING 9/11 AID

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07252007/news/nationalnews/_jumble_plaguing__9_11_aid_nationalnews_.htm

July 25, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - Federal efforts to coordinate health-care programs for sick Ground Zero workers have been hampered by shaky cost estimates and unsteady spending to keep the programs running, a new report has found.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, yesterday released the results of its fifth study of 9/11 health programs, concluding that nearly six years after the attacks, the government still doesn't have a consistent set of programs - or a good sense of what Ground Zero illnesses will cost.

The agency overseeing 9/11 health issues, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, "does not have a reliable cost estimate of serving responders," the 40-page GAO report found.

NIOSH's estimate of $230 million to $283 million a year "included potential costs for certain program changes that may not be implemented, and in the absence of actual treatment-cost data, they relied on questionable assumptions," the investigators said, adding that it is unclear if the true cost will be higher or lower.

The estimates vary widely based on assumptions about how many workers will join or remain in the program, and how often they receive checkups or treatment for their exposure to the toxic rubble of the fallen World Trade Center.

Gold9472

07-26-2007, 08:34 AM

Dog Who Searched For WTC Survivors Dies

http://img.viacomlocalnetworks.com/images_sizedimage_207024537/lg

http://wjz.com/topstories/topstories_story_207010324.html

7/26/2007

(AP) NEW YORK A black Labrador who became a national canine hero after burrowing through white-hot, smoking debris in search of survivors at the World Trade Center site died Wednesday after a battle with cancer.

Owner Mary Flood had Jake put to sleep Wednesday after a last stroll through the fields and a dip in the creek near their home in Oakley, Utah. He was in too much pain at the end, shaking with a 105-degree fever as he lay on the lawn.

No one can say whether the dog would have gotten sick if he hadn't been exposed to the smoky air at ground zero, but cancer in dogs Jake's age — he was 12 — is quite common.

Some rescue dog owners who worked at the World Trade Center site claim their animals have died because of their work at ground zero. But scientists who have spent years studying the health of Sept. 11 search-and-rescue have found no sign of major illness in the animals.

The results of an autopsy on Jake's cancer-riddled body will be part of a University of Pennsylvania medical study of Sept. 11 search-and-rescue dogs.

Flood had adopted Jake as a 10-month-old disabled puppy — abandoned on a street with a broken leg and a dislocated hip.

"But against all odds he became a world-class rescue dog," said Flood, a member of Utah Task Force 1, one of eight federal search-and-rescue teams that desperately looked for human remains at ground zero.

Anguished New Yorkers honored the dogs.

On the evening of his team's arrival, Jake walked into a fancy Manhattan restaurant wearing his search-and-rescue vest and was promptly treated to a free steak dinner under a table.

Flood eventually trained Jake to become one of fewer than 200 U.S. government-certified rescue dogs — a muscular animal on 24-hour call to tackle disasters such as building collapses, earthquakes, hurricanes and avalanches.

After Hurricane Katrina, Flood and Jake drove 30 hours from Utah to Mississippi, where they searched through the rubble of flooded homes in search of survivors.

In recent years, Jake helped train younger dogs and their handlers across the country. Jake showed other dogs how to track scents, even in the snow, and how to look up if the scent was in a tree.

He also did therapy work with children at a Utah camp for burn victims and at senior homes and hospitals.

"He was a great morale booster wherever he went," says Flood. "He believed that his cup was always full, never half-full. He was always ready to work, eager to play — and a master at helping himself to any unattended food items."

Cynthia Otto of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine, who is researching the health of Sept. 11 dogs, expects Jake and the other animals being analyzed will serve as sentinels on possible long-term consequences stemming from 9/11.

Jake's ashes will be scattered "in places that were important to him," says Flood, like his Utah training grounds, the rivers and hills near home where he swam and roamed.

Gold9472

07-27-2007, 07:32 AM

Ground Zero Photojournalists Confront Health Concerns

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003617398&imw=Y

By Daryl Lang
July 26, 2007

The New York Press Photographers Association is asking members of the media to come forward if they are suffering from long-term health effects of covering the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

David Handschuh, the NYPPA intergovernmental affairs chair and a photographer for the New York Daily News, says he has heard from about a dozen 9/11 media workers who are experiencing health problems. Handschuh, who was hit by debris and suffered a broken leg while covering the attack, said he is among those now experiencing breathing problems.

Much attention has been devoted to public safety workers who suffer from breathing problems and other health issues years after inhaling dust while working near Ground Zero. The plight of these rescuers features prominently in the Michael Moore film "Sicko."

New York state recently extended the deadline for rescue and recovery workers, including volunteers, to apply for workers compensation benefits. The new deadline is August 14, 2008.

The NYPPA supports the benefits for public safety workers and is lobbying the state to extend the same benefits to media personnel, including freelancers.

"As journalists every day we go out and fight for the underdog. In this case we're the underdog and need to go out and fight for ourselves," Handschuh says.

As part of the effort, Handschuh invites those effected to contact him at H2Photo@Optonline.net or by phone at 212-210-2344. Handschuh also encourages media personnel to file a WTC-12 form with the state seeking benefits, even though it is likely to be rejected. Additional information is available on the NYPPA Web site.

Gold9472

08-03-2007, 07:51 PM

Specter, Leahy question use of 9/11 fund money, consider hearing

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--attacks-health0803aug03,0,7658657.story

By KIMBERLY HEFLING | Associated Press Writer
6:35 PM EDT, August 3, 2007

WASHINGTON - Two senators want to know why a $1 billion Sept. 11 insurance fund appropriated by Congress to help ailing ground zero workers has not been used to compensate those exposed to harmful substances.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the committee's ranking Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said in a letter to the company overseeing federal money appropriated for Sept. 11 health-related claims, that they are considering convening a hearing in September.

"Reports that the World Trade Center Captive Insurance Co. has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on salaries on administrators and over $45 million to private law firms are troubling," the letter said.

The two also said they have concerns about the $74 million that reportedly has been spent on overhead costs and legal bills. The letter, dated Wednesday, was addressed to Christine LaSala, CEO of WTC Captive Insurance Co.

Michael A. Cardozo, New York City's corporation counsel, said in a statement that Captive Insurance Company is an insurance company, not a compensation fund. He said the city has urged Congress to create a compensation fund for injured workers.

"Instead, Congress created an insurance company, and the Captive Insurance Company is obligated to defend all claims that have a reasonable and valid defense," Cardozo said. "We would strongly welcome Congress, as we have repeatedly urged, to allocate funds for compensation without the need for litigation."

WTC Captive issued a statement saying it would respond to the letter once it is received. It says it has fulfilled its mandate, which is to insure the ground zero workers against claims arising from their work.

Last month, attorneys representing thousands who became ill after working to clean up the site while breathing toxic trade center dust went to court to demand the insurance company spend money on their health care.

Gold9472

08-10-2007, 08:04 AM

RUDY'S 9/11 TOXIC SHOCK

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08102007/news/nationalnews/rudys_9_11_toxic_shock_nationalnews_carl_campanile .htm

By CARL CAMPANILE

August 10, 2007 -- Rudy Giuliani claimed yesterday he was at Ground Zero "as often, if not more" as rescue and recovery workers - and exposed to the same health risks.

"This is not a mayor or a governor or a president who's sitting in an ivory tower. I was at Ground Zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers," he said while campaigning in Cincinnati.

"So, in that sense, I'm one of them," he added.

The statements enraged victims' families and responders who became ill after being exposes to toxins at Ground Zero.

"That's insulting and disgraceful. He's a liar," said Fire Capt. James Riches, whose firefighter son, James Jr., died on 9/11.

"I was down there on my hands and knees looking for my son. [Giuliani is] living in a dreamland," said Riches, part of a fire officers association opposing Giuliani.

Gold9472

08-10-2007, 08:04 AM

9/11 workers outraged by new Rudy claim

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/08/10/2007-08-10_911_workers_outraged_by_new_rudy_claim.html

BY CELESTE KATZ
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, August 10th 2007, 4:00 AM

Rudy Giuliani drew outrage and indignation from Sept. 11 first-responders yesterday by saying he spent as much time - or more - exposed to the site's dangers as workers who dug through the debris for the missing and the dead.

Speaking to reporters at a Cincinnati Reds ballgame he caught between fund-raisers, the GOP front-runner said he helped 9/11 families and defended himself against critics of how he managed the attack's aftermath.

"This is not a mayor or a governor or a President who's sitting in an ivory tower," Giuliani said. "I was at Ground Zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them."

His statement rang false to Queens paramedic Marvin Bethea, who said he suffered a stroke, posttraumatic stress disorder and breathing problems after responding to the attacks.

"I personally find that very, very insulting," he said.

"Standing there doing a photo-op and telling the men, 'You're doing a good job,' I don't consider that to be working," said Bethea, 47.

Ironworker Jonathan Sferazo, 52, who said he spent a month at the site and is now disabled, runs a worker advocacy group with Bethea and called Giuliani's comments "severely" out of line.

"He's not one of us. He never has been and he never will be. He never served in a capacity where he was a responder," Sferazo said.

In the aftermath of the attacks, admirers dubbed Giuliani "America's Mayor," praising his leadership in the face of an unprecedented disaster. Detractors, including the International Association of Fire Fighters, which put out a scathing 13-minute video on his performance, suggested he profited politically and financially from the attacks.

"[Giuliani] is self-absorbed, arrogant and deluded," said IAFF spokesman Jeff Zack.

Responded Giuliani spokesman Michael McKeon, "Americans saw Rudy's performance for themselves during the aftermath of 9/11 and will dismiss this as the ridiculous and partisan rantings of a Democratic front group, because that's what they are."

Giuliani backer Lee Ielpi, a retired firefighter who lost his son, said no one's saying Giuliani dug through the rubble personally, but that doesn't mean he wasn't exposed to toxins.

"For me to say I saw him every day [would] not be fair," said Ielpi, who participated in the recovery effort for nine months. "But I can say I did see the mayor there a large number of times, [trying] to be as helpful and supportive as possible."

AuGmENTor

08-10-2007, 08:17 AM

I will be going straight to jail if I ever cross paths with that motherfucker. What a horrid claim to make.

Gold9472

08-10-2007, 02:30 PM

Open Letter from 9/11 Rescue Worker to Rudy Giuliani

http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=903

8/10/2007

Dear Rudy,

My name is John Feal. I am a 9/11 responder who was horribly injured at Ground Zero during the clean and recovery. I spent 11 weeks in the hospital fighting for my life and lost half of my left foot. But please do not feel sorry for me.

Yesterday in Ohio you praised yourself a hero and compared yourself to the real heroes of 9/11. You say you were there longer then most 9/11 responders -- that sir is an insult to the 9/11 community.

The thousands of responders including the three in Michael Moore's movie SICKO got sick on your watch. And while you paraded around being hailed a hero, the real heroes of 9/11 got sicker and many have died. Regina Cervantes, Billy Maher, and John Graham are heroes -- they are my heroes -- and they were forced by our government's neglect and denial to seek help elsewhere. So what if it was Cuba? If your wife or son was sick, and you were told the only place to get your loved one help was in Cuba, I believe sir you would not hesitate. So whether it is Cuba, Russia, China, Mars, Venus... help is help. And the problem is not where they got help, but that our great country and federal government failed them. You failed the real heroes of 9/11, and the great people of New York and now you want to run this country.

Attacking Michael Moore and the 9/11 responders is not the way for any self-proclaimed hero to act. Mr. Moore has helped these responders, has helped dozens more and is continuing to help these brave souls while elected officials sit idle and let heroes die.

I implore you, Rudy Giuliani, to meet these three wonderful human beings. I implore you, Rudy Giuliani, to step up to the plate and grow a set of Abe Lincolns and help all 9/11 responders who got sick on your watch. Many more will die if our great nation and not-so-great leaders continue to leave great New Yorkers and Americans without care. Shame on you sir for being a poseur and trying to capitalize on your mistakes while thousands of true heroes get sicker.

In closing, sir, I wish you great health and happiness, but not success in your presidential campaign unless you do what is morally right and start helping 9/11 heroes. If you couldn't help the people of our great city, then how in Sam Hill are you going to help the people of this country?

Sincerely & God Bless,
John Feal
9/11 responder/advocate/founder of the Fealgood Foundation

AuGmENTor

08-10-2007, 02:43 PM

Awsome letter John. I'm glad there are people like you in this world.

Gold9472

08-12-2007, 10:03 AM

WTC INSURE FUND MAKES A TOXIC $350M 'BLUNDER'

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08122007/news/regionalnews/wtc_insure_fund_makes_a_toxic_350m_blunder_regiona lnews_susan_edelman.htm

By SUSAN EDELMAN

August 12, 2007 -- The city-run $1 billion fund for claims by sick 9/11 responders has "screwed up" by failing to lock up at least $350 million in coverage, lawyers charge.

The WTC Captive Insurance Co., run by the Bloomberg administration, failed to promptly notify insurers for the city's Ground Zero contractors that they could be on the hook for claims, the lawyers allege.

Dozens of those insurers now say notice came too late for them to honor policies for millions of dollars in coverage for injured workers.

The city may have now blown its chance to collect some $350 million in primary coverage for 9/11 workers with respiratory illness, cancer and other diseases from toxic exposure.

"Their failure jeopardizes the ability to get the full compensation available for these heroes," said Paul Napoli, a lawyer for 10,000 cops, firefighters and other workers.

"What a screw-up," said Napoli. "It's a major goof."

Napoli has written to attorneys for the Captive, which manages $1 billion in 9/11 aid funded by Congress, threatening to sue them for malpractice.

"We believe that both you and the Captive . . . are potentially liable for the amount of lost coverage," Napoli wrote. The Captive lawyers should have coordinated the notification of all insurance companies, he said.

Many of those companies say they got first notice only recently - some as late as last month - years after the first lawsuits were filed.

James Tyrrell, of Patton Boggs, a law firm that has collected millions in fees from the federal fund, denied any missteps.

In a statement to The Post, Tyrrell said that while his firm defends the contractors, it has no responsibility to notify their insurance companies.

But David Worby, a lawyer for the workers, charged Tyrrell is not doing his job: "His responsibility is to get as much insurance coverage as possible and to compensate the victims."

The Captive recently sued several insurance giants, including Liberty Mutual and Lloyd's of London, for refusing to honor policies or to pay to defend more than 8,000 suits, forcing the Captive to spend millions more in taxpayer funds.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and ranking member Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), have threatened to hold hearings on the Captive.

Gold9472

08-14-2007, 06:59 AM

Deadline extended for claims by 9/11 responders

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070814/NEWS01/708140380/1006/NEWS01

By MICHAEL RISPOLI
Gannett State Bureau
Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Thousands of police officers, firefighters, construction workers and volunteers who responded to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City have been given another year to register for federally funded worker's compensation benefits.

Responders who aided in the rescue, recovery and cleanup efforts now have until Aug. 14, 2008, to register with the New York State Workers' Compensation Board to maintain eligibility for the federally funded benefits. Although an estimated 100,000 responded to the disaster, only 19,000 or so have registered.

The deadline was originally today, but it was extended last month by New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. State residency of responders does not matter when applying.

New Jersey Labor and Workforce Development Commissioner David Socolow said people who participated in the efforts should register immediately, even if they currently show no signs of injury or illness.

"People may feel, "I'm not sick, there's no need for me to do this.' We would say for your family, for your own sake, get registered now when you're not sick, so that if in the future you need to apply, you've got that out of the way," said Socolow.

For those who are qualified, the program provides up to full cost of medical care for related injuries or illness and can pay two-thirds of a worker's weekly wage, up to $400 per week. Registering reserves a worker's right to file for an illness or injury at a later date and documents their participation in the response.

Workers and volunteers who worked during the year after the 9/11 attacks anywhere in Manhattan south of Canal or Pike Streets, on the barge operation between Lower Manhattan and Staten Island, at the Staten Island Fresh Kills Landfill or at the New York City morgue or temporary morgue sites are eligible.

Gold9472

08-15-2007, 02:57 PM

9/11 Health Worries Follow Giuliani

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070815/D8R1JJD80.html

By DEVLIN BARRETT
Aug 15, 1:35 PM (ET)

WASHINGTON (AP) - Rudy Giuliani's experience on Sept. 11 and at ground zero propelled him into presidential politics, yet by his own admission, it may also weaken his health - a key issue for any candidate seeking the White House.

Just last week, Giuliani was criticized by some firefighter unions for suggesting he was at ground zero as much, if not more, than many rescue workers and exposed to the same health risks. He quickly backed off that statement, saying he misspoke.

"I empathize with them, because I feel like I have that same risk," said Giuliani, who was at the World Trade Center almost immediately on Sept. 11, 2001, and was onsite many times a day after that.

That assertion - made repeatedly by the former mayor over the years - could pose a different challenge in his quest for the White House, by suggesting he may not stay healthy through a presidential term that would begin in 2009.

Giuliani, a 63-year-old cancer survivor, clearly wonders about his long-term health and that of his close aides who worked with him on Sept. 11, 2001 and after.

"I'm sure that some of these people are going to have symptoms, and maybe it's not now. They're going to have them five years from now or 10 years from now," Giuliani said last year on the fifth anniversary of the attacks.

Dr. Joan Reibman, who heads a city-funded program at Bellevue Hospital in New York to study the health effects of ground zero exposure, said she had no knowledge of Giuliani's health history or exposure, but that given his public presence at the site, he should probably be enrolled in the health monitoring program for ground zero workers and lower Manhattan residents.

"I think he would have fit the criteria," said Reibman.

Asked about his health, Giuliani said in a statement that he is not enrolled in one of the 9/11 related health program but does get regular medical checkups.

"Today, I am fortunate that my health remains excellent, but I will continue to get regular checkups as I urge everyone to do," he said, and repeated a pledge to work for ground zero workers if elected president.

"No one will be a stronger supporter for those brave men and woman in the White House than me. They need and deserve our full support," said Giuliani.

Reibman, the ground zero doctor, said some trends have emerged among ground zero workers and nearby residents, but that much remains a mystery.

"I suspect that if one didn't have respiratory illnesses that one probably won't develop them now," said Reibman. "But what about late emergent diseases? I don't think we have the answer to that. I think it's very important to monitor for those. There's a lot we still don't know."

A major study by Mount Sinai Medical Center last year found 70 percent of ground zero workers suffered some form of lung problems - and experts there predicted thousands will either remain sick or get sick in coming years.

Those statistics have already struck close to home for Giuliani: two deputy mayors were made sick by ground zero exposure, one so severely that he now receives workers compensation health benefits.

Reibman said a number of factors determine whether the toxic soup at the World Trade Center site would make an individual sick: the specific contaminants around a person, the length of exposure, the intensity of the exposure, the amount of protective breathing apparatus worn by the individual, and an individual's pre-existing susceptibility to disease.

"The amount of exposure is going to differ within the recovery and rescue workers, with residents, and with the people who worked downtown," said Reibman.

For Giuliani, talking about his potential for future illness carries some political risks.

"For a presidential candidate to say that he might be sick is obviously a mixed message," said Steven Cohen, a public affairs professor at Columbia University.

"We want our presidential candidates to be healthy for at least eight more years, if not longer," said Cohen.

Cohen argued that Giuliani's rhetoric has wandered from the original source of his Sept. 11-related popularity.

"After 9/11 it really wasn't his work at the pit or anything that was the main positive aspect of his leadership, but the fact that he gave people confidence that they could resume normal life. That was unambiguous leadership at a time when it was really needed."

Even that opinion is challenged by Giuliani's critics within the New York fire and police departments, some of whom never forgave him for pushing an ambitious cleanup schedule that, they charge, ignored the ongoing recovery of bodies at the site.

Jimmy Riches, a deputy fire chief who spent months digging at ground zero for his firefighter son, scoffs at the very notion that Giuliani was at ground zero long enough to risk his health.

"The longest time I saw him down there was when President Bush came to the site," said Riches. "He doesn't care about the first responders, he did nothing to help them when he was in office or after. He didn't give us respirators until November."

Gold9472

08-15-2007, 07:55 PM

NYPD Program To Track Health of September 11 Officers

http://www.nysun.com/article/60395

By SARAH GARLAND
Staff Reporter of the Sun
August 13, 2007

In the nearly six years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the city's conflict and grief over the health problems faced by those who cleaned up ground zero have often centered on the police officers who stood guard at the site and toiled on the pile.

There was Detective James Zadroga, whose family succeeded in its fight to convince city officials that his death was linked to the toxic dust that swirled above the rubble, and Officer Christopher Hynes, whom the police department denied line-of-duty disability benefits for a lung disease he says he contracted from the dust.

Now, for the first time, the police department is preparing to release its own study examining how the 34,000 officers who worked at the site have fared. Due out in October, the study is part of a ramped up effort by the department to start a monitoring program for police modeled on the twin programs of the fire department and Mount Sinai Hospital, which receive federal funding to track the health of workers and residents.

But like nearly everything surrounding September 11 Â-- from the location of the anniversary ceremony to the use of ground zero imagery in the presidential campaign of Mayor Giuliani Â-- the study is already infused with controversy.

Police doctors are seeking federal funding similar to what the existing two programs receive, but their effort has been stymied thus far, in part by accusations from some police unions and others that their research is not objective.

"There's definitely a conflict of interest," the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, Edward Mullins, said. "The people who would be overseeing our health are the same group of people who would be overseeing our disability claims."

One of the authors of the study, the chief surgeon of the NYPD Medical Division, Dr. Eli Kleinman, has been named in a lawsuit by Officer Hynes, who says Dr. Kleinman is refusing to acknowledge that Officer Hynes's rare lung disease, sarcoidosis, was a result of the 111 hours he spent working on the pile. The officer is seeking $1,625 from the department to help him cover medical bills associated with his illness.

Dr. Kleinman, who said he could not comment on the lawsuit, says the study is not meant to serve as evidence to defend the position of the police department or the Bloomberg administration, which has been hesitant to link some illnesses to ground zero.

"There's no conflict of interest," Dr. Kleinman said. "Everybody has the same vested interest here, all New Yorkers."

In an interview at his office in Queens a few days after Officer Hynes filed his lawsuit in June, Dr. Kleinman noted that he has a personal stake in the results of the study.

On an end table near his desk, Dr. Kleinman keeps a framed picture of himself emerging from the cloud of smoke and dust on September 11, 2001; he had arrived at the World Trade Center to treat victims. In the photo, captured by a television news crew, he has broken glasses, a broken left arm, and no shoes.

"It looks white, but it's totally black particulate matter. It's as if you were dropped into a vat of coffee grounds, that's the only way I can explain it," he said, describing the cloud billowing behind him in the photo. "You can no longer breathe. You can't see. I was holding my breath as long as I could."

He compared his role in leading the study to that of the president of the Hair Club for Men: "Not only am I the president, I'm a customer."

He also said he plays only an advisory role in the police department's resolution of line-of-duty disability claims, which pay out about 25% more than normal disability claims. Dr. Kleinman is a consultant to the independent medical board that reviews officers' claims, he said. The medical board makes recommendations to a pension board made up of both union and city officials, which has the final vote the approval or denial of claims. Dr. Kleinman said that in the event of a tie vote by the pension board, he would step in again as an adviser.

So far, about 116 line-of-duty claims by police officers who responded to ground zero have been approved, according to numbers provided by the medical unit. More than 3,000 have yet to be resolved.

Of the nearly 30 studies conducted on ground zero's impact on the health of workers and residents, the NYPD study is the second to look at the health of police officers exclusively.

The other study that focused solely on police officers, led by researchers at Penn State University, showed that about 44% had shortness of breath more than a year later and 43% had the so-called World Trade Center cough.

In 2002, a preliminary study of 600 police officers by the police surgeons showed that 38% were experiencing problems ranging from breathing issues to broken bones to post-traumatic stress syndrome, numbers that Dr. Kleinman said jibe with other research.

He added that the combination of the department's methodology, based on tracking the health records of police officers in a huge database, and the similarity of police officers' lung function to that of the general public, makes the study unique.

Nevertheless, the unions that represent the police say they do not trust the department or its study.

"They're not acknowledging 9/11 claims," Mr. Mullins, a member of the bucket brigade that removed debris, said. "The department is resistant, and I think they're starting to soften up, but I don't think they're there yet."

The biggest police union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, which is backing the Hynes lawsuit, launched a campaign in its quarterly magazine this year criticizing the medical unit for conflicts of interest. The union has its own online registry to track reports by police officers of illnesses they believe are linked to ground zero. The administrator of the New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Fund, James Melius, said it is unlikely the police department will receive funding from Congress without the backing of the unions. Mr. Melius, who is chairman of the steering committee for the two existing federally funded programs, said that when the police department made the first public pitch for its monitoring program, in meetings with Congress in the spring, he discouraged lawmakers from allocating any of the already limited amount of World Trade Center funding to the police program. He said he believes the police department, which traditionally has not had a medical program as intensive as that of the fire department, is not well equipped to do the monitoring. He added that suspicion among police officers could also undermine its effort.

"There certainly seems to be less trust of the police department medical program than there is of the firefighter program," Mr. Melius said. "It would be very hard, partly because of that distrust, for the police department to start up a program."

Dr. Kleinman said he is not discouraged.

He said of the unions: "They want total control of all medical information, which is self-serving. We want what's best for police officers."

Gold9472

08-16-2007, 01:35 PM

American Hero Suffers For His Bravery

http://www.ahherald.com/content/view/2304/27/

Written by Dennis "DJ" Mikolay
Wednesday, 15 August 2007

These days, everyone's mind is focused on the war in Iraq, and the Americans who, everyday, face an uncertain future there. Indeed, some 3,680 American soldiers have already fallen victim to the war, and everyday brings news of a higher number. These, fallen soldiers, however, aren't the only victims of terrorism who must bravely face death on a regular basis.

Far closer to home, those Americans who bravely dug through the rubble at Ground Zero shortly after the World Trade Center fell are still fighting. Many Americans struggled to survive on September 11, 2001. In total, the lives of some 2,974 people ended that day. For others, Ground Zero was only the beginning, the starting point on a deadly race against the odds. For these men and women, the fight to survive isn't over yet.

The debate regarding whether exposure to chemicals at the World Trade Center site can lead to human deaths has been a hot topic over the past few years, with Felicia Dunn-Jones, who died of exposure some five months after the attacks, now being recognized as a September 11th victim, and Detective Kevin Hawkins, also at the scene, having recently passed of cancer (his family feels the illness was due to exposure at the site), there should be no denying that those who were America's heroes on September 11th may now need heroes of their own.

Vito Valenti, a resident of New York, was a September 11thth, but now that Valenti has been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, and he needs a double lung transplant to survive, it seems that the Government is less willing to acknowledge this hero, turning a blind eye. responder who was at Ground Zero aiding in the rescue efforts after the towers fell. He may have survived the hell that was Ground Zero, but he now must struggle through everyday life, hoping that his scarred lungs will someday be replaced, or at least, acknowledged. People have had no problem admitting Vito Valenti was a hero on September 11

To make a long and tragic story short, Valenti isn't on the transplant list and he doesn't have medical insurance. His only crime was a leave of absence from work, after the attack, during which time he suffered from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. He is currently breathing through a donated oxygen machine, as he can't afford his own: 2005 marked an end to health benefits for Valenti, who is himself, in far from perfect health.

But where is the media coverage, where are all the human rights groups, where are the pickets and signs? And where are all the fellow 911 survivors? They are themselves, in many instances, also sick.

Why has so little been said about this true heroes' ailment? Perhaps the situation is so tragic; we don't want to think about it. But every person who knows Valenti's story can no longer turn a blind eye or deaf ear.

Valenti dug through the World Trade Center rubble due to his respect for human life...and now, it seems as though nobody in power respects his.

Thousands of people lost loved ones of September 11th, and now the fateful day may very well claim yet another victim, one of many who will undoubtedly suffer in the years to come due to their heroic acts. Perhaps someday the Government will acknowledge these patriots, but Valenti cant wait that long.

Gold9472

08-16-2007, 08:03 PM

'I believe my cancer is related to exposure to WTC dust and smoke.'

http://www.tribecatrib.com/news/newsjuly07/etta2.htm

By Etta Sanders

The following opinion piece was written by Etta Sanders shortly before her death and was provided to the Trib by her husband, Andrew Weinstein.

I believe I am the victim of the lies of my government. I live a short distance from the World Trade Center site. Ten days after the Sept. 11 attacks, my husband, our twin boys who had turned 3-years-old on Sept. 8, and I moved back into our home.

For months, like so many of our neighbors, we worried about the air, kept our windows closed, ran air filters day and night, took the children out of the neighborhood to play outdoors and tried to believe what we were told—that the air was safe.

Two years ago I was diagnosed with stage IV, metastatic lung cancer. Inoperable. Incurable. Since then I have responded well to a series of treatments, chemotherapy and recently approved pills. I have been able to maintain a normal life—working, traveling, caring for my family. My condition has now worsened and the possible treatment options are running out.

I strongly believe my cancer is related to exposure to World Trade Center dust and smoke. If the government had said we’re not sure about the safety of the air and it would be prudent for residents to stay away, I don’t think I would have this cancer.

Now I will not see my beautiful boys grow up. No high school or college graduations, school trips, summer vacations, no weddings, no grandchildren. Mom won’t be there to cheer at piano recitals or ballgames. Mom won’t be there to comfort them after a hard day or a bad dream. I won’t grow old with my beloved husband, who has cared for all of us with remarkable strength. We have had almost 30 fabulous years together. I was hoping for 50 or 60.

I have kept quiet about my illness until now for a couple of reasons. One is that I am a mostly private person. I shied away from the idea of being talked about. The main reason was that we wanted to control what our children knew and how they were told. We were concerned that the more people who knew, the greater the chance someone would inadvertently say something frightening or inaccurate to them.

But I also know as a nearly 30-year resident of small town lower Manhattan, and after five years at P.S. 234, that our family is part of a warm, caring and supportive community. Andrew and I take great comfort and solace in that knowledge.

I am very grateful to Carl and April who have allowed me to contribute to what is simply the best community newspaper. I am constantly impressed by the high quality of the Trib. It is a treat to read it every month. They provide a true service to the community. I feel privileged to have been a part of it.

The truth is that I have had a wonderful and very lucky life, except for this bit here at the end.

I dearly hope that I am in a small minority of people who were so gravely harmed by the aftermath of the WTC attacks, but I fear otherwise. Whether the numbers are large or small, the U.S. government is culpable for that harm and there must be compensation for all victims and their families.

Frankly, I don’t know how Christine Todd Whitman lives with herself.

At a recent community board committee meeting, there was a presentation by someone from the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation. At the end, a board member asked if there would be room on the wall of victims’ names for those who died after the attacks from toxic exposures (a few days later the first such victim was added). It was a chilling thought. There will be more names.

But I think we need a separate wall for those whose deaths were not caused by a direct act of terrorism, but by the actions of a cavalier government.

Gold9472

08-16-2007, 08:08 PM

geez

Gold9472

08-17-2007, 05:33 PM

Estimate: Giuliant spent 7 percent of time spent by first responders at Ground Zero

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Records_show_Giulianis_time_at_Ground_0817.html

Nick Juliano
Published: Friday August 17, 2007

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has faced repeated criticism of his apparent attempts to trade on his reputation that grew out of Sept. 11 to propel his presidential campaign.

A new estimate shows Giuliani spent about 7 percent as much time at Ground Zero as did the typical first responder during a three month period after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

On Friday the GOP frontrunner faced more harsh words after the New York Times revealed that Giuliani spent only 29 hours at the smoldering pile of wreckage that was the World Trade Center from mid-September to mid-December 2001.

During those same three months, rescue workers were putting in 12-hour shifts digging through the World Trade Center's wreckage. And Michael J. Palladino, president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association of New York City, told the Times that officers averaged 400 hours each at the site during that time.

Talking Points Memo's Election Central unearthed comments from Giuliani in 2006.

"I spent as much time here as anyone ... I was here five, six times a day for four months," Giuliani said last September. "I thought of it as living here."

The Times' tally was compiled from records of Giuliani's schedules form Sept. 17 to Dec. 16, 2001 and does not take into account the first six days following the attack, during which Giuliani paid repeated visits to the site.

If Giuliani had paid Ground Zero five or six daily visits for the timeframe covered by the Times, a rough estimate shows each visit would've lasted less than four minutes, on average. However the Times reports Giuliani made 41 appearances at Ground Zero, mostly to give tours to other officials and foreign dignitaries.

In his 2002 book, Leadership, Giuliani recounts visiting Ground Zero on Jan. 1, 2002, just after his successor, Michael Bloomberg, was sworn in.

"I wanted it to be the last place I visited before I left," Giuliani wrote. "I had been there hundreds of times in the three and a half months since the attacks."

Giuliani was criticized earlier this month when he claimed he was "at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers." First responders said the remark was insensitive and untrue. Although Giuliani said a few days later that he misspoke, he still claimed to face health risks because of his exposure to toxic material at Ground Zero.

AuGmENTor

08-17-2007, 07:55 PM

I was waiting for this to come out and expose this asshole for the liar he is. People love to crunch numbers and make statistics for things. 83% of people know that...

Gold9472

08-17-2007, 08:02 PM

Did you read the article before?

AuGmENTor

08-17-2007, 08:10 PM

The one whee he initailly said it, or this one? I have seens the first one of course. Both you and BM posted it, and I commented on it. This one I saw just now.

Gold9472

08-17-2007, 08:14 PM

Post #300 in this thread.

http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=84197&postcount=300

AuGmENTor

08-17-2007, 08:42 PM

No, I hadn't seen that one. Powerfully written. You have to admire the courage and lack of resentment.

Gold9472

08-17-2007, 08:45 PM

She passed away dude. It breaks your heart.

AuGmENTor

08-17-2007, 08:49 PM

Now that is the worst thing i have heard all month. What a shame the US Government killed all those people, and then killed how many more by redacting that report?

Gold9472

08-17-2007, 08:57 PM

Too soon to tell. Over 100 so far.

Gold9472

08-20-2007, 09:29 AM

9/11 'LIES' HANG IN THE AIR

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08202007/news/regionalnews/9_11_lies_hang_in_the_air_regionalnews_john_mazor_ and_leonard_greene.htm

By JOHN MAZOR and LEONARD GREENE

August 20, 2007 -- Angry lower Manhattan residents who find themselves reliving the 9/11 nightmare say reassurances about air quality following the weekend blaze at the Deutsche Bank building are simply not enough.

"Residents were told after 9/11 that air was safe," said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. "Well, we found out how untrue that was."

Officials, including Gov. Spitzer, said tests for asbestos and other contaminants during and after the fire were negative.

City environmental officials said 57 air samples near the building have tested negative for asbestos since the blaze.

But Stringer said residents need to see the results for themselves.

"This community in particular needs reassurance beyond one test result," Stringer said.

Two firefighters perished Saturday in the seven-alarm fire that brought back eerie memories of the terrorist attacks.

"I was back at 9/11," said Esther Regelson, 48, who watched the fire with neighbors from her Washington Street home. "There we were on the roof, watching things burning, wondering if the building was going to collapse."

Thankfully, it didn't, and Mayor Bloomberg said there was never any danger of that.

But that bit of reassurance was hardly consolation for those who still remember the roar of the Twin Towers as they collapsed.

"I've lived her for 30 years," said Ruth Davis, 49, "and I feel they should have blown the [Deutsche Bank building up right after 9/11.

"The quality of air was already bad. What difference would it have made if they blew it up right then?"

Gold9472

08-27-2007, 06:08 PM

Asthma Rates High Among 9/11 Workers

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/27/AR2007082700788.html

By DEVLIN BARRETT
The Associated Press
Monday, August 27, 2007; 1:36 PM

WASHINGTON -- A new survey of Sept. 11-related illnesses has found an alarming increase in asthma _ 12 times higher than normal _ among those who toiled on the toxic debris piles of ground zero.

The study was released Monday by the New York City Department of Health, based on responses gathered by the World Trade Center Health Registry.

The data show 3.6 percent of the 25,000 rescue and recovery workers in the registry reported developing asthma after working at the site _ more than 12 times the expected figure for adults over a similar time period.

"The risk was significantly elevated for fire and rescue workers, medical workers, and police and military personnel compared to volunteers," according to the study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Firefighters, police officers, construction workers and volunteers swarmed to the site immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. While most of them were from New York, hundreds or more came from across the country to help in the moment of national crisis.

Overall, workers who arrived at the disaster site on the day of the attacks and stayed more than 90 days reported the highest rate of new asthma _ 7 percent. Volunteers accounted for almost one-third of those responding to the survey; firefighters accounted for about 14 percent.

Workers who reported wearing protective respirators on Sept. 11 and 12, when the contamination was at its worst, had lower risk of developing adult-onset asthma, the study found.

"These findings reflect the critical importance of getting appropriate respiratory protection to all workers as quickly as possible during a disaster, and making every effort to make sure workers wear them at all times," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, the city's health commissioner.

The results buttress previous research that found 70 percent of those who worked at ground zero later suffered lung problems. The doctors who conducted that study said they expect thousands to need treatment for 9/11 illnesses, and New York politicians, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, have pushed for a $1.9 billion program to treat those workers.

The authors of the new asthma study cautioned the findings are based on self-reporting by those answering their survey questions, so they cannot verify diagnoses or rule out over-reporting by those who responded.

The authors also said there is little pre-existing data on the prevalence of asthma among first responders _ but separate research published by Swiss doctors in March in the medical journal Chest found asthma was "considerably underdiagnosed in firefighters."

The World Trade Center Health Registry was launched in 2003 to track the long-term health effects of ground zero exposure to workers, volunteers, and residents.

Gold9472

08-30-2007, 08:59 AM

WTC responder spearheds three-way kidney transplant

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-likidn0830,0,7486226.story?coll=ny_home_rail_headl ines

http://www.newsday.com/media/photo/2007-08/32194544.jpg
John Feal, a Nesconset resident and former demolition expert, has dedicated his life to helping others after losing half his foot working at the World Trade Center site in the aftermath of 9/11.

BY STACEY ALTHERR | stacey.altherr@newsday.com
August 30, 2007

In January, John Feal was ready to give his kidney to a perfect stranger. But they weren't a good match.

That bad news led to a series of events that will culminate this morning in a Manhattan hospital and potentially save not one life, but three.

The daisy chain started by Feal includes six surgeons who will conduct three simultaneous kidney transplants at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.

Feal, 40, of Nesconset, said he will give his kidney to a recipient, whose spouse will give a kidney to a second recipient, whose spouse will give a kidney to Paul Grossfeld. Grossfeld, 56, from New Jersey, was the intended recipient of Feal's kidney, but Feal was a better match for someone else. So the chain, called paired donation, was established.

"I feel great," Feal said Wednesday. "I feel like I've been training for a prizefight."

There were 17,090 kidney transplants in the nation last year, according to the National Kidney Foundation, which does not tally the number of paired donations. But a foundation representative said that procedure is relatively new.

NewYork-Presbyterian confirmed the operations were scheduled to take place but would not identify any of the patients, citing strict patient confidentiality laws.

Feal heads the Fealgood Foundation, an organization that advocates for and gives financial assistance to 9/11 responders and workers who have fallen ill since working at Ground Zero.

Grossfeld, a former Queens resident, found Feal's Web site last year while desperately searching for a donor. A former volunteer paramedic in North Massapequa who has suffered from kidney disease and diabetes for years, Grossfeld e-mail- ed Feal to ask whether he could post an appeal for a kidney to Feal's Web site. He soon got a call back from Feal saying, "You got yourself a kidney."

Grossfeld, appreciative of all Feal has done, said Wednesday, "It's been a rough road."

"I'm ready, though," Grossfeld said. "I'm taking my last dialysis treatment right now."

Feal, who was a consultant for Michael Moore's health-care documentary film "Sicko," began his efforts because of his own pain. Seven days after the terrorist attacks, Feal was working demolition at Ground Zero when an 8,000-pound steel beam fell on his left foot. A former Army veteran, Feal made a tourniquet out of his belt and yelled for help. Soon after treatment for the injury, gangrene set in and he lost half his foot.

As he began to recover, he decided his calling was to help other 9/11 responders and workers, including those with respiratory illnesses from working in the toxic environment.

Feal said his gift of life to an anonymous recipient is his way to shed light on all those responders and workers now in need of lung and kidney transplants themselves.

"I'm committed to 9/11 issues," said Feal, who cites a 9/11 worker he knows who says he now needs a double-lung transplant. "The real reason I'm doing this is to spread awareness of the needs of 9/11 responders. If people on Long Island read this and sign their organ donor on their license, I've done my job."

Gold9472

08-30-2007, 08:11 PM

Time Magazine did something on first responders...

http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/2006/first_responders/

Gold9472

08-30-2007, 11:46 PM

I'm about to go to sleep, and my thoughts are with John Feal. May everything go right, as I'm SURE it will.

AuGmENTor

08-30-2007, 11:48 PM

Amen Jon. Good luck other John.

Gold9472

08-30-2007, 11:52 PM

John is fine. He got out of surgery a half hour ago, and is already "wisecracking."

Gold9472

08-31-2007, 08:41 AM

This is what a hero looks like...

http://home.comcast.net/~gold9472/johnresting.gif

Gold9472

09-01-2007, 08:12 PM

John and Paul...

http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/johnpaul.JPG

Gold9472

09-03-2007, 09:40 AM

Raising Awareness
Thanks to www.peppini.com

Click Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz8Cv30DiH8) (GooTube)

Gold9472

09-03-2007, 09:19 PM

A Message From 9/11 First Responder And Kidney Donater, John Feal

I wish to thank everyone for their support and well wishes. While I got a chance to make a difference in 3 lives last week while risking my own health, I want you all to know I will not stop there. From 9/11 responders to Americans across the board who need help while our federal govt sits idle, I will stress the message of compassion, love and caring for those less fortunate. I will also continue to be a big pain in the ass to those who should be helping and are not. Jon Gold, you and the truth movement ROCK, ROCK, ROCK, and if anyone needs my other kidney they can have it.

Sincerely,

John Feal
FealGood Foundation Founder
9/11 Responder Advocate

Gold9472

09-05-2007, 08:35 AM

Clearing the Air
9/11's toxic dust obscures answers about cancer and other health claims

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0736,rayman,77703,2.html

by Graham Rayman
September 4th, 2007 6:18 PM

To understand how deeply New Yorkers hold the conviction that 9/11 environmental fallout is killing people, you need only to have attended the August 21 public meeting that was held in a chamber across from City Hall.

The topic was the disastrous August 18 fire in the heavily contaminated Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street, which killed two firefighters. Only three weeks before the sixth anniversary of the terror attacks, here were city, state, and federal officials once again trying to downplay the possibility that the fire released environmental toxins into the neighborhood.

But the air was so thick with skepticism from the crowd that the assertions couldn't gain any traction. One resident described the debacle as a "religious kind of shame." Marc Ameruso, a lower-Manhattan community-board member, said, "The ghost of the World Trade Center is rearing its ugly head once again."

It was hard to blame the doubters. The Bush, Pataki, and Giuliani administrations have either misled or poorly informed the public about the toxic dangers of what has been described "as the largest acute environmental disaster that ever has befallen New York City."

In the early days following the attacks, even the men and women who worked on "the Pile" expressed skepticism about the negative health effects of 9/11's toxic cloud. But that initial doubt has given way to a popular view that blames the dust cloud for virtually every ailment experienced by someone who was at or near Ground Zero. And broad public acceptance of the notion that the cloud has sickened people is creating a powerful momentum for long-term government support for the vast number of people affected.

Based on a Voice count, more than 52 illnesses have been mentioned in connection with the 9/11 toxic cloud, either anecdotally in press reports, more broadly in government comments, or with some scientific underpinning in research studies. "In the six years since the attacks, we have accumulated a mountain of evidence that tens of thousands of those exposed are suffering from chronic respiratory disease and, increasingly, a variety of rare cancers," said Representative Jerrold Nadler, who has emerged as a leading advocate on the issue, during a June 25 congressional hearing.

More than 100 scientific papers have been written exploring a link between 9/11 and health ailments. Many of those strongly suggest that the dust was a factor in increased respiratory illnesses among people exposed to the cloud.

Even as they suggest a connection, however, researchers also often hedge their language, describe flaws in the research, or suggest that definitive links will be hard to establish. The question of what we know about those links—and what we don't know—is a subject that likely will occupy researchers and those affected for years to come. "More than 5 years after the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001, uncertainty and controversy remain about the health risks posed by inhaling the dust from the collapse of the twin towers, the subsequent fires, and the cleanup effort," epidemiologists Jonathan Samet and Alison Geyh of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health wrote in May in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The hard data leave little doubt that heavy exposure led to documented respiratory ailments, but there's far less certainty about more severe respiratory ailments, particularly the cancers that some have linked to Ground Zero.

"What's clearest and strongest is in the immediate persistence of effects on the respiratory system of the more exposed," Samet told the Voice in a recent interview. "Where the uncertainty begins is when one tries to understand the consequences for the broader public and the longer-term effects."

The World Trade Center health crisis is a saga told on a massive scale. Consider: 10,000 people have signed up for the pending class-action lawsuit against the city, and 71,000 for the city's World Trade Center Health Registry.

Nearly 20,000 people have been screened in Mount Sinai's medical-monitoring program. More than 1,300 people have been treated at the city-funded WTC clinic at Bellevue Hospital.

The estimated number of Ground Zero responders is 40,000, and the estimated number of people who came in contact with the dust is 410,000.

More than 600 firefighters have taken early retirement because of permanent, disabling respiratory illness, along with an unknown number of police officers, city workers, construction workers, and members of other groups.

In courtrooms, hearing rooms, and government offices, there is a paper war raging between people who claim they are sick, and the city, state, and federal agencies that must decide whether to pay for their medical coverage.

More than 3,000 police officers have filed disability claims, but the NYPD has approved just 116 cases, The New York Sun reported recently.

Last month, it was reported that 19,000 people had signed up with the state for workers' compensation benefits, but the true eligible population is believed to be 100,000. Take just one workers' comp case, that of former Sanitation Department employee Jack Saltarella, who drove barges filled with WTC dust and debris from Ground Zero to the Fresh Kills landfill.

Claiming respiratory illness, Saltarella and a dozen other barge workers sued the city, but a judge tossed the case out, citing a lack of evidence. However, that decision came before public opinion began to look more favorably on arguments linking the dust and illnesses.

"I used to be able to go for hours without stopping," Saltarella says. "Now I get exhausted just from breathing." He was subsequently diagnosed with chronic respiratory disorder, which the doctors concluded was related to dust exposure. Saltarella filed for workers' compensation; years later, he is still fighting for those benefits. A judge ruled in his favor five months ago, he says, but the city filed an appeal.

The experience has left him with a profound sense of bitterness. "The city acted like I was the only person complaining, but there's a whole bunch of people," Saltarella says. "They made you feel like you're a piece of shit—someone looking to take the city. There's a whole bunch of those guys. We didn't cause this; they caused us to have this."

At least 12 deaths from lung ailments and cancer have been blamed on the dust cloud in press reports. Among them is firefighter Ray Hauber, 47, who died of esophageal cancer. Friends and family say Hauber was a healthy man who didn't smoke.

In two of the cases—those of Police Officer James Zadroga, who died of pulmonary fibrosis, and lawyer Felicia Dunn Jones, who died of sarcoidosis—local medical examiners agreed that exposure to the dust was a factor.

Another was that of Cesar Borja, a police officer who died of pulmonary fibrosis. Initial reports said that he'd worked 16-hour shifts at Ground Zero, but records subsequently showed that he worked there only 17 days, starting in December 2001—casting doubt on whether his fatal illness stemmed from his time at Ground Zero.

Not long before she died from lung cancer, lower-Manhattan resident Etta Sanders wrote an essay blaming her own illness on the WTC exposures.

"If the government had said we're not sure about the safety of the air and it would be prudent for residents to stay away, I don't think I would have this cancer," she wrote in the essay, which was later published in the Tribeca Tribune. "I dearly hope that I am in a small minority of people who were so gravely harmed by the aftermath of the WTC attacks, but I fear otherwise."

In all, the deaths of 170 people who spent time at Ground Zero have been reported to the New York State Department of Health as part of an ongoing WTC fatality study. But it is unclear whether any of those deaths are related to the dust.

Indeed, there is much that remains unknown about the health effects of 9/11. The Samet and Geyh paper, for example, highlights a number of those questions. Even the actual size of the exposed population, they write, is still unclear.

Also, the government's failure to sample the air immediately after the disaster in a comprehensive manner means that hard data are missing on the types and levels of contaminants in the cloud during the period of the worst exposures, they write.

Paul Lioy, a professor of environmental and occupational medicine at Rutgers University, echoes that point in a paper published in a medical journal in November: "Five years after the attack, many people still do not know that the complex mixture of dust and smoke initially suspended in the air remains somewhat of a scientific mystery."

Even though people exposed to the cloud may be inclined to blame any future illness they contract on that exposure, Samet and Geyh write that the only way to confirm a link is through epidemiological studies that examine a large enough population of exposed people and compare it to a similar population of people who weren't. But that vast and difficult study has yet to be done.

"Even the full suite of research efforts in progress may never produce the evidence needed to answer all of the questions that will be raised about the long-term health effects of September 11," the authors conclude.

In March, Jeanne Stellman, a well- regarded epidemiologist at Columbia University, also sounded a cautionary note: "The current studies . . . cannot possibly provide us with insight into the overall burden of disease and disability because the diseases associated with WTC-like exposures are chronic and take many years to manifest themselves.

"Thus it is too early to know the full extent to which exposure to carcinogens and other toxic and stressful working conditions will lead to elevated rates of cancer or whether the rescue, recovery and cleanup workers will suffer from more cardiovascular disease or other chronic diseases."

The city's health registry, Stellman wrote, is useful but "far from complete. . . . No government or private agency has identified all the workers who participated in the operations."

Stellman compared the situation to that of the soldiers exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, an environmental calamity she's spent decades studying.

"Some 30 years after the end of the Vietnam War and more than 35 years after Agent Orange was sprayed, we still cannot tell our veterans and their loved ones what the effects of exposures to the herbicides are," she wrote.

David Carpenter, a professor of environmental health and toxicology in the School of Public Health at SUNY Albany, also notes the problems confronting researchers. "You need some limit on who was exposed, where they were, how long they were there," he says. "There's no reliable chemical measure, and we don't have a comprehensive list of the diseases we are going to be concerned about.

"It's pretty clear in adults that there is a greater increase in chronic respiratory disease, but it's very difficult to quantify that," he adds.

A common thread in the World Trade Center research has been a reliance on surveys. The city's World Trade Center Health Registry, for example, is basically a very large collection of surveys.

Some in the research community have raised questions about the validity of such data. Epidemiologists David Vlahov and Sandro Galea of the New York Academy of Medicine, for example, questioned the results of another study that used a self-administered survey to conclude that there were much higher rates of respiratory symptoms after 9/11 among the residents of lower Manhattan than among people on the Upper West Side. Vlahov and Galea caution that people in lower Manhattan would be more far likely to respond to the survey, since they have a greater interest in the results. Just over 2,300 people responded from lower Manhattan, and only 291 from the Upper West Side.

Because the survey was done some eight to 16 months after September 11, the accuracy of the memory of those surveyed is also questionable, the authors state.

"This study in some ways raises more questions than it answers," Vlahov and Galea write. "Inferences about individual exposures must be drawn with caution."

End Part I

Gold9472

09-05-2007, 08:36 AM

In April, using survey data from the registry, the city published a study of 8,418 survivors of the Twin Towers. That study found that half of those people reported one or more new respiratory symptoms after 9/11.

The authors of the study went on to list all of the problems with their conclusions. For one thing, they say, the total number of building survivors is unknown. For another, the data are based on the memories of people taking a survey two or three years after the fact. And the survey never established the boundaries of the dust cloud.

Finally, the people in the study were those who signed up for the registry—possibly biasing the sample. "This effect has been observed in other environmental studies in which persons who believed they were exposed tend to over-report health problems," the authors write.

In the spectrum of scientific knowledge, the strongest evidence of a link between the dust and respiratory illness is provided by the city's firefighters.

The FDNY had been collecting respiratory data on its members years before 9/11. As a result, doctors were able to compare the lung conditions of their patients before and after the attacks.

More than 3,000 firefighters have sought respiratory treatment since 9/11. Retirements based on lung problems have risen by four times the previous average. The observed drop in lung function after 9/11 was 12 times greater than the average annual decline in the five years before 9/11. More than 25 percent of firefighters showed symptoms of asthma or reactive airway dysfunction.

The most recent study of firefighters, published in March, concluded that 26 firefighters contracted a respiratory disease, sarcoidosis, in the five years after 9/11—a rate higher than in the 15 years prior to 9/11. Half of those firefighters got the disease in the first year after the attack, and the remainder over the next four years.

"It's striking data—way above the norm even for their population," Carpenter says. For most of the other affected groups, however, data for the period prior to 9/11 generally do not exist, which makes it much more difficult to make judgments with the same kind of precision.

The New York Police Department, for example, is only now seeking funding to do a wide-ranging study of the thousands of police officers who worked at the site. That effort has been criticized by police unions for coming too late—and at a time when the NYPD is fighting disability claims.

In a study released last week, the city reported that 3.6 percent of 25,000 Ground Zero workers said that they had developed asthma after working at the site—a rate 12 times higher than that of the general population.

The survey also found that workers who were caught in the cloud or worked on the debris pile reported higher rates of asthma, and that those who wore dust masks reported asthma at a lower rate than those who did not. In other words, the higher your exposure, the greater your likelihood of reporting asthma.

The research evidence on severe respiratory disease, however, is limited. Other than the study of sarcoidosis in firefighters, there are just three other studies on severe respiratory disease, with each one examining a single specific case of three separate illnesses.

"It's hard to document and identify small elevations in rare events, so it takes a lot of work," says Lorna Thorpe, deputy commissioner of the city's health department. "Of the broader, more common ailments—cough, asthma, wheezing—they are very common in the general population, so it's not as easy to verify. The question of persistence of symptoms is of paramount importance."

The most persuasive study to date was released in September 2006 by the Mount Sinai WTC Medical Monitoring Program.

The study concluded that Ground Zero responders suffered exposure-related increases in respiratory- and pulmonary-test abnormalities that lingered up to 2.5 years after the attacks, with those who reached the site within the first two days of the attacks experiencing the worst symptoms.

Of the 9,442 responders tested between July 2002 and April 2004, 69 percent reported new or worsened respiratory symptoms after being involved in WTC work, the study found. The symptoms persisted in 59 percent of those workers. And 61 percent of the workers without prior symptoms developed breathing troubles after 9/11.

One in four had abnormal breathing-test results. Among nonsmokers, 27 percent had abnormal results, compared with 13 percent in the general population. The prevalence of low lung capacity among nonsmokers was five times greater than in the general U.S. population.

"There should no longer be any doubt about the health effects of the World Trade Center. Our patients are sick," says Dr. Robin Herbert, co-director of the Mount Sinai program.

Phillip Landrigan, one of the study's authors, says that the caustic dust caused burning and scarring in the lungs, leading to the shrinking of tissues and "functional abnormalities."

"There is a high likelihood that a lot of this impairment is going to be permanent," says Landrigan.

The authors of the study proposed that WTC workers should be tracked for "at least 20 to 30 years." About 6,500 people are being treated in Mount Sinai and other hospitals by a federally funded consortium.

The authors acknowledge limitations in the study, the chief one being that they did not have pre–September 11 clinical data. And they note that the sicker responders were more likely to sign up for the clinic, which could skew the percentages.

Officials with the city's health department have also attempted to describe the array of illnesses cropping up in the WTC population.

In March, city health commissioner Thomas Frieden wrote an article in which he listed persistent mental-health ailments and mild to severe respiratory problems. Some people found that pre-existing conditions like asthma got worse, he wrote; others developed new symptoms or illnesses. People who were caught in the dust cloud had the highest risk of exposure.

But Frieden said the exact number of people who developed severe respiratory illness is still unknown. Also unknown is how many people have respiratory symptoms today, which illnesses are most common, and what factors other than dust-cloud exposure contributed to those illnesses.

The Frieden article came six months after the health department finally issued guidelines for doctors that listed 12 "potentially WTC associated conditions," including asthma, heartburn, throat irritation, acid reflux, and shortness of breath. More serious illnesses, such as interstitial lung disease, chronic bronchitis, and pneumonia, were listed as "currently under evaluation"—in other words, not necessarily related to the dust. The document also includes a giant disclaimer: "The physical health problems discussed in this publication are common and may not be WTC-related even among persons exposed to the disaster."

Kathy Burns, a Massachusetts-based toxicologist, says the guidelines should have been released much sooner.

"An awful lot of the patients were repeatedly misdiagnosed, partly because there wasn't an awful lot of information being put out by the state or the city," Burns says. The DOH guidelines, she adds, came "way too late. . . . And it covered only a small subset of what in the long run will be a problem."

End Part II

Gold9472

09-05-2007, 08:36 AM

Other advocates say that the reason more isn't known about these WTC-related ailments today is that the Bush administration acted too slowly, or even resisted funding research and monitoring programs.

"The main reason we don't have more information is that the federal government hasn't done the research," Maloney says. "The answer is not unknowable."

When it comes to cancer, obtaining the data that will either establish or disprove a link with toxic WTC dust is still years away, researchers say. But that hasn't stopped advocates from pressing the point that the dust has already caused the disease to show up in responders.

David Worby, the lead attorney in the class-action lawsuit, has said in the Voice that among his 10,000 clients are at least 400 cancer cases—a fact, he asserts, that demonstrates a clear link between the dust cloud and cancer. A series of other media reports have also made that connection.

The theory goes that the unprecedented toxic mixture of chemicals in the dust weakened the immune systems of Ground Zero workers to the point that they have become far more susceptible to serious illness—especially if they'd been exposed to toxins earlier in their lives.

In particular, dozens of cases of blood-cell cancers—like lymphoma and multiple myeloma—among relatively young Ground Zero workers have raised these concerns. Herbert, the Mount Sinai researcher, was quoted as suggesting that such cancers could become a "third wave" of ailments.

"Doctors have told me that this cocktail of poison could very well cause cancer," says Representative Carolyn Maloney, who has become a leading advocate on the issue.

For the families of Ground Zero responders, the link with cancer is very real and deeply troubling. Just ask Michelle Shore, whose husband Robert, a city correction officer who worked at Ground Zero, died of pancreatic cancer in August 2005.

Shore did have heart problems, but otherwise he was fine, his wife says. "He was a healthy man, but he was misdiagnosed and forced into retirement. Now I've lost my house—everything—and I'm living with my parents. We're all struggling."

Nearly two years after Shore died, the city agreed to pay workers' compensation to his family. Michelle will get $400 a week, but the payments stop if and when she remarries.

But despite the certainty of Michelle Shore and others, tying cancer to the 9/11 cloud is a tricky thing. People in this city routinely succumb to the disease as a matter of course; among New Yorkers, cancer is the second leading cause of death. According to local mortality rates, in a random population of 70,000—about the number of people enrolled in the WTC registry—you would expect roughly 90 cancer deaths per year, primarily from lung, colon, breast, and prostate cancers.

And in a population of 400,000—the estimated number of people exposed at Ground Zero—you could expect as many as 3,000 people to die of cancer over a six-year period.

No one has yet done a study that attempts to compare cancer rates or cancer fatalities in that Ground Zero population to other groups.

Thorpe says that no data currently exist to show that people exposed to the 9/11 dust cloud are dying of cancer at a higher rate than any random sample of New Yorkers.

"Irrespective of their exposure, some of these people would have developed cancer," Thorpe says. "One or two years later, there's some cause to be cautious in making that leap. That said, this was an intense exposure, it has health ramifications, and we need to stay focused on it."

Similarly, the same FDNY doctors who detailed the increase in respiratory ailments among firefighters say that a preliminary analysis shows "no clear increase" in cancers since 9/11.

Johns Hopkins researchers Samet and Geyh write in their paper that asbestos exposure is "unlikely to have been sufficient to cause asbestosis or a measurable increase in the risk of lung cancer." An increased risk for mesothelioma—the disease commonly tied to asbestos exposure—"would not become evident for decades." And the long-term risk of cancer, the authors say, "will be difficult to measure with any precision."

A May 31 study in The New England Journal of Medicine concluded that Ground Zero dust samples did contain fire-related carcinogens, but that "any associated increased risk for respiratory tract and most other cancers will not become apparent for decades." And city health commissioner Frieden likewise has said that it is unknown whether cancers will develop as a result of exposure.

The irony is that even in the best of circumstances, it is extraordinarily difficult to prove that a specific source has caused cancer. In fact, studies of cancer clusters are often inconclusive simply because the mechanism that causes such ailments is still unknown.

In order to verify the relationship, researchers say, one would have to compare the Ground Zero population to a similar but unexposed group and see whether the cancer rates are higher. But there are so many unknowns and variables at play that it would be a very difficult study to do with precision. Even identifying a group of people that could be compared to the Ground Zero population would be difficult.

"In the ideal world, you might try to gather up people exposed and try to understand what they were exposed to," Samet says. "The question is: How well can we reconstruct what people were exposed to, and could enough people be assembled to do that? The hard part would be finding these people. We'll have to see."

In many ways, the very scale of the issue—to say nothing of the uncertainty and cost—has created something of a muddle and left government officials pursuing a schizophrenic course.

The city is a great example of that. Even as it funds the Bellevue clinic, backs the WTC registry, and pursues further research, it is also fighting a rear-guard action against disability and workers' comp claims—arguing, according to a lawyer involved in those cases, that there is no concrete proof that individual workers have gotten sick from a specific illness related to the dust.

And in papers filed opposing the class- action lawsuit brought by 10,000 ailing people, the city has argued that it is immune from lawsuits because it was acting in an emergency. In legal papers, lawyers for the city slam the plaintiffs for "second-guessing decisions made during a time of crisis."

Joel Shufro, of the Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, acknowledges that all of the outstanding health questions may never be answered. "But it does seem to me that at some point, if you have significant numbers of people developing illness, you have a problem," he says. "To take the other side of it—to say, because there is no scientific certainty, that people aren't entitled to treatment—is equally presumptive."

For Shufro, the research is almost a secondary question: "Talk to people who lost their homes, who had to take kids out of college, and ask them whether this is a result of their exposure," he says. "Their lives changed overnight. In the final analysis, what we're talking about here is how does this society respond to people—and where do you draw the line in terms of care for people who are ill?"

Many have looked to the federal government to fund a long-term health-care program for the workers. Nadler, Maloney, and Senator Hillary Clinton have all submitted bills that would make 9/11 health expenditures part of the annual federal budget—but estimates of the cost of that program vary widely.

A city report estimated that the cost of medical care for Ground Zero workers could be as high as $392 million a year. A federal estimate placed the total at $230 million to $283 million a year, but also said the total could be much higher—$400 million, or even as much as $700 million—if a lot more workers sign up. Even at $283 million a year, the costs, over 20 years, total $5.7 billion.

The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund has already paid out $573.2 million for 1,377 asthma and other respiratory claims. Some are seeking to reopen that fund.

There is also a $1 billion federal insurance fund set aside to pay out judgments in the event the city loses in court to the thousands of people suing. In July, a group of responders sued the fund (known as the WTC Captive Insurance Co.), demanding that the money be released.

The feds have contributed $125 million for study and treatment, and they've allocated another $50 million earlier this year. A bill that would provide for another $55 million has passed the House and is now in the hands of the Senate.

The estimate to continue the current programs just for first responders and New York City residents is $178 million a year. That money wouldn't include people outside New York City or federal workers.

But Carpenter, the SUNY Albany epidemiologist, and others say that the government has little choice but to fund care and treatment—in other words, to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Waiting for conclusive proof would come far too late for people who need help now.

"I think we are going to see people develop illnesses 20 to 30 years down the road," Carpenter says. "I think we need to follow everyone exposed."

"The commitment to all of the workers has to remain a sustained commitment over time," adds Thorpe, the city deputy health commissioner.

Samet, the Johns Hopkins researcher, argues that the government must take a long-term view: "What government should be doing here is the best possible surveillance and tracking, so they can say whether this is different from any other population. That's not going to be easy."

End

Gold9472

09-06-2007, 07:30 AM

TWO 9/11-SICK COPS DIE

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09062007/news/regionalnews/two_9_11_sick_cops_die.htm

By LARRY CELONA

September 6, 2007 -- Two more cops have died of 9/11-related lung cancer, according to their families.

Officer Frank Macari, 51, died on Monday, after a five-year battle with the disease.

Macari, a 13-year veteran of the force assigned to Brooklyn, developed a tumor on his leg in December 2001, after working at Ground Zero. He leaves a wife and stepdaughter.

Officer Madeline Caro, 41, a 16-year veteran, succumbed to lung cancer in July. Carlo, assigned to the South Bronx, also spent days at the World Trade Center site. She leaves a son and daughter.

Macari's family will file papers, as Carlo's family has done, to obtain line-of-duty benefits from the NYPD.

Meanwhile, the sixth annual NYPD 9/11 Memorial Weekend begins tomorrow with a 1 p.m. parade in lower Manhattan, ending at the police memorial wall at Liberty Street and South End Avenue. The weekend includes a Saturday-night concert at Town Hall in honor of the NYPD's 9/11 victims. It stars tenor Ronan Tynan.

Gold9472

09-06-2007, 07:31 AM

YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!

Gold9472

09-07-2007, 01:06 PM

Accuracy of 9/11 Health Reports Is Questioned

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/nyregion/07sinai.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp

By ANTHONY DePALMA and SERGE F. KOVALESKI
Published: September 7, 2007

Much of what is known about the health problems of ground zero workers comes from a small clinic in Manhattan that at the time of the trade center collapse had only six full-time doctors and a tiny budget.

Dr. Robin Herbert, center, director of the data and coordination center for the World Trade Center monitoring program, with her staff at Mount Sinai.

Yet in the weeks after 9/11, its doctors stepped into the fray in the absence of any meaningful effort by the city, state or federal government to survey, interview or offer treatment to potentially sickened recovery and cleanup workers.

Since then, the clinic, the Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, based at Mount Sinai Medical Center, has examined more than 15,000 workers and volunteers and has overseen the examination of 5,000 more at clinics elsewhere.

Those programs have received more than $100 million from the federal government for tracking and treating those workers. The clinic’s doctors published the largest and most often quoted study of recovery workers’ ills. And they have testified about the health problems before city and federal committees.

But six years after the disaster, it is clear that while the center’s efforts have been well meaning, even heroic to some, its performance in a number of important areas has been flawed, some doctors say. For years after 9/11, the clinic did not have adequate resources or time to properly collect detailed medical data on workers exposed to ground zero dust.

The clinic’s doctors presented their findings in what other experts say were scientifically questionable ways, exaggerating the health effects with imprecise descriptions of workers’ symptoms and how long they might be sick.

Researchers in this field say that the clinic’s data collection was so badly planned that its usefulness may be limited. Others say that doctors at the clinic, which has strong historical ties to labor unions, have allowed their advocacy for workers to trump their science by making statements that go beyond what their studies have confirmed.

Dr. Albert Miller, a pulmonologist who spent more than three decades at Mount Sinai before moving to Mary Immaculate Hospital in Queens in 1994, worries that the actions of the center’s leaders have harmed the legitimate cause of workers who might be in need of help. “They are doing the workers a disservice,” he said, “because any time you veer from objective and confirmable statements, you’re destroying your own case.”

“They are people with a cause,” Dr. Miller said.

Even now, there is debate about how harmful the dust was, and whether it could cause cancer or debilitating chronic diseases, although there is emerging medical consensus that workers who arrived at ground zero early and stayed longest were at greatest risk of getting sick. Medical studies by the Fire Department, and most recently by the city health department, show that the dust has caused diseases like asthma and sarcoidosis (a lung-scarring disease) in a small percentage of rescue workers.

Although the Selikoff clinic’s research has found signs of ill health in more workers than other studies, it generally tracks the same trends. But that has not lessened the skepticism of critics.

The clinic’s leaders acknowledge that their efforts were troubled. But they challenge anyone facing the same hardships to have done better. The doctors point out that they took on ever-increasing responsibilities with federal financing that came in fits and starts. They had to continue their clinical care while collecting data, and clinical care had to come first. They tackled an unprecedented epidemiological challenge with too little money, too few records and too little time to plan properly.

“I’ll accept that we could have done some things better and there’s always room for improvement,” said Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, who has overseen the clinic’s efforts to help ground zero workers. “You have to have a thick skin in this business.”

While organized labor has steadfastly supported and praised the Selikoff Center’s efforts, other doctors say its missteps have heightened the anxiety of New Yorkers who expected the center to answer medical questions that have unsettled the city since 9/11.

There remains confusion about whether government officials should have done more to protect workers from toxic materials at ground zero. The city is still contesting thousands of lawsuits from workers who claim they were sickened while working at ground zero, even as it is providing millions of dollars to Bellevue Hospital Center to treat people sickened by the dust.

And experts agree that the clinic’s imperfect work — done alone and under difficult circumstances — might have long-lasting consequences if the poorly collected data eventually skew the results of future studies. Should the clinic come to conclusions different from other medical researchers, say experts, those contrary findings would confuse the overall health picture, delaying scientific consensus. The city would then have lost valuable time in developing a precise picture of diseases from this kind of disaster and the public health response needed.

Dr. Steven Markowitz, who runs a ground zero screening and monitoring program at Queens College, and who worked at the Selikoff Center in the 1980s, says there is no doubt that the clinic, for all it has accomplished, has also let people down.

“Frankly,” he said, “it was reasonable for the public to expect more.”

End Part I

Gold9472

09-07-2007, 01:07 PM

A Logical Choice
Forty-eight hours after the attack, Dr. Robin Herbert, Dr. Stephen Levin and other Mount Sinai doctors met at a Westchester County home to figure out how to respond to the disaster at ground zero. They agreed to volunteer extra hours to see sickened workers, and to gather medical information on them. And in the weeks and months that followed, the Selikoff Center was virtually the only place for workers to turn to.

Go to City Room » While federal officials warned those on the pile to protect themselves from the dust, they also said that the chance of developing serious long-term illnesses was low. And city officials stressed that the risk of illness from exposure was minimal. They also faced enormous legal liability if workers on the smoldering pile got sick.

Thomas R. Frieden, commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene since 2002, said in a recent interview that the threat of lawsuits in no way shaped the city’s response. Rather, he said, the city did not step in more forcefully because clinical treatment is not one of the department’s responsibilities. But, he said, it was something the Selikoff Center did well.

Few people in New York’s medical community were surprised that the center had taken the lead. After all, the Selikoff Center, named after a pioneering asbestos researcher who died in 1992, was founded in the mid-1980s with political backing from New York labor leaders. It was well known for serving injured union workers, including those with lung diseases, a major concern of Dr. Selikoff’s.

But on 9/11, the center was focused mostly on repetitive strain injuries, the workplace hazard of the moment. Still, ground zero workers complaining of a persistent cough started showing up on Oct. 2. It was not until April 2002, six months later, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency provided the center with $12 million to support a program to give physical and mental health examinations to 9,000 workers.

But the clinic got no money to begin a comprehensive research program, or to make any long-range plans for tracking or caring for injured workers.

“We were told very unequivocally that we were not being funded to do research,” recalled Dr. Herbert, who has been a part of the of the screening program since its inception. “We were being funded to do screening.”

Without money or time to plan, they started collecting data anyway, knowing that it would be necessary to track the rise of symptoms related to dust exposure. But the medical history questionnaire they pulled together was an unwieldy 74 pages long, full of questions that were too vague to be useful. When combined with X-rays and breathing tests, the examination process took more than three hours and scared off many workers. Some of the data was collected on paper and stored in boxes.

“It took me three months just to figure out where the information was and how it had been kept,” said Dr. Jeanne Mager Stellman, a medical researcher who was hired as deputy director of the data center in April 2006. “I don’t think they knew what they were getting into.”

Dr. Stellman resigned last November for personal reasons but continued to work on several mental health studies of ground zero workers. “This is a program that’s done enormous good for 20,000 people,” she said, “but it’s a program that has not yet met expectations.”

The clinic’s doctors also faced significant problems because critical information was simply not available. There were no records of how many people worked at ground zero or for how long. No one knew exactly what was in the dust or how much contamination each person at the site breathed in. And since many workers had not seen a doctor regularly before Sept. 11, there was no reliable way to confirm when respiratory symptoms and ailments started.

By contrast, the New York Fire Department, which monitors its 15,000 firefighters, knew exactly how many firefighters had been exposed. And mandatory annual checkups provided precise medical histories.

It was not until 2004 that the Mount Sinai clinic started to receive federal financing for analysis — about $3 million a year for a data and coordination center. The money was part of $81 million in federal aid for medical tracking — half to cover firefighters, and the rest for ground zero workers.

By then, it was too late to undo some of the missteps made early on.

A Misleading Impression
The Selikoff Center has been criticized for blurring the line between scientific observation and alarmism in acting like an advocate for worker causes. But its doctors say that an aggressive approach is necessary in occupational health because employers tend to challenge complaints about workplace safety.

Go to City Room » “I’ve spent my whole professional life walking that line,” said Dr. Landrigan, who founded the center in 1986 with Dr. Selikoff. “You can collect facts and be rock-solid certain about those facts, but you know quite well that those facts are only a piece of the puzzle. The intellectual question then is: ‘Do I have enough information to issue a call for action?’ ”

Last year, as the fifth anniversary of the attack approached, the center produced a major report that was published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a scientific journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a federal agency. The report said, and Dr. Landrigan declared at a major press conference, that 69 percent of 9,442 responders examined had reported “new or worsened respiratory symptoms.”

In fact, a chart accompanying the report showed that 46.5 percent reported the more serious lower respiratory symptoms, which lung specialists consider to be indications of significant health problems (17 percent reporting shortness of breath, 15 percent reporting wheezing, and 14 percent listing cough with phlegm), while 62.5 percent of the workers reported minor upper respiratory symptoms like runny noses and itchy eyes.

The decision to combine the two categories of symptoms was criticized by medical experts, but it made a powerful — and misleading — impression on the public and the press about the nature and scale of the health problems.

“There is not a scientific reason to lump those two together,” Dr. John R. Balmes, a professor of environmental health and medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who reviewed a version of the report before it was published, said in a recent interview. “Science is better served separating them.”

Dr. Miller, who called the press conference a “public relations extravaganza,” said: “I’m not as worried about a runny nose as I am about shortness of breath.”

In fact, the 69 percent figure — though it deals with symptoms, rather than actual diseases — suggests a more alarming picture than other studies. For example, a report by the city health department released last week showed that about 4 percent of 26,000 ground zero workers reported developing asthma after working on the pile. And the Fire Department’s sarcoidosis study focused on 26 new cases of the disease since 9/11.

Dr. Landrigan, in an interview, defended the way he presented the findings, maintaining that symptoms like a persistent runny nose could have indicated more serious lower respiratory problems.

The clinic was also criticized for suggesting that the symptoms were longer lasting than their own evidence indicated at the time. No symptom, major or minor, had persisted for more than two and a half years when the study was done, and a condition is not generally considered chronic until it lasts at least five years, doctors say. Yet Dr. Herbert said at the press conference that many workers would “need ongoing care for the rest of their lives.”

Newspapers, including The New York Times, gave prominent play to Dr. Herbert’s statements about the lasting nature of the problems. For some experts, her words went too far.

“It’s very hard to predict the future,” said Dr. Markowitz. “I know people want answers, and I know people want to give answers, but we really have to stick to the scientific method if we want to understand the truth.”

One thing is certain. The press conference galvanized many more workers to seek medical exams. More than 1,000 additional workers signed up for monitoring and 500 new workers continue to enroll each month even now.

Dr. Landrigan said he and his colleagues did not exaggerate their findings to scare workers. But other experts said the doctors may have caused a panic.

“We have patients constantly saying after one of these pronouncements, ‘Am I going to die?’ ” said Dr. David Prezant, deputy chief medical officer of the New York Fire Department, who has overseen several epidemiological studies for the department.

Dr. Prezant said that the Selikoff clinic’s statistics sometimes so worried workers that they neglected proven treatments to seek unorthodox cures that have questionable results.

In what many critics regard as the clinic’s most disturbing recent miscue, Dr. Herbert said in a 10-minute audio interview posted in May on the Web site of The New England Journal of Medicine that she was seeing the beginning of a “third wave” of disease, referring to cancer. In her interview, which accompanied a separate article on ground zero health effects by doctors not affiliated with the Selikoff Center, she named specific types of cancer — leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma — and expressed concern about “synergistic effects” caused by chemicals in the dust, a controversial contention among medical experts.

Go to City Room » She was instantly criticized by doctors outside Mount Sinai, who felt her comments were irresponsibly speculative because there is no evidence yet to conclusively link exposure to the dust to cancer. But the city’s tabloid newspapers seized on Dr. Herbert’s comments, prompting another panic among some recovery workers.

In an interview last month, Dr. Herbert defended her comments, explaining that she was speaking as a clinician and sharing her observations about diseases she was seeing with other clinicians.

“I feel that it is our job to communicate as clearly as we can what we do know, what we worry about, what are possible red flags,” Dr. Herbert said. “We have to strike a balance between not exaggerating and not waiting to act until we have absolute proof.”

Praise From Unions
Today, union officials stand by the work the Selikoff Center has done.

“Sinai should be canonized for the services it is providing,” said Micki Siegel de Hernandez, the health and safety director for District 1 of the Communications Workers of America. “The doctors have really established relationships with responders who walk in. This is the place where workers know that the people care and have the expertise.”

Only late last year did the center and the other clinics begin getting federal money to treat ill workers — $17 million then and more on the way. About 10,000 are now receiving treatment, which generally consists of prescription medication or counseling.

Most days, dozens of ground zero workers make their way to the clinic on East 101st Street. Dr. Jacqueline Moline, who now directs the programs, said some workers show up to be examined for the first time. Others come back to be re-examined. All of them expect answers, but for most, uncertainty has become a constant part of their lives. The center continues to collect data from each of them, and Dr. Landrigan said he expected to publish as many as 10 new reports within the next 18 months.

Eventually, doctors and scientists analyzing the long-term effects of the dust will take into account not only Mount Sinai’s studies but those of the Fire Department, the city’s health department and other sources. Clinical studies will continue for decades.

The Selikoff doctors acknowledge their mistakes, but they do not apologize for speaking out aggressively about the potential health dangers.

“If our advocacy has brought in people and we’ve saved their lives because we’ve identified health problems, whether they’re World Trade Center-related or not, I’ll take that any day of the week,” said Dr. Moline. “And if that’s our epitaph — that we talked loudly and we brought people in for health care — so be it.”
End

Gold9472

09-07-2007, 01:07 PM

John said that's bunk. Personally, the way it reads, it's almost like a "hit piece."

Gold9472

09-07-2007, 11:55 PM

The 9/11 Cover-Up
Thousands of Manhattan residents were endangered by WTC debris—and government malfeasance.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/oct/the-9-11-cover-up

by Michael Mason
9/7/2007

In the aftermath of the first explosion, the air over Lower Manhattan transformed instantly.

“The sky was glittering with glass,” says Nina L., a Tribeca resident who asked not to be further identified. She ran to her window and saw a shower of flaming jet fuel cascading from one of the towers.

“This can’t be a good thing to have my windows open,” she immediately thought to herself.

Nina closed her windows and shut her air conditioner flues. As a former jeweler, she’d worked around dangerous chemicals before and understood the hazards of toxic fumes. From her apartment seven blocks north of the World Trade Center, she sat transfixed until a second explosion jolted her into action.

Nina tore up an old pillowcase, fashioned a makeshift bandanna over her face, packed her cats into cages, and trekked northward.

“The whole neighborhood was blanketed in a gray snow,” she recalls. “Some people were walking by in moon suits.”

Although Nina could not have known it at the time, she had just entered one of the most dangerous atmospheric conditions ever to occur on American soil, and she suffers the consequences. She had chronic bronchitis until 2003 and still has esophagitis and sinusitis. Many health professionals believe others like her won’t experience the harsher, suffocating symptoms for several more years.

Up to 70 percent of first responders are ill as a result of 9/11 contamination. If a similar rate of illness holds true for those who lived and worked near the Twin Towers, the number of seriously ill New Yorkers could climb to 300,000 in the near future. About 70,000 New Yorkers so far have listed themselves with the World Trade Center Health Registry, a database that tracks the health impact of the 9/11 attacks. The registry has been criticized for excluding large numbers of those potentially sickened outside a designated one-square-mile area. Despite the insistent denials of city and federal officials, tens of thousands of New Yorkers were unnecessarily exposed to a chemical brew without even the most rudimentary precautions. Today New York City is still mired in a fog of cover-ups and half-truths regarding its environmental welfare.

Civil rights attorney Felicia Dunn Jones, who worked a block from the towers, was caught in the initial deluge of dust when the towers fell. Although her family rejoiced upon her return home, Dunn Jones developed a serious cough the following January. She died barely five weeks later of sarcoidosis, an immune disorder caused by toxic exposure. Dunn Jones’s name will be added to the list of victims when the memorial is completed in 2009, and the honor isn’t just a token gesture. The addition of her name is a hard-won acknowledgment that exposure to 9/11 contaminants can lead to death.

David Worby, a personal injury lawyer, is representing more than 10,000 individuals who claim they’ve suffered serious illness as a result of 9/11. Already, 130 of them have died of causes similar to Dunn Jones’s, though Dunn Jones was not a client of Worby’s. Worby is critical of government officials for their overly sanguine assurances about the safety of the air and is especially critical of the city’s lax enforcement of federal requirements that respirators be worn at contaminated sites.

“They are getting sick because of people like Christie Todd Whitman and Rudy Giuliani,” Worby says. Whitman was administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Giuliani was the mayor at the time the towers fell. “My people don’t want their names to be on the wall, because they are not victims of terrorists—they’re victims of bad government. Giuliani should be banned from public office for what he did.”

New York City, the Port Authority, and the contractors who were responsible for the cleanup (Bovis and Turner Construction) are all defendants in the Worby lawsuit.

“I started this suit on behalf of one cop that got sick,” Worby says of his class-action lawsuit filed in 2004. “Nobody would touch the case with a 10-foot pole because it was considered unpatriotic to say anything against the cleanup or the EPA. We have come a long way. They once called the 9/11 cough a badge of honor. Now they know that the whole thing is a catastrophic government disaster.”

Since the attacks, various scientific studies have demonstrated that New Yorkers are engulfed in billows of illness and disease related to 9/11. First the 9/11 cough and mental health problems caught the attention of local doctors. Then chronic respiratory and gastrointestinal conditions began to surface. Recently a program at Mount Sinai noted the emergence of rare blood cancers among 9/11 first responders. Experts predict that more problems will surface in the next few decades.

While the progression of diseases continues to unnerve New York residents, more people are asking why basic health and safety standards were ignored and violated in the wake of the attacks. One nonprofit organization, the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), keeps a diligent watch on 9/11-related issues.

“The first indication I knew something was wrong was that by September 12 there was no evidence of or even consideration of organization,” says David Newman, an industrial hygienist with ^NYCOSH. Newman was consulting on environmental hazards at 9/11 from day one. “There was no health or safety plan at the site, and this is Safety 101.”

Asbestos was most likely in various construction materials used to build the World Trade Center, an EPA memo stated. It explained that short-term exposure to asbestos can cause respiratory, skin, or eye irritation. The information was dangerously incorrect.

“If our purpose was to save lives and avoid injury and illnesses, we did not have years, months, or even weeks to wait for corrective actions,” said former Occupational Safety and Health Administration chief John Henshaw in a recent House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing. OSHA played an advisory role during the WTC cleanup.

Inhalable asbestos particles are microscopic and completely unidentifiable without the aid of a microscope. Exposure to asbestos is dangerous in part because it does not cause obvious irritation; contamination manifests itself over the course of years and decades, not days. It’s an invisible, deadly, and patient toxin. The only effective protection against airborne asbestos is a special respirator.

“I was down there watching people working without respirators,” Newman says. “Others took off their respirators to eat. It was a surreal, ridiculous, unacceptable situation.”

Stringent protocols govern asbestos contamination cleanup. After a specialized training period, health exam, and certification, licensed technicians must wear industrial-grade respirators and asbestos-resistant suits. New York City has a history of properly addressing asbestos contamination. Back in 1989, a relatively small steam pipe explosion on Gramercy Park South sent 200 pounds of asbestos blowing onto neighboring buildings. As a precaution, the entire building was covered in protective plastic sheeting, and city environmental officials complained that the cleanup would require more than four weeks of painstaking procedures for outdoor decontamination alone. More than 200 area tenants were displaced for weeks following the accident.

The World Trade Center had been, by some accounts, the largest fireproofing project in the world, with possibly 400 to 1,000 tons of asbestos, which was released during the collapse. Bureaucrats aired their assurances to the world.

“The air is safe as far as we can tell, with respect to chemical and biological agents,” Giuliani pronounced two days after the attack.

On September 12, a regional EPA office volunteered to send 30 to 40 electron microscopes to Ground Zero to test bulk dust samples for the presence of asbestos fibers, according to EPA whistle-^blower Cate Jenkins, yet the local EPA office declined the offer, opting for the less effective polarized light microscopy testing method instead. Jenkins had further alleged that regional office personnel were told by the local EPA office: “We don’t want you fucking cowboys here. The best thing they could do is reassign you to Alaska.”

Three days after 9/11, following questionable air sampling techniques, a spokesperson for the EPA said that levels of asbestos were either at low levels, negligible, or undetectable.

End Part I

Gold9472

09-07-2007, 11:55 PM

“I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C., that the air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink,” Whitman said one week after 9/11.

Under the gray, noxious air, trusting residents returned to their homes in Lower Manhattan, unsuspecting children returned to their schools, and hundreds of thousands of downtown workers trudged to their desks. In the following year, the EPA gave more than 50 public assurances concerning the toxic exposure. At least another 15 came from New York City officials.

The systemic failures began occurring almost immediately following the disaster, in part because of an unclear chain of command. In times of environmental crisis, a blueprint for a federal response, called the National Contingency Plan, entitles the EPA to oversee safety and cleanup efforts—but it does not obligate the EPA to do so. During 9/11, New York City initiated a lead role in the environmental crisis response, and as a result, the mayor’s leadership has been called into question.

“We didn’t have the authority to do that [health and safety] enforcement, but we communicated that to the people who did,” Whitman said in a 60 Minutes interview. “Really, the city was the primary responder.” Whitman’s office repeatedly declined an invitation to speak with DISCOVER.

At a time that demanded clear thought and action, a brazen can-do attitude emerged from the rubble, and nobody embodied the reactionary spirit more than New York City’s mayor.

“You smell it, and you feel there must be something wrong,” Giuliani said. “But what I’m told is that it is not dangerous to your health.” Days later he encouraged New Yorkers to “go back to normal.”

Once praised for his heroic response, Giuliani has now made New York City vulnerable to a billion-dollar lawsuit that addresses many haphazard health violations that occurred under his watch. Fewer than 30 percent of Ground Zero workers, for example, wore respirators. After repeated phone calls and e-mails, Giuliani would not return calls or send comments.

The president’s 2002 proposal establishing the Department of Homeland Security addressed the lead-agency issue in the event of future crisis as follows: “After a major incident, the EPA will be responsible for decontamination of affected buildings and neighborhoods and providing advice and assistance to public-health authorities in determining whether it is safe to return to the areas.”

Nevertheless, a lengthy 2003 report (pdf) from the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) hammered the EPA for not fully utilizing its abilities, for making uninformed assurances to New Yorkers, for not taking a proactive approach, and for deferring the onus of environmental decision making to ill-prepared New York City officials.

With NYC officials and local landowners left to head up sampling and cleaning facilities, a number of private interests could easily sway air-testing results. An opportunity for collusion exists between the city and landlords: If buildings were found contaminated, property owners could lose millions due to asbestos-blighted buildings, devaluing one of the most lucrative real estate locations in the world. It was in the financial interest of Manhattan’s most wealthy citizens to see their properties up and running at capacity again.

Initially, the New York City Department of Health (NYCDOH) took the lead in implementing an indoor cleanup program, which placed the responsibility for asbestos removal directly on landlords and residents themselves, in direct violation of city, state, and federal laws and at an enormous potential health risk.

Nina, for example, returned to her Tribeca apartment a week after 9/11. She found the entire place salted with what appeared to be a fine coating.

“This stuff goes through clothes, cracks, everything,” says Nina.

In the mail, she received a letter from the NYCDOH instructing her how to clean her apartment: Use a wet rag and use a High Efficiency Particulate Airfilter vacuum. (A study cited in the EPA’s OIG report shows that most residents failed to follow cleaning instructions appropriately.) Only trained, respirator-equipped professionals should conduct asbestos cleanup. Shortly after returning to her apartment, Nina developed crippling headaches and respiratory problems—troubles she never had before.

Eventually, in May 2002, the EPA reclaimed the initiative for indoor air cleanup. It offered a more involved testing for contaminants, but it still did not adhere to the minimum criteria for protecting human health under the EPA’s own guidelines for a Superfund site. As a result, the cleanup efforts received little public trust. In the first cleanup attempt, 4,166 entities had registered; only 295 residents and building owners participated in the second program. Outdoor air sampling and cleaning was another matter.

“Our rooms were microcosms for what was going on in the neighborhood,” Nina says.

A toxic cloud composed of industrial waste and human remains crept out from the aching, smoldering pit at Ground Zero and wound its way into the adjoining streets. Its vapors circled around and up buildings, pumped in and out of nostrils, mouths, and lungs, and stung the eyes of every woman, child, man, bird, and beast within a wide range. It spread itself on building walls and inside boiler rooms and left its trail on parked cars, handrails, and public benches. That day, New York City was blinded by a perpetually sickening haze. It poisoned the minds of politicians who acted with hubris and paranoia. It obscured the vision of responders and residents, many of whom acted with heroism and reckless bravado, never thinking that their actions might be endangering themselves, their families, their cities, and their very future. The cloud billowed southward, over the river, enveloping everything in the dust and debris of blown-apart lives.

Teroy Canfield, now a music producer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a student at the Institute of Audio Research in Manhattan in September 2001. On the day of the attacks, he remembers getting a “light dusting” following the collapse of the towers. Several hours later, he joined thousands in their exodus across the Manhattan Bridge toward Brooklyn.

When Canfield returned to his apartment near Clark and Henry Streets in Brooklyn Heights, loose papers and other debris were blowing across the area. His home was in the path of the cloud but supposedly far from the designated danger areas.

“There was dust on our air-conditioning units and on the vents,” Canfield recalls. “When we turned it on, the dust would blast into the room. We had wet bandannas and T-shirts, and we would put them on our faces when we went to sleep.”

Canfield couldn’t decide which was worse—to suffer the heat, to have an air-conditioning unit blowing dust into the room, or to open the windows and endure the noxious odors that were creeping their way into Brooklyn. More often than not, they chose to run the air. As Canfield explains, he simply thought the dust was just dust—skin cells, fibers, whatever.

In the following week, Canfield noticed that his dorm room rapidly collected an inordinate amount of the gray stuff, which prompted him and his roommate to clean the place three separate times that week. Neither of them had heard of, nor followed, any precautions. School had already resumed, and nobody there seemed to be talking about toxins or asbestos, so why worry, he thought.

About six months later, Canfield developed a catch in his throat.

“It was like if you swallowed a piece of rice and your instinct is to hack,” he said. “A dry, hard hack. I might cough three or four times a day, or a week.”

Every so often, the hacking would yield a small clump of tissue—different from phlegm or anything else Canfield had ever seen.

“It was sometimes brown and pinkish-bloody,” says Canfield, who has never smoked. “It didn’t hurt, so I figured it would go away.”

Canfield says that he no longer coughs as frequently as he used to, but he has developed a breathing sensitivity. Ordinary smoke from indoor cooking or an outdoor barbecue seems to bother him the most.

“Some people were buried in the dust,” explains Noah Green^span, a cardiopulmonary specialist at the Pulmonary Wellness and Rehabilitation Center in midtown Manhattan. “There were a lot of toxins in the air, a lot of things that are very hard to clean out of the lungs, things like fiberglass and asbestos. If you inhale those things in large quantities, it’s very difficult for the body to recover from that completely.”

Greenspan has conducted a number of breathing tests on New Yorkers and expressed concern that many people don’t know that pulmonary rehabilitation is a helpful treatment option. He explained that some victims won’t even show any signs of disease for years.

“Smokers can smoke for 25 years before they become symptomatic,” he says. “I think we are going to see a similar trend for people who were exposed to 9/11.”

No agency has tracked the number of former residents like Canfield who have since left New York and fanned out across the globe, nor is there an agency outside of state lines devoted to meeting their health-care needs. At best, former residents are advised to download a treatment guideline from the NYCDOH Web site and pass it on to their doctors. Canfield, who has no health insurance, tells me that he doesn’t plan on seeing a specialist anytime soon.

“I just treat myself if I have to—just eat some soup and my veggies, you know?” he says. “I don’t have money to go to a doctor.”

Even those who conducted air sampling in 2001 have suffered. While the EPA was conducting its own measurements, outdoor air had to be tested for radioactive materials, too, and that required the help of an elite group of government scientists from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

Before 9/11, Steve Centore ran four miles a day, led an active family life as the father of three boys and a daughter, and held a security clearance earned from more than 25 years in government service. As a physicist with NNSA, he was among the first sent onto the scene following 9/11. The New York City Department of Health asked Centore to conduct air sampling at Ground Zero, but when he showed up at their makeshift command center on Chambers Street, the NYCDOH simply handed him a hard hat and a painter’s mask and told him to get to work.

“We weren’t worried about contamination, and we were told we didn’t need respirators,” Centore says. Even though he was a scientist, he still had to rely on the EPA’s findings for his own safety.

Centore spent the next four months working among the steaming ruins, looking for radioactive material in both the pile and the debris being carted off to various sites. The radioactive air samplings came back negative—he claims everything had been burned up and swept into the air.

Centore didn’t think much about the cough he had developed until several months later, when it got so persistent that he ruptured a blood vessel in his upper torso.

“It turned half my chest black and blue,” he says.

The bruise initiated a succession of doctor’s visits, but with little relief. By 2005 Centore was a different man—not just physically but mentally. He could no longer exercise, and he seemed detached much of the time. His list of medications steadily increased. For the first time in his life, he began drinking heavily. His wife began to take notice of strange behavior.

“She would find me in the middle of the night standing in the driveway, wearing my pajamas and shaking,” Centore says. A psychiatrist gave him a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and put him on psychotropic medications for his panic attacks. He took a leave of absence from work, knowing that he would probably never return.

By the spring of 2006, however, a more serious set of symptoms emerged. Centore’s organs began deteriorating. First his gallbladder failed him, then his spleen and liver began to malfunction. He would require a liver transplant eventually.

“I started bleeding everywhere—out of my ears, mouth, penis, and anus, and none of the doctors could figure out why,” Centore says. “I was in the hospital for four weeks, and I can’t tell you how many colonoscopies I had in that time.”

When Centore asked the doctors if he could leave the hospital after four weeks’ worth of testing, he was surprised by their answer. Centore had been moved to number one in line on the liver transplant list, and doctors told him that he might only have hours to live. A liver was harvested in time, and Centore survived the operation. It has taken him a while to be weaned down from 34 daily medications to only 19, but he’s grateful he has his life. Although he believes his health problems are related to 9/11 contaminants, he no longer holds grudges.

“Every once in a while I still have panic attacks,” Centore says, “and I go to the doctor all the time, at least once a week. I am not out of the woods by a long shot.”

Heat up a ballpoint pen, a computer, an office sofa, electric wire, or any other object you might find in a high-rise and there comes a point when you can inhale it. The Twin Towers contained tens of thousands of computer terminals, each housing about four pounds of lead, and an untold number of fluorescent bulbs that contained mercury. Released metal particles from the smoldering pit of the World Trade Center were so fine that they could easily slip past a paper face mask and reach deep into lung tissue, where they are poorly soluble in lung fluid. Metals and glass can remain trapped there for long periods of time and make their way into the heart.

Though the list of known toxins released into the air keeps expanding, it doesn’t deter the ongoing investigations of Thomas Cahill, a professor of physics and atmospheric sciences at the University of California at Davis. Cahill has led some of the most exhaustive scientific studies of 9/11-related toxins, and he has discovered a large number of health-threatening substances from air samples taken in the weeks and months after 9/11.

End Part II

Gold9472

09-07-2007, 11:56 PM

“There were two separate pollution events, and the first was an initial dust cloud,” Cahill explains. “What must not be forgotten is that the later effects from the smoldering pile were far, far worse.”

Unlike the publicly lambasted EPA tests and findings, Cahill’s studies, which were published in peer-reviewed forums, were widely praised for their accuracy. Though the University of California at Davis has offered the conclusions to the EPA, the Senate, and New York City health officials, Cahill says he isn’t aware of a single state or federal agency that has acted on his findings. Through sample analysis, Cahill first discovered that 21 percent of the initial dust cloud contained finely powdered, highly caustic cement—thought to be responsible for the “9/11 cough.” Cahill noticed that the heat generated by the piles was converting gases into highly toxic, very fine aerosols. His study “Analysis of Aerosols From World Trade Center Attack” indicated that the contaminated air sometimes descended to ground level over a mile from Ground Zero, far outside the safety zones established by the EPA. Within a few hours’ time, a person exposed to the fumes could ingest toxins that would otherwise take a year to accumulate in a typical environment.

“The fuming World Trade Center debris pile was a chemical factory that exhaled toxins in a particularly dangerous form that could penetrate deep into the lungs of rescue workers and local residents,” Cahill and his fellow researchers concluded.

It’s painful just listening to Susan talk on the phone. Her gasps and wheezes and long pauses in conversation give you the impression that she may not make it through an entire conversation, and I caught her on a good day. A bad day means that she won’t even be able to make the trek from Queens to her office downtown.

“The public isn’t aware of just how bad the effects have been,” Susan says.

“Susan,” an anonymous source, was one of 386,000 people who worked in Lower Manhattan before the attacks. A week after the attacks, she returned to her job downtown.

“Within 24 hours of returning to work, I had a problem,” she warbles. “I could not breathe at the office.”

Even though she had heard the assurances of officials on television, today she bears the signs of serious toxic exposure: internal chemical burns, chronic respiratory infections, and severe asthma attacks.

For average citizens like Susan, New York City offers only one publicly funded treatment option: the WTC Environmental Health Center (WTC-EHC) at Bellevue Hospital, a new program launched in January 2007 that will expand to treat about 6,000 New Yorkers with 9/11-related health problems. The World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program based at Mount Sinai and the Fire Department of New York’s Bureau of Health Services programs offer services to first responders. Politicians have proposed $1.9 billion in funding over the course of six years.

“We get about 100 to 200 calls a week,” says Dr. Joan Reibman, director of Bellevue’s WTC-EHC. “We have a couple of hundred people waiting, so to get an appointment takes six weeks.”

The Bellevue clinic currently serves about 1,300 patients in all. Although the three WTC treatment programs have been praised by Mayor Bloomberg’s office, Reibman explained to me that the WTC treatment programs were initiated by private organizations.

“Neither the city or the federal government asked anyone to start any of the programs,” she says. Eventually the programs drew the support of city officials and gained funding.

Critics of the WTC health programs contend that there is no central entity that integrates the gathered information, which could provide a greater understanding of disease incidence as well as a certain level of continuity of treatment.

“We [the WTC health programs] all work together on the development of guidelines,” Reibman says. “We all share our information with each other. We have different populations, so our questionnaires are different.”

Although it still makes her ill, Susan continues to plod downtown to work. She says sometimes the air in her workspace makes her eyes burn, but she doesn’t have a choice—disability payments won’t cover the rent or put food on the table.

“You can’t dwell on it every single minute,” she says. “If people dwelled on what happened, nobody would live downtown because they would be too frightened.”

Curious about whether the workers and residents of Lower Manhattan are still haunted by health problems like Susan’s, Nina’s, and Teroy’s, I took a walk through the streets surrounding the 9/11 reconstruction site. Although six years have passed since the attacks, the number of people I encountered seemingly with residual health problems surprised me.

“They told us it would be OK to come back here,” recalls Nicholas Rowe, a silver-haired bartender at a nearby Blarney Stone restaurant and bar. In an Irish lilt, Rowe chose colorful words to denounce the EPA’s assurances, none of them printable.

“Three months after the attacks, we would open the bar doors each day,” Rowe recalls. “And every time I would wipe off the bar counter, there was black dust. Now I have nose and throat and sinus infections that keep coming back, and I never had those before. My regulars come in with problems too.”

Just a couple of blocks from the Blarney Stone, I stopped and chatted with Jim Moock, a director of business development at CQG, a market-data provider located in a Broadway high-rise.

“Some people had painter’s masks on their faces, apparently the cops were giving them out,” Moock said, recalling the day of the attacks. “I didn’t get one. It was chaotic, and the only clear thought I had was, ‘Why didn’t I get one [of the masks]?’”

Moock developed a dry, hacking cough about two weeks after the attacks. Finally, after two months of aggravation, Moock scheduled a visit with a pulmonologist. That visit has resulted in the first of many subsequent checkups throughout the years.

“He gives me a test every year or two, and it has shown diminished [lung] capacity,” explained Moock. “He has me on two forms of inhaled medications that I take daily every morning. One is steroid based, and I’ve been on them since 2001.”

Moock believes he was exposed to the toxic dust in a number of different ways. “When it got to be windy, you would see it blow off the window ledges, and I would be outside and see it land on the sidewalk, and it would just sit there like a clump, not like ashes that would just blow away,” Moock said. “This went on for months. I remember watching it rain on this stuff, and it took a lot of rain to get rid of the dust because it was so dense.”

Moock claims he hasn’t seen the familiar pockets of dust for a long time, but does it mean the city is now clean and safe?

In March 2004, in an attempt to “get greater input” regarding the health concerns of New Yorkers, the EPA convened the World Trade Center Expert Technical Review Panel, made up of 18 professionals from academia and public-health organizations. The panel’s goal was to assess any remaining exposures and risks, ascertain any public-health needs that were unmet, and then to offer a recommended course of action. In order to arrive at educated suggestions, the panel needed solid data.

“The whole process [of gathering data] has been extraordinarily poor in terms of understanding the extent to which people were exposed and possibly remain exposed, and if there are pockets of pollution left,” says Jeanne Stellman, a professor of public health at Columbia University, who served on the panel.

Various panel members criticized the EPA’s testing methods, suggesting that the data obtained weren’t sound enough to draw the conclusions the EPA had acted on. “There is only a limited amount of data available on what the nature of the exposure was, which varied day to day and hour to hour,” Stellman explains. “There was remarkably little sampling and analysis.”

End Part III

Gold9472

09-07-2007, 11:57 PM

With so little data available, the panel wasn’t able to determine if the city still required cleanup or not. Too many questions remained unanswered. “At any rate, the issue of cleanup was never resolved,” Stellman says. “And we never got up to the public-health aspects that we were charged with doing.”

The EPA disbanded the WTC Expert Technical Review Panel in December 2005 without explanation. Few recommendations made it into the public record as a result. Instead of continuing the panel, the EPA decided to implement a second program launched in December 2006. The plan intended to address the cleaning and abatement needs of residents of Lower Manhattan, in the exact same locations it had addressed in its first criticized attempt.

In its June 2007 congressional testimony, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed the WTC panel’s recommendations and corroborated its assessments. The GAO review stated that the EPA’s decision to incorporate only some, rather than all, of the panel’s recommendations undermined the validity of the second program.

“The majority of panel members do not support EPA’s second program,” the GAO report concluded. “[The second program] was not responsive to the concerns of residents and workers . . . it was scientifically and technically flawed.”

Robert Gulack, an attorney with the federal government, thought he had escaped the toxic environment caused by 9/11. When his department relocated into the Woolworth Building following the destruction of 7 World Trade Center, it took him only a few days to notice the effect on his breathing.

“Three days later I woke up with a severe asthma attack,” Gulack says. “More than half of my coworkers raised their hands during a meeting and said they had illness since coming into the building.”

To the alarm of his coworkers, Gulack began wearing a double-canister respirator to work every day. The precautions couldn’t deter the onset of problems from the contamination he had already suffered, though.

“I was certified as a scuba diver, and I had great lung capacity,” he says. “Now a scan shows damage to my lungs and hyperreactivity to irritants.” Once Gulack was rushed to the hospital for pneumonia following a number of bronchial infections. Now his illness carries a diagnosis of reactive airway disorder.

Gulack explained that even though his agency had received assurances about the building’s air quality from both the landlord and the EPA, later testing (by a private company) proved the area was dangerously contaminated.

“I know that I was exposed to things that no human being should be exposed to,” Gulack says. “Not only have I been exposed to asbestos but probably a number of other life-threatening contaminants. I’m 53, I have a wife and kids, and I don’t want to be taken away from them. There was no reason to subject me to those dangers—no justification for this at all.”

As a union steward, Gulack has advocated for employee health concerns and has closely monitored the EPA’s actions since 9/11. He believes that instead of learning from all its mistakes, the EPA remains unprepared for another crisis.

“New victims are being claimed every day as a result of this contamination,” Gulack says. “The EPA has officially taken their bad choices and made it their model. Now all crises will be handled politically, through the White House.”

The EPA’s calamitous handling of the 9/11 cleanup brings White House involvement into question. The damning OIG report showed that important public-health information was held back by Bush’s Council on Environmental Quality, and evidence also suggests that critical press releases were altered, making them contradict scientific fact. As the report noted, “the White House Council on Environmental Quality . . . influenced, through the collaboration process, the information that EPA communicated to the public through its early press releases when it convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones.”

Gulack’s concerns are substantiated by another indictment of the EPA—this time in their handling of the hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans. A June 2007 report from the GAO contains an eerily reminiscent passage: “EPA’s assurance that the public health is being protected from the risks associated with the inhalation of asbestos fibers is limited because the agency has not deployed air monitors in and around New Orleans neighborhoods where demolition and renovation activities are concentrated.”

Within sight of Ground Zero quietly stands the Statue of Liberty, seemingly ignored in our post-9/11 world. But like an oracle from a distant time, she offers prophetic words of concern. In the shadow of the attacks, the inscription at her base no longer seems to address immigrants but rather speaks directly to New Yorkers who now find themselves disenfranchised and suffocating with disease: “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Yet some leaders are speaking up for sickened New Yorkers. Representatives Carolyn Maloney and Vito Fossella of New York introduced the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which would expand the current health programs for first responders, area residents, office workers, and students. New York representative Jerrold Nadler tirelessly champions decisive action on behalf of New Yorkers who are still susceptible to toxins.

“We have to clean this up; it was never done properly,” says Nadler, who also says cleanup efforts could run several billion dollars, but there is no exact figure because nobody knows how extensive the contamination is and if it extends to Brooklyn as well.

Because adequate testing has yet to be conducted, nobody knows for certain just how toxic Lower Manhattan remains, but there are plenty of indicators that the 9/11 attacks are still dismantling the downtown infrastructure. Two former Deutsche Bank buildings downtown will soon be demolished as a direct result of 9/11 contamination, and more demolitions are expected.

“To clean it up, it costs between $10,000 and $20,000 per apartment,” Nadler says about the current price of adequate cleaning. “Are you going to ask a resident to pay that?”

On June 25, 2007, former EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman testified before a congressional hearing and repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or culpability in the EPA’s handling of the disaster. Nadler, who represents nearly all of Lower Manhattan, presided over the hearings.

“Let’s be clear: There are people to blame,” Whitman said. “They are the terrorists who attacked the United States.”

Nadler offered me a distinction.

“I divide the population of affected people in different ways,” he says. “First are the ones that were killed, and you can blame the terrorists for those. Then there was the plume—we think about 30,000 people were caught in it. And those people were also sickened by the terrorists. But the others are first responders on the pile, and most of those are sick due to exposure—there you can blame public officials who permitted them to work on the pile.” Nadler also includes area residents and workers among the victims of public officials.

During the hearings, Whitman acknowledged that some first responders were sickened by the contamination because they did not wear respirators.

“After the first three days, it is not a rescue operation,” Nadler says. “It is simply a cleanup, and there is no excuse for not doing it properly. At the Pentagon site, nobody got sick there because they enforced the safety laws.” Workers who did not comply with safety regulations were not permitted on-site at the Pentagon-run cleanup.

“Every action taken by the EPA during the response to this horrific event was designed to provide the most comprehensive protection and the most accurate information to the residents of Manhattan,” Whitman stated in a press release. Her remarks, however, only served to enrage already traumatized New Yorkers.

Through a spokesperson, Whitman declined to answer any questions for this article, instead offering a prepared statement citing her congressional testimony.

“It is clear there are laws and regulations that were in place, which, had they been followed, would have prevented all this,” Nadler says. “They weren’t followed.”

While the courts try to determine who is responsible for the environmental debacle following 9/11, countless New Yorkers continue to live and work near Lower Manhattan with the assumption that it is safe. The dust is now out of sight, out of mind, and possibly in their lungs, hearts, and bloodstreams.

End

Gold9472

09-08-2007, 12:32 AM

Just an FYI… the NYTimes came out with what appears to be a “hit piece (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/nyregion/07sinai.html?_r=3&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1189224281-1rNt6c2aQL+KuM35Ov0xTQ)” today with regard to the Toxic Dust. The “Debunkers” have jumped (http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-bad-can-it-get-for-truthers.html) on it of course. Soooo… there aren’t policemen and firemen walking around with mobile respirators? There aren’t over 100 people that died that just happened to be down at Ground Zero? Coincidence? Is this all a figment of my imagination? The “Debunkers” have stooped to a new low. Even though they say that they “hope and pray that working on the pile did not lead to longterm problems for a large number of the people involved, but that’s just hoping for the best for them, not the best for us” in their “debunking”, the “debunking” itself, at least to me, is like attacking the heroes of 9/11. They would step on the sick and dying responders just because of one article, completely ignoring the years of other articles that substantiate what we’re saying, just to try and make us look bad. Way to go guys. You should be proud.

Gold9472

09-08-2007, 06:54 PM

Rally for 9/11 bill to treat ailing first responders, residents

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--attacks-health0908sep08,0,5950142.story

3:13 PM EDT, September 8, 2007

NEW YORK (AP) _ Politicians and labor leaders gathered Saturday at ground zero to support federal legislation aimed at providing medical coverage to first responders and others afflicted by toxic dust and debris after the World Trade Center attack.

The rally was timed to coincide with the upcoming sixth anniversary of the attacks, when three members of New York's congressional delegation will introduce the bipartisan 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. Democrats Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler, along with Republican Vito Fossella, will bring the bill to Congress on Tuesday.

"The heroes of 9/11 responded immediately when our country was attacked, but when these same heroes needed help, our government dragged its heels," Maloney said. "Thousands are sick and that's a fact."

The bill would cover first responders and rescue workers, construction workers and volunteers from the nine-month cleanup of the rubble from the twin towers. It would also provide health monitoring and treatment for local residents, students and others who were in lower Manhattan after the attacks.

Joining the politicians were representatives from the New York City Central Labor Council, the New York Building & Construction Trades Council and the New York State AFL-CIO.

"We will not forget," said U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton. "We're going to rescue the rescuers."

Gold9472

09-11-2007, 12:53 PM

6 Years Later, 9/11 Health Questions Linger

http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2007/09/11/hscout608085.html

09.11.07, 12:00 AM ET

TUESDAY, Sept. 11 (HealthDay News) -- No one doubts the impact of the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center disaster on rescue and cleanup workers' hearts, lungs and minds.

First, workers inhaled a toxic cocktail of soot, metals and other particles deep into their lungs during 12-hour shifts that lasted for weeks. There was also the psychological toll the cleanup effort took -- especially on those least prepared to deal with it.

"There were quite powerful stories of workers who would receive a load of debris and be dumping and find, for example, a human hand in it. And then not to be able to adequately process what it was that they were experiencing," said Alison Geyh, an environmental health scientist at Johns Hopkins University who spent weeks at the site -- an experience she said often left her shaken.

When it comes to the long-term health impact on workers, however, nothing remains certain, despite numerous highly publicized reports from government and private agencies.

"It's a real commentary that here we can have the largest manmade catastrophe of this sort for which we have so little environmental data," said Jeanne Stellman, now a professor of preventive medicine at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, in New York City.

"That's really a sad commentary on how we handled it," said Stellman, who took part in a landmark Mount Sinai Medical Center study as the deputy director of Mount Sinai's Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine in New York City.

The study released by the center just before the five-year anniversary of 9/11 found that 69 percent of 9,442 responders examined reported "new or worsened respiratory symptoms."

Almost half -- 46.5 percent -- of responders suffered more serious lower respiratory symptoms, including phlegm-laden "World Trade Center cough," the study found. Just under 63 percent said they have suffered from milder symptoms since cleanup wrapped up in April 2006, such as itchy eyes or runny noses.

And at least two people have died from illnesses experts have linked to 9/11 exposures. Felicia Dunn-Jones, a 42-year-old lawyer, succumbed to a disease resembling sarcoidosis five months after the attacks, and James Zadroga, a 34-year-old New York City police detective, died of pulmonary disease early in 2006.

Other studies have also suggested at least short-term respiratory effects, including a New York City Department of Health study released last month that found first responders to the attack now have a risk for asthma that is 12 times that of the general population.

But the available data may never be adequate to reveal the whole picture, experts said.

"First of all, we know nothing about the types of contaminants that were present in the days following the event, because there was no monitoring in place," Geyh said.

Her team's study, published in May in the New England Journal of Medicine, found relatively high levels of fine particles under 2.5 micrometers in diameter in air samples taken at Ground Zero in late September and October, 2001. These tiny particles can lodge deep in the lungs, potentially causing health problems for years to come.

Geyh said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wasn't able to install air monitoring equipment at the Trade Center site until near the end of September 2001. And she stressed that no one sample can ever give an adequate picture of the overall air quality. "It varied day to day," she aid. "We hypothesize that that had to do with how aggressive the fires were burning, or how aggressive the debris-removal activity was occurring."

Stellman, who has testified before the U.S. Senate on Ground Zero air quality and the clean-up effort, said getting a fix on the exact level of contaminants any one worker might have been exposed to will be nearly impossible. "The air changed from moment to moment, place to place, day to day," she noted. "We only have a small number of measures as to what was there."

Worker's level of protection varied too -- something Geyh said she witnessed firsthand. A variety of masks -- everything from the plain white ones commonly sold, to more sophisticated half-face, canister-equipped versions -- were often available, she said. But workers got little direction on how to use them or which mask might be best for their particular level of exposure. "It was very clear to us that that information was not easily found by the people who were supposed to be wearing the mask," Geyh said.

Another expert pointed to the discord that exists between EPA air samples and those garnered by private testing firms. Those firms were hired by banks and other corporations to test whether it was safe for workers to return to their lower Manhattan offices in the weeks after 9/11.

Those private environmental testing services "found a list that was longer in terms of contaminants, and in higher concentrations, for weeks afterwards and possibly even for longer," compared to EPA readings, said Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "There's a conflict of the information that we got at the time and what private companies were getting."

Stellman refuted that argument, however, saying that Horovitz was comparing "apples and oranges." She said that while the EPA was taking samples of outdoor air quality, most of the sampling done by the private firms was done inside buildings.

"It's very hard to make these comparisons because the EPA, I don't believe, had a lot of indoor air quality data," Stellman said.

But criticism of the Mount Sinai research program continues. In a Sept. 7, 2007, article in The New York Times, a number of critics charged that the findings from the Selikoff center -- founded in the 1980s with political backing from labor unions -- are biased in favor of boosting the number of workers thought to be affected by contaminants.

The center's supporters -- including Stellman -- shot back that the Mount Sinai team's efforts were stymied early on by a lack of federal funding and the government's emphasis that worker health screening, not research, be the focus of their efforts at the site.

So, questions on the long-term health effects of those weeks of grueling work at Ground Zero remain unresolved and may never be resolved due to a paucity of data, the experts said.

"What we don't know certainly weighs much more heavily than what we do know," according to Horovitz.

One thing scientists do understand, he said, is that particles under 2.5 micrometers can lodge in the lungs' tiniest channels for years, potentially causing lung disease, atherosclerosis ("hardening of the arteries"), and even cancers.

Many of these illnesses may not show up for decades. "It is definitely far too early to know what's coming down the road for cancer, for example," Stellman said.

She believes it may never be certain whether Ground Zero exposure was carcinogenic. "Because, tragic and horrifying as [9/11] was, the population exposed may never be big enough [statistically] to actually give us a definite answer," Stellman explained.

The psychological consequences for workers are becoming increasingly clear, however. In another New York City health department report, released in August, researchers found that one in every eight responders and workers has come down with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Risks for the troubling condition appear to correlate with the length of time workers spent at the Trade Center site, how soon they arrived after the disaster, and their level of training in dealing with traumatic events, the study found.

All of the data, on both mental and physical health, does point to one conclusion, the experts said -- that workers will need to be monitored and tended to for decades to come.

"They are the people who put themselves at risk to help this country heal," Geyh said. "We should be vigilant to make sure that we understand what's going on with them."

Gold9472

09-12-2007, 02:29 PM

Doctor details 9/11 workers' illnesses

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070912/ap_on_he_me/terror_attacks_health

By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 46 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Doctors treating sickened ground zero workers offered Congress a detailed diagnosis Wednesday of the ailments still affecting thousands after the Sept. 11 attacks, but warned that there's no way to determine how many more may become afflicted with life-threatening illnesses.

Dr. Philip Landrigan of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine described three months of recent medical treatment to a House panel examining how many of those who toiled on the toxic debris pile are still sick — or may get sick.

Thousands of people "are still suffering," Landrigan said a day after the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Their ailments range from runny noses to laryngitis to lung disease, he said.

"Respiratory illness, psychological distress and financial devastation have become a new way of life for many," he told the House Education and Labor Committee. He advocated leaving Sept. 11-related medical programs in place to try to determine how many workers might develop long-term diseases.

Patricia Clark, a regional official with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said workers who were exposed to ground zero toxins in the first 48 hours after the attacks were hit with an "incredible assault" on their health. Still, she defended her agency's air sampling, which found little evidence of dangerously high levels of asbestos and other contaminants.

The figures offered Wednesday further define the medical problems found by a 2006 Mount Sinai study, which said 70 percent of ground zero workers suffered new or worsened respiratory problems after their exposure to the debris of the World Trade Center.

Landrigan offered new specifics of the most prevalent symptoms among the police officers, firefighters, construction workers and volunteers examined.

Between April and June of this year, doctors in the 9/11 workers health program overseen by Mount Sinai saw 2,323 patients.

They found:

_Lower respiratory problems in 40 percent of patients. Asthma and asthma-like reactive airways disease were found in 30 percent. Smaller portions of patients had chronic cough — 7 percent — or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — 5 percent.

_Upper respiratory conditions in 59 percent. The most common condition was runny nose, in 51 percent of the workers, and chronic sinusitis, in about a fifth of them.

_Mental health problems, the most common being post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, in 36 percent of patients.

Landrigan said it is still unclear how many of those patients will continue to experience such symptoms, or how many may develop new diseases like cancer many years after their exposure.

Lingering 9/11-related illnesses — and deaths of some first responders years after the attacks — have led to calls in Congress for a federal program to fund long-term health programs for those workers.

So far, the government has paid for piecemeal screening and treatment of emergency personnel, construction workers and volunteers, but advocates want such programs expanded to include lower Manhattan residents, students and tourists.

Gold9472

09-14-2007, 08:15 PM

9/11 Health Problems Demand Less Talk, More Action

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/09/911-health-prob.html

(Gold9472: Way to go Brandon.)

By Brandon Keim
September 14, 2007

911 "Respiratory illness, psychological distress and financial devastation have become a new way of life for many" 9/11 cleanup workers and first responders, Mount Sinai School of Medicine doctor Philip Landrigan told a Congressional committee yesterday. As reported in the Associated Press, 70 percent of the workers "suffered new or worsened respiratory problems after their exposure to the debris of the World Trade Center. The majority suffered from so-called lower respiratory problems -- wheezing, shortened breath, chronic coughs -- that are seen as indicators of serious health problems.

The New York Times recently discussed the work of Landrigan and his colleagues, who work at Mount Sinai's Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational Health and Environmental Medicine. After 9/11, the clinic's doctors "stepped into the fray in the absence of any meaningful effort by the city, state or federal government to survey, interview or offer treatment to potentially sickened recovery and cleanup workers." But the clinic has historically strong ties to organized labor, and critics say that it has favored advocacy over strong science, and that the epidemiological data it's provided is patchy and haphazard.

There's probably an element of truth to that, particularly the latter charge: with a tiny budget, no time to plan and just six full-time doctors, the clinic embarked on an "unprecedented epidemiological challenge." Its data isn't as rigorously parsed as it ought to be. In the future, more studies will be needed in the wake of natural and man-made disasters to document their public health effect. But as far as the health of people who breathed the foul post-9/11 air is concerned, the critics are missing the forest for the trees. Data doesn't have to be perfect to be useful, and as patchy as it may be, there's enough to show that a great many people inhaled high levels of burning toxic compounds, and it appears to have harmed them. As the AP notes,

Lingering 9/11-related illnesses and deaths of some first responders years after the attacks have led to calls in Congress for a federal program to fund long-term health programs for those workers.

So far, the government has paid for piecemeal screening and treatment of emergency personnel, construction workers and volunteers, but advocates want such programs expanded to include lower Manhattan residents, students and tourists.

That this should even be debatable is disgusting.

simuvac

09-16-2007, 08:59 AM

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070916005058&newsLang=en

September 16, 2007 07:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Retired NY Giants Great George Martin Begins ''a Journey for 9/11''

3,200+ Mile Cross-Country Trek from George Washington Bridge to Golden Gate Bridge Will Benefit Thousands of Sick WTC Rescue and Recovery Workers

NFL Alum, AXA Equitable Executive Embarks on Four-Month Journey; Seeks to Raise $10+ Million for Ground Zero Workers Now In Severe Medical Distress

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Retired New York Giants co-captain and Super Bowl champion George Martin will embark today on a physical challenge far more demanding than an NFL training camp when he begins a 3,200+ mile fundraising walk across the United States to benefit sick Ground Zero rescue and recovery workers. The walk, called “a Journey for 9/11,” (www.ajourneyfor911.info (http://www.ajourneyfor911.info/)) is expected to take approximately four months, and will start at the George Washington Bridge in New York City and end at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Mr. Martin seeks to raise awareness about these health issues and more than $10 million for 9/11 workers who are suffering serious medical conditions related to their efforts at Ground Zero after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

“Thousands of people – first responders, volunteers, construction workers and so many others – unselfishly put themselves in harm's way for months after September 11, and they deserve the best medical attention available,” said Mr. Martin, now vice president of sports marketing for AXA Equitable, which has given him a leave of absence for his Journey. “We need to do as much as we possibly can for any of these workers who are now suffering medically because of their efforts. This Journey is one way I can make a difference, and I invite others to support our mission.”

George Martin was a star defensive end and co-captain of the Super Bowl Champion New York Giants (1986). In Super Bowl XXI, he famously tackled Broncos quarterback John Elway for a safety in the end zone. During his 14 NFL seasons (1975-1988), Mr. Martin scored seven touchdowns (three on interception returns), which set a record for defensive linemen. He is a former president of the NFL Players Association.

Inspired by a Neighborhood Loss

Mr. Martin feels a personal connection to the events of September 11. A New Jersey resident, two of Mr. Martin’s young neighbors perished in the terrorist attacks. In honor of them and the thousands of firefighters; police officers; EMTs; clergy; construction and other workers; and volunteers who helped dig through the rubble, he hopes to attract the attention of and financial contributions from Americans and businesses coast-to-coast as he treks through towns and cities across the United States for the next four months.

The Medical Problems of Working at Ground Zero

Medical studies now substantiate what many had suspected and claimed for several years – that working at Ground Zero led to serious, long-term medical problems for thousands of people. Studies indicate that 3.6 percent of WTC rescue and recovery workers reported developing asthma after exposure to dust and debris from working at the site, 12 times the rate of the normal adult population. And according to the NYC Department of Mental Health and Hygiene, one in eight of nearly 30,000 WTC rescue and recovery workers developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a condition found to be highest among WTC volunteers http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/pr2007/pr076-07.shtml.

The Start of the Route

“a Journey for 9/11,” a not for profit charitable organization, commences on Sunday, September 16, 2007, at the New York side of the George Washington Bridge. After a brief ceremony there, Mr. Martin, volunteers, philanthropic donors, corporate sponsors and other supporters will join him as he treks across the famed bridge into New Jersey. He will then walk four plus miles to a ceremony at the Hackensack University Medical Center, which along with the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health Systems and the Mt. Sinai Medical Center will match the total funds Mr. Martin’s Journey raises. From there Mr. Martin will walk to Giants Stadium, where he will be honored at halftime ceremonies during the Giants home opener vs. the Green Bay Packers. Legendary Giants alumni will help collect Journey donations from fans outside the Stadium, Mr. Martin will address the crowd and the team will show a career highlights reel to game attendees to give the former defensive end a formal send-off.

The Route and Journey Team

States on Mr. Martin’s Journey include New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California. On Friday, September 21, he will pass through Washington, DC, for a special event with the NFL Players Association.

The retired NFL great plans to walk approximately 50 miles each day: 12 ½ miles before breakfast, 12 ½ before lunch, 12 ½ in the afternoon, followed by a short rest, and then a final 12 ½ before dinner and bed. Mr. Martin, 54, has been training for more than three months for this endeavor.

Throughout his Journey, Mr. Martin will be accompanied by one security officer and a support team that includes an advance person; a technology specialist who will document the Journey; a medical technician; and a driver, who will drive the team’s accompanying motor home.

Support from Business, Medical, Education, Sports and Charitable Community

Sponsors of the Journey include Hackensack University Medical Center; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health Systems; Mt. Sinai Medical Center; Fairleigh Dickinson University; United Parcel Service; Bear Stearns; Nike; TanaSeybert; Keyspan Energy; Hunter Douglas; the New York Giants; the National Football League; the National Football League Players Association; General Motors; Sprint and World Wrestling Entertainment. Philanthropists Joseph H. and Dr. Carol F. Reich led the way with a donation today of $911,000.

“I'll walk every mile of the route, and will enjoy meeting this challenge; no walking a few miles and then riding in a car,” said Mr. Martin. “Outside of family, this is the most important thing I have ever done in my life.”

Donations

To make a tax deductible financial donation to “a Journey for 9/11,” visit http://www.active.com/donate/aJourneyfor911; or write to “a Journey for 9/11,” Rockefeller Center, P.O. Box 4862, New York, NY 10185-4862; or call 888-702-5080.

For general information about a Journey for 9/11, visit www.ajourneyfor911.info (http://www.ajourneyfor911.info/).

simuvac

09-16-2007, 09:03 AM

http://www.active.com/donate/aJourneyfor911

If this website is correct, this guy has already generated over $1 million in donations.

Some of the top contributors:

The Jim Fassel Foundation $25,000.00 WWE . $10,000.00 Bill Parcells $10,000.00 Lee Reeves In Loving Memory - Minnie L. Reeves $5,000.00 Inc. Man Etc. $2,500.00 Pamela Duffy $500.00

Gold9472

09-16-2007, 06:07 PM

Giants Star Martin Begins 9/11 March

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iE9IpV7kQcZeFgEEdfkkmaHjnt_w

1 hour ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Saying he knows what real heroism is, former New York Giants star George Martin began a cross-country walk to raise money for ailing ground zero workers.

A captain of the 1987 Super Bowl champions, Martin was cheered on by a few dozen volunteers Sunday as he stepped onto the pedestrian walkway of the George Washington Bridge, which connects Manhattan and New Jersey.

"I've been termed a hero for playing a kids' game at a pro level, and that does not rise to the level of heroic," Martin said Saturday as he got ready for his journey. "I think of 9/11, when I saw people respond and put their health, their careers, their lives in jeopardy."

Walking briskly, he hopes to cover at least 30 miles a day in a march that, if all goes well, will end at San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge in about four months.

Martin said he was moved by the stories of World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers who began getting ill years after the terror attacks. There is evidence that some illnesses may be linked to the toxic dust of the twin towers.

He hopes the walk will raise $10 million.

Gold9472

09-21-2007, 08:07 AM

NYC opens free clinics for 9/11 illnesses

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/09/21/nyc_opens_free_clinics_for_911_illnesses/

By Henry Goldman, Bloomberg | September 21, 2007

NEW YORK - Two free New York City health clinics devoted to the treatment of thousands of individuals made ill by toxic materials dispersed during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center opened yesterday.

Clinics in Chinatown and in Elmhurst, Queens, join one already in Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital to aid first responders, office workers, and residents of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn with respiratory, gastrointestinal, and psychological ailments caused by the attack and its aftermath.

The clinics are part of a 15-point plan that Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced in February to address health problems experienced by more than 3,000 firefighters, at least 4,000 rescue and recovery workers, and thousands more who lived and worked in areas where airborne toxic dust and smoke settled.

"There are thousands of residents, commercial workers, and others who have reported experiencing acute breathing problems, worsening asthma, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental illnesses which require sustained treatment," Bloomberg told a US Senate health committee in March, when he asked for $150 million to help fund the clinics.

Gold9472

10-01-2007, 09:13 AM

Court To Hear Ground Zero Liability Case

http://www.nysun.com/article/63721

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 1, 2007

A federal appeals court's reading of an obscure Cold War-era law, passed amid fears of a Soviet nuclear attack, will decide whether the thousands who toiled at ground zero can hold the city liable for their exposure to toxins.

The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which sits in Manhattan, will hear oral arguments today on whether the city is immune from lawsuits brought by the thousands of firefighters, police officers, and construction workers who searched for survivors and cleaned up on the site of the World Trade Center.

Many of the workers say they now suffer from respiratory ailments linked to arsenic, asbestos, and other toxins found in the air and dust at the site. One estimate, by the lawyer who managed the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, Kenneth Feinberg, places the cost of settling the suits at more than $1.5 billion.

At issue is a U.S. District Court ruling from last year that allows as many as 10,000 of those workers to press forward with suits against the city. The city is asking a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court to overturn that decision, which was handed down by Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who sits in Manhattan.

The conditions at ground zero have long been under the microscope, with workers alleging that the Environmental Protection Agency put out falsely optimistic air quality reports and that government agencies failed to ensure that workers were wearing respirators. In May, the city's medical examiner amended a woman's death certificate to state for the first time that toxic dust from the site had been a "contributory" cause of death.

But today's arguments, and ultimately whether the suits are upheld or thrown out, will not turn on any single fact about the conditions at ground zero or the city's actions in the days following the terrorist attacks. Instead, the court's decision could hinge entirely on its reading of the New York State Defense Emergency Act.

That law, enacted in 1951, grants immunity from lawsuits to the government and companies responding to an attack. While the enemy the Legislature had in mind was the Soviet Union, Judge Hellerstein's ruling found that the passage of history had not made the law irrelevant. The city, the judge wrote, was certainly entitled to immunity in the days immediately following the attack.

However, the judge said it was an open question whether that immunity extended months later, as work at ground zero continued: "As the emergency condition fades … the need for immunity diminishes and the obligations and duties otherwise imposed once again must be protected," Judge Hellerstein wrote.

A brief filed on behalf of the workers stresses that in the months after the September 11, 2001, attacks, ground zero became a work site where ordinary workplace regulations and responsibilities applied.

During the nine-month cleanup operation, the plaintiffs' brief argues, "the site had been radically transformed from a place of chaos and public emergency to an orderly construction site not unlike those the City of New York has often seen."

The city, on the other hand, contends that it is entitled to immunity for the entire duration of the recovery operation.

The city's brief stresses the law's Cold War history, noting that lawmakers in 1951 were anticipating cataclysmic attacks, from which any recovery would be slow.

"The rescue and recovery from a nuclear attack would greatly exceed — perhaps by years — the roughly nine-month period of the 9/11 rescue and recovery operation," the brief argues.

The panel hearing the case today is to consist of Judges Jon Newman, Sonia Sotomayor, and Richard Wesley.

A lawyer from the firm of Patton Boggs, James Tyrrell, will argue on behalf of the city.

The plaintiffs will be represented today by Kevin Russell of Howe & Russell, P.C., and Brian Shoot of Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo, P.C.

Gold9472

10-05-2007, 08:32 AM

Football legend stumps with pols for stricken 9/11 heroes

http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2007/10/football_legend_stumps_with_po.html

by Staten Island Advance
Thursday October 04, 2007, 4:13 PM

Rep. Vito Fossella and former Giant George Martin talk in Washington D.C.Retired Super Bowl champion and New York Giants co-captain George Martin recently embarked on a four-month, 3,200-mile walk hoping to raise more than $10 million for sick Ground Zero rescue workers.

Today he stopped pounding the pavement for a little bit to rally with Rep. Vito Fossella, Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Rep. Jerold Nadler in Washington, D.C., during a press conference to raise awareness for those stricken heroes of 9/11.

"It is my honor to walk across this great nation to generate awareness about and funding for the healthcare needs of those who have fallen ill as a result of their selfless sacrifices in the aftermath of September 11, 2001," said Martin. "We need to do all we can as a nation to help the rescue and recovery workers of Ground Zero recover from and manage their illnesses."

Fossella, Maloney and Nadler recently introduced comprehensive, bipartisan legislation, The 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, to address the health impacts of the 9/11 attacks, including ensuring that everyone exposed to the toxins of Ground Zero have access to medical monitoring and, if needed, treatment.

Said Fossella: "George Martin is proving that he is a champion both on and off the field. He is helping bring attention to the suffering of sick and injured 9/11 responders and raising money to allow them to get the care they need."

Gold9472

10-16-2007, 12:24 PM

N.Y. willing to talk settlement in 9/11 suit: report

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1644472920071016

Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:29am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City is willing to enter discussions to settle a lawsuit with 9,000 rescue and cleanup workers at the World Trade Center disaster site who may be sick from inhaling toxic dust, a newspaper said on Tuesday.

The New York Daily News cited a letter from a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit of workers who say they suffer from respiratory illnesses from the September 11 site.

"The City of New York and the contractors have indicated that they want to negotiate a global or aggregate settlement on behalf of all our WTC clients," reads the letter from lawyer Marc Bern to his clients, the Daily News reported.

"If we receive an aggregate settlement offer from the defendants, it will be up to you and our other clients to accept or reject the offer and, if you accept it, to agree on how the (money) would be divided," Bern wrote. "The defendants would have nothing to do with that decision."

Bern told Reuters he had no comment on the newspaper report and representatives of the city's Law Department were not immediately available for comment.

The city has the benefit of a $1 billion federal fund that was established in case the city was found to have liability

The newspaper said victim advocates were skeptical that would be adequate to cover care for long-term illnesses of thousands of people and to compensate the roughly 150 families who blame the death of a relative on work at Ground Zero.

"If you do the math, it's not that handsome a settlement for the 9/11 responders," the newspaper quoted John Feal, a responder and Ground Zero activist, as saying.

Many rescue and cleanup workers report lingering illnesses that may be attributed to breathing toxic ash, dust and other contaminants from the remains of the World Trade Center after it was destroyed in the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The city has tried to have a federal judge dismiss the lawsuit.

Bern's clients have until the end of the month to decide whether to give him permission to begin settlement talks, the Daily News reported.

Gold9472

10-17-2007, 08:36 AM

Heroes need better deal

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/10/17/2007-10-17_heroes_need_better_deal.html

Wednesday, October 17th 2007, 4:00 AM

Some harsh realities are hitting 9,000 Ground Zero rescue and recovery workers who have sued seeking compensation for illnesses they suffered responding to the collapse of the World Trade Center. And family members of responders who died are facing the same unpleasant truths.

Each has received a letter from the attorneys who are battling for payments from the city and from the contractors who cleared the rubble of the twin towers. The letter broaches the idea of negotiating a settlement that would at long last put money into the accounts of very deserving people.

But, as predicted, the numbers are obscene. The city has $1 billion to pay settlements, money allocated by Congress. It sounds like plenty, but it's not. The lawyers are claiming 40% of the pot - an astonishing $400 million - leaving $600 million to be divided among everyone else.

With about 9,000 claimants, the average payout would be some $66,000 per worker, not nearly enough to cover medical bills and lost wages, particularly in the case of deaths.

Nothing more starkly proves the point than the large payments issued by the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, an entity that went out of business before most of the Forgotten Victims of 9/11 realized they were sick. The fund made an average payment of more than $2 million to survivors of people killed in the attack, and an average payment of almost $400,000 to the injured or sick.

Lawyers representing responders and city attorneys have been locked in pretrial skirmishing, the city attempting to establish immunity from damages for injuries suffered in an emergency. But the courts have shown little patience for that claim, signaling that it behooves everyone to pay out the $1 billion before, as one judge put it, more people are dead.

So the lawyers have begun circling a settlement. This would require approval from most of the 9,000 people in the suits. They may think settling makes more sense than years of litigation whose only certainty is higher legal fees. That's purely their decision.

But it still stinks. After 9/11, the city estimated damage claims could run to $2 billion. But no one put up that much cash; the city's own liability was capped by Congress, and even the responders' lawyers now seem to believe that pursuing the contractors would only drive upstanding businesses into bankruptcy.

The solution: Congress must reopen the compensation fund. "We need federal moneys to take care of an obligation that the city really cannot handle, and we need that money now," Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday. Washington must act.

Gold9472

10-19-2007, 09:57 AM

NYC rejects listing worker as 9/11 death

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071019/ap_on_re_us/attacks_health

By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 42 minutes ago

NEW YORK - He became the face of post-Sept. 11 illness after his death in early 2006, galvanizing lawmakers and health care advocates to lobby for research and treatment for thousands who said the debris-filled air at ground zero made them sick.

James Zadroga, the 34-year-old retired police detective who died of respiratory failure after working hundreds of hours at the World Trade Center site, was often cited by those advocates as a "sentinel case" — the first health-related casualty linked to ground zero, suggesting there would be more to follow.

The city's medical examiner stunned that community this week in a letter declaring that Zadroga's death had nothing to do with the toxic air he breathed while working at ground zero.

Rejecting another medical examiner's autopsy that called Zadroga's death "directly related" to his post-Sept. 11 work, New York City Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch said in a letter to Zadroga's family that his death was not caused by exposure to trade center dust.

"It is our unequivocal opinion, with certainty beyond doubt, that the foreign material in your son's lungs did not get there as the result of inhaling dust at the World Trade Center or elsewhere," said the letter to Zadroga's father. It was signed by Hirsch and another medical examiner, Michele Slone. The letter was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

Hirsch offered to explain his findings personally to Zadroga's family, who planned to meet with him Friday.

Zadroga became a symbol for the plight of ground zero workers whose health rapidly deteriorated in the months after they worked at the site of the 2001 terrorist attacks. He arrived after the twin towers collapsed and spent 470 hours sifting through the smoldering ruins. By the first anniversary of the attack, the nonsmoker was plagued by a constant cough.

He died in January 2006. A New Jersey medical examiner ruled that Zadroga died of inflammatory lung disease, had material "consistent with dust" in his lungs and damage to his heart and liver.

The autopsy was the first scientific evidence blaming a death directly on ground zero exposure. Lawmakers and health advocates regularly cite Zadroga's case as a key example of post-Sept. 11 illness when lobbying for billions of dollars for research and continuing care.

"It's shocking ... how can they be so callous?" said Zadroga's father, Joseph Zadroga, who broke down in tears last year before a congressional panel convened to study Sept. 11 health. "He had the acid reflux. He had short-term memory loss. ... He was on strong medications for the pain in his lungs."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg distanced himself from the medical examiner's office in a statement Thursday, saying the independent agency made its own decisions. The city is defending itself in a lawsuit filed by thousands of workers who say they were not properly protected from the dust that made them sick. Bloomberg has also lobbied the federal government for millions of dollars to treat and monitor the ailing workers.

The medical examiner's "determination in this case does nothing to change New York City's commitment to make sure that all who were affected by 9/11 get the health care they need," Bloomberg said.

Michael Palladino, president of Zadroga's union, suggested the ruling was related to the ongoing lawsuits against the city.

"I'm shocked and appalled that the medical examiner's office would send a letter to Mr. Zadroga, and stating that their unequivocal opinion, with certainty, beyond doubt, is that he didn't die from the World Trade Center, when in fact they can't tell me what he died from," he said. "I don't trust it."

Zadroga's father had asked Hirsch to review his son's case, hoping the medical examiner would add Zadroga's name to the official Sept. 11 death toll, as he did for a lawyer who died of lung disease five months after the attacks.

Hirsch decided in May that Felicia Dunn-Jones' exposure as she fled the collapsing twin towers contributed to the lung-scarring disease that killed her. He added her name to the attacks' death toll. Her name was read for the first time at this year's Sept. 11 anniversary ceremony, and officials plan to list her name on the Sept. 11 memorial.

Zadroga and others had hoped for similar recognition for his son. Hirsch has rejected at least other four families' requests to amend the death certificates of people who died of illnesses they attribute to post-Sept. 11 exposure.

Gold9472

10-19-2007, 09:58 AM

FUCKING BASTARDS!!!

Gold9472

10-19-2007, 12:25 PM

To all concerned members of the truth movement:

After just speaking with Joe Zadroga, the father of NYPD hero James Zadroga, I am, and never have been as mad as one man can be. The chief ME of NYC is a perfect example of the injustice served to "ALL" 9/11 responders over the last 6 years. All the media attention in the world will not bring James back, but your support for the Zadroga family will help ease the pain of a great family and his beautiful 7 year old daughter Tyler. Any donation will go directly to the Zadroga family and any email of support mailed to me at feal13@aol.com will go directly to Joe. I implore all Americans to stand up now and help these brave souls while federal, state and local governments deny, lie, neglect and walk all over their great work and service at 9/11 and ground zero.

God bless.

One pissed off American
John Feal
President of the Fealgood Foundation

Gold9472

10-19-2007, 12:49 PM

I want everyone to unleash hell on this number.

520 1st Ave
New York, NY 10016
(212) 447-2030

DO IT!

Gold9472

10-20-2007, 02:41 PM

Family in 9/11 Dust Case Visits Medical Examiner

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/20/nyregion/20autopsy.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=nyregion&adxnnlx=1192905471-PHcSKCZrlt/QBF7swlsazw

By ANTHONY DePALMA
Published: October 20, 2007

The family of a New York City police detective who died years after working at ground zero met for several hours yesterday with New York City medical examiners who had concluded that the detective’s death could not be linked to the toxic dust there.

Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, the chief medical examiner, sent a letter on Tuesday to Detective James Zadroga’s father, Joseph Zadroga of Little Egg Harbor, N.J., stating “with certainty beyond doubt” that the material found in Detective Zadroga’s lungs “did not get there as the result of inhaling dust at the World Trade Center or elsewhere.”

After the meeting, Mr. Zadroga slipped out a side door and drove off without saying anything. The family’s lawyer, Michael Barasch, refused to give any details about the meeting or why the medical examiner had contradicted a New Jersey pathologist who concluded last year that Detective Zadroga’s death was caused by respiratory failure “directly related” to ground zero dust.

“Two rational men can disagree,” Mr. Barasch said. “So the family will leave it to the court of public opinion and let the public decide what makes the most sense here.”

Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office, said that Detective Zadroga’s family had asked Dr. Hirsch a few months ago to examine the autopsy report because they wanted Detective Zadroga’s name to be added to the official list of victims of the attack.

“Dr. Hirsch gave his personal assurance to the family that he would keep the details of the meeting private and confidential,” Ms. Borakove said.

Ms. Borakove said the medical examiner had also done re-examinations for three or four other families of people whose deaths were suspected to be linked to ground zero work, and had rejected such a conclusion for all of them. She said that one other review, still pending, was for Cesar A. Borja, a police officer who died in January of pulmonary fibrosis.

His family claimed he had become ill after rushing to ground zero and spending many hours there. But records indicated his exposure to the dust was far more limited.

Dr. Gerard Breton, the New Jersey pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Detective Zadroga, said in an interview yesterday that he was not changing his opinion that the detective’s death was linked to his exposure to ground zero dust.

Dr. Breton said that after completing the autopsy last year, he did not have access to the sophisticated equipment needed to analyze the tissue samples and sent them to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

Dr. Breton said that the institute identified the foreign material from Detective Zadroga’s lungs, and that he concluded the material was consistent with ground zero dust.

Gold9472

10-21-2007, 07:00 PM

Barnegat man's work at WTC leaves him ill, facing foreclosure

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/ocean/story/7510753p-7408953c.html

By EMILY PREVITI Staff Writer, 609-978-2014
Published: Saturday, October 20, 2007

BARNEGAT TOWNSHIP - Charles Giles has endured failing health, mounting medical bills and limitations to life as he knew it before Sept. 11, 2001.

Soon, he might add homelessness to the list.

When Giles, then an EMT, responded to the disaster scene at the World Trade Center more than six years ago, he didn't think it would later cost him his home.

But days of inhaling fumes at the site continue to provoke health problems that have prevented Giles from working. The problems were compounded by unanswered medical claims.

Family hardships that began with cutting out cable TV have culminated in their home's foreclosure in March and impending sheriff's sale Oct. 30.

Ocean County sheriff's records show Giles appealed the sale and that the sheriff's office twice delayed the sale originally set for Aug. 21. Judge Fred A. Buczynski pushed the date from Sept. 18 to Oct. 30.

Giles said he hopes to block the sale by filing suit against Wachovia Bank for alleged missteps in their dealings with him but acknowledged that it would likely take a "miracle" to prevent the auction.

Giles' attorney did not return calls for comment.

Wachovia Bank spokespeople declined to comment because their confidentiality policy prohibits talking about clients.

Giles said he missed his first mortgage payment in November 2006, four years and eight months after he closed on the house (the family moved from Bergen County to Barnegat Township in 2002). He has $216,320 left to pay for his home, plus $9,318.57 in legal costs related to foreclosure proceedings, according to Mary Batot, principal clerk for foreclosures in the Ocean County Sheriff's Office.

"If my 9-11 case was processed when should have been, none of this would have been happening," Giles said.

Giles has faced red tape with multiple agencies: Safe Horizon, New York's Crime Victims Board, New York's Workers' Compensation Board and others. As he waits, medical costs keep mounting.

Giles took oral steroids for five years to treat worsening asthma, which caused bone loss and eventually required replacement of his right hip. He anticipates at least two other surgeries: replacement of the other hip and his right knee are pending and a lung transplant is possible. In addition to incurring bills, complications -14 prescriptions, fractioned pulmonary function and hip replacement and another two or three pending surgeries - have prohibited the father of two from working. With doctors' visits and $400 worth of prescriptions, Giles said he faces more than $1,000 in medical bills each month. And his disability ran out this fall.

Giles, who started working as an emergency responder 16 years ago, is quick to emphasize he would choose to respond to the emergency again. The self-described workaholic still craves the challenges of the job and currently serves on the board of the Pinewood Estates Volunteer Fire Company.

"I want to work," Giles said. "I feel like I let my family down."

Giles said he, his wife and their 12 and 15-year-old daughters would likely seek a local apartment if their home is sold at the end of this month. The family wants to stay in Barnegat, Giles said, so the girls can finish school there and to stay in the warm embrace of the community that has extended services to them.

These recent developments in Giles' plight come on the heels of a decision by the New York City medical examiner to reject the Ocean County Medical Examiner's ruling that the death of New York Police Department Detective James Zadroga, 34, of Little Egg Harbor, was directly related to his work at Ground Zero. Zadroga retired to his parents' home in Little Egg Harbor after getting sick.

Gold9472

10-23-2007, 08:48 AM

9/11 Worker's Kin Rejects Death Ruling

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gedchpIl6oM7F3AwCEyXaLDuYMzgD8SCKM3O1

By AMY WESTFELDT – 3 days ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Fresh from ruling that World Trade Center dust did not kill a police detective, a medical examiner offered the man's relatives other reasons Friday for his death, an explanation the family found "not acceptable," their lawyer said.

Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch would not publicly elaborate on his findings in the death of James Zadroga, who had worked hundreds of hours in the toxic dust at ground zero after the Sept. 11 attacks, Hirsch's spokeswoman said. Hirsch asked the family not to disclose what he told them, said Michael Barasch, the Zadrogas' attorney.

"Dr. Hirsch felt that there were other reasons for Zadroga's death. The family disagrees with it. I disagree with it," Barasch said. The doctor "came up with reasons that were not acceptable to us," the attorney said.

Zadroga became gravely ill within four years of the attack, was relegated to a wheelchair and wound up taking a potent mixture of prescription drugs to treat his illness. He died last year of respiratory failure at age 34, and health care advocates have cited his death as a "sentinel case" — the first health-related casualty linked to ground zero, suggesting there would be more to follow.

Rejecting another medical examiner's autopsy, Hirsch said in a letter to Zadroga's family this week that his death was not caused by exposure to trade center dust.

Hirsch agreed with a New Jersey medical examiner's finding that there was foreign matter in Zadroga's lungs. The New Jersey medical examiner had said the granular material in his lungs was consistent with dust, but Hirsch emphatically ruled out environmental exposure as the cause.

Experts say that one alternate medical theory for foreign granular matter in the lungs is a history of intravenous drug injections. In 1981, Hirsch co-wrote a key medical paper on the subject.

Zadroga was taking intravenous painkillers and had taken steroids, all prescribed by doctors for his respiratory problems, before his death, Barasch said Friday. He never took drugs that were not prescribed for him, he added.

"If the drugs contributed to his death, it makes no difference as far as what our perspective is. He was taking all the medication for all the toxins he inhaled," Barasch said. "This was a squeaky clean New York City detective who was in tip-top shape."

Zadroga spent 470 hours working in the smoking twin towers' rubble, using only a paper mask. He developed a cough within weeks and retired within three years.

He became the face of post-Sept. 11 illness after his death, galvanizing lawmakers and health care advocates to lobby for research and treatment for thousands who said the debris-filled air at ground zero made them sick.

"What was in his lungs was consistent with what was down at ground zero," said Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association, Zadroga's union. "It just can't be a coincidence that this 34-year-old kid who was healthy prior to 9/11 became deathly ill post-9/11."

Palladino and others derided Hirsch's ruling Friday, saying his conclusions defied other experts who performed Zadroga's autopsy or treated him while he was alive. Palladino said a police medical board had concluded that Zadroga could leave his job on medical disability because of illness caused by his post-Sept. 11 work.

Zadroga's family, who had become public advocates for the health of ground zero workers, had asked Hirsch to review the case and officially add Zadroga's name to the Sept. 11 victims' toll. In May, the medical examiner added the first health-related casualty to the victims' list, a woman who died of a lung-scarring disease five months after she was caught in the dust cloud formed by the twin towers' collapse.

Gerard Breton, the New Jersey pathologist who performed Zadroga's autopsy, said that Zadroga had inflamed lung tissue, an enlarged heart and material that appeared to be dust in his lungs.

"It is felt with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of death in this case was directly related to the 9/11 incident," he wrote in March 2006. On Friday, he told The Associated Press, "I stick to that report." He declined further comment.

Gold9472

10-25-2007, 08:49 AM

Senate votes to extend 9/11 health aid

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/2007/10/25/2007-10-25_senate_votes_to_extend_911_health_aid.html

Thursday, October 25th 2007, 4:00 AM

The Senate has approved a $55 million fund to help care for people exposed to toxins from the Sept. 11 attacks.

The funding would extend monitoring and treatment from first responders and emergency personnel to residents, workers and others who breathed the contaminated air in lower Manhattan.

"Passage of this bill by the Senate is great news for those who still suffer from the lingering effects of the 9/11 attacks," Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday.

The bill, approved Tuesday night, comes as an addition to the $50 million already allocated in the 2008 fiscal year.

The measure encourages the development of long-term solutions to screen and treat everyone affected by the post-9/11 risks.

Health problems suffered by the thousands who were affected range from asthma to posttraumatic stress.

"The message of this vote is clear," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). "America is here for you in your time of need."

The bill will now go to the House.

simuvac

10-25-2007, 04:29 PM

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/5245688.html

Oct. 25, 2007, 1:40PM
Doctor: Drug use caused 9/11 cop's death

By AMY WESTFELDT Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

NEW YORK — The city's medical examiner concluded that the misuse of pills, not the dust of ground zero, caused the lung disease that killed a man who became a nationally known example of post-Sept. 11 illness, the examiner's spokeswoman confirmed Thursday.

Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch concluded that retired police detective James Zadroga got the lung disease that killed him by injecting ground-up pills into his bloodstream, leaving traces of the pills in the lung tissue, spokeswoman Ellen Borakove told The Associated Press.

"It is our opinion that that material entered his body via the bloodstream and not via the airways," she said.

She confirmed Hirsch's findings after Zadroga's father and lawyer said Hirsch told them Zadroga's death was caused by the misuse of prescription drugs — not the more than 450 hours he spent toiling at the World Trade Center site after the Sept. 11 attacks.

A New Jersey medical examiner had ruled last year that Zadroga died from inhaling toxic ground zero dust, but the family asked Hirsch for a second opinion — and a ruling that would add Zadroga to the official Sept. 11 victims' list.

Last week Hirsch wrote a letter to Zadroga's father, Joseph, saying he believed "with certainty beyond doubt" that the dust did not cause his son's death, but Hirsch's conclusions about the real cause were not released by his office until Thursday.

His office did not say what drug or drugs were injected. Joseph Zadroga said the former detective was taking more than a dozen medications when he died, including anti-anxiety medicine and painkillers including OxyContin, but never ground up pills and injected them. He said he kept his son's medication locked in a safe in their New Jersey home and said his son was not capable of taking medicine himself.

"His mother and I were taking care of him," Joseph Zadroga said. "He wasn't ever able to correctly take his medication."

Michael Baden, a pathologist asked by the family to review the case after getting Hirsch's letter, said that slides of James Zadroga's lung tissue showed large glass fibers and other foreign particles that were mostly close to the airways, a sign of material that had been inhaled. He said that if Zadroga had been grinding down pills and injecting them, his autopsy report would have noted scars and needle tracks on his arms.

"You can't make a diagnosis, in my opinion, of intravenous injections of ground-down pills on the basis of these slides," said Baden, the chief forensic pathologist for the New York State police. He has often testified as an expert witness at high-profile trials.

After James Zadroga died in January 2006, bills were named after him in Congress to fund research and treatment for those who became ill after working in the smoking ruins of the trade center.

So far, Hirsch has changed the death certificate of only one person — a woman who died five months after the attacks — saying that exposure to the toxic dust cloud caused or worsened her lung disease.

Gold9472

10-25-2007, 05:12 PM

John just told me that a "famous" medical examiner agrees with the NJ Medical Examiner.

dMole

10-25-2007, 05:33 PM

http://www.911blogger.com/node/10696

Be sure to read Etta Sanders' letter. I'll only quote my 911blogger comment here- it seems appropriate to this thread (I'm a little burned out on the divisiveness over at 911blogger, and my language is probably too NC-17 for them anyway. The search function seems a little jacked-up when I searched for "Etta Sanders").

"NYC Downwinders"
My father died several years ago due to exposure to radioactive atom bomb fallout in southwestern Utah back in the 1950s and 1960s. His pulmonary fibrosis was very similar to what most of the uranium miners also died from. 3 of the 6 brothers all developed lung disease and none of them were smokers.

Sadly, Etta Sanders' symptoms appear to me to qualify her as a "Downwinder," although that term was traditionally reserved for residents of Nevada and Utah in the 1950s and 1960s. It is tragic that the pervasive, spherical asbestos and dust clouds put much of NYC "down-wind" on Sept. 11, 2001.

I'd like to remind everyone that the United States Government used atomic weapons on New Mexico BEFORE they dropped the "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States Government also kept using nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site until 1993, when underground testing was finally stopped. "Divine Strake" was the Bush regime's recent attempt to resume "simulated?" nuclear tests in 2006. Just think for a second how long it would take to haul 700 tons of ANFO explosive to "simulate" a nuclear "bunker buster" at the NTS...

Rest assured, our "leaders" in Washington DC appear to have no qualms about putting United States citizens at risk from nuclear, chemical, and biological agents (smallpox-infested blankets were re-distributed to help solve the "Native American" problem back in the 1800s, and do some research on Dugway Proving Ground and Fort Dietrich MD- those appear to be the sources of our "anthrax" terror of 2001).

We really need to stop (meaning impeach and incarcerate) these murderous criminals and their "national SUCKurity" secrecy before it is too late.

Gold9472

10-25-2007, 06:05 PM

Debate about cause of officer's death endangers 9/11 bill

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=7262936

Associated Press - October 25, 2007 4:23 AM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) - The debate about a police detective's death endangers a bill to treat ailing Ground Zero workers.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, the leading Democratic presidential contender, named her September 11th health bill after Detective James Zadroga. Zadroga died at age 34 after working extensively at Ground Zero.

But the New York City Medical Examiner concluded last week that the foreign matter found in Zadroga's lungs definitely did not come from dust generated at the World Trade Center site.

That conclusion will create extra hurdles for lawmakers trying to get the federal government to pay for treatment for ailing Ground Zero workers.

Many medical experts say an alternate cause for foreign matter in lungs is intravenous drug use.

Zadroga's family admits he took a potent mixture of drugs to treat his illness, but says the drugs were legitimately prescribed by doctors.

Gold9472

10-26-2007, 08:46 AM

Benefit for 9/11 responder tonight

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071026/NEWS02/710260456/1070/NEWS02

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/26/07

BARNEGAT: The Pinewood Estates Volunteer Fire Company will host a benefit tonight for 9/11 responder Charlie Giles, hoping to raise enough money to halt foreclosure proceedings on his home, members of the company said.

Giles, a worker with CityWide EMS who volunteered for weeks after the attack, has been unable to work in recent years because of health problems that he traces back to his work at ground zero.

The event starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Pinewood Estates firehouse, 99 Route 72.

Gold9472

10-26-2007, 09:06 AM

Smearing a hero of 9/11

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/10/26/2007-10-26_smearing_a_hero_of_911.html

Friday, October 26th 2007, 4:00 AM

There is mounting evidence that the city's chief medical examiner libeled the memory of Detective James Zadroga by ruling that the cop's long, arduous service at Ground Zero had nothing to do with his tragic death. Dr. Charles Hirsch appears to have committed a gross injustice that no apology can ever set right.

With the brutal, clinical efficiency of a man accustomed to working with flesh on ice, Hirsch last week summarily notified Zadroga's family that, to a "certainty beyond doubt," something other than breathing the toxic remains of the World Trade Center had turned the cop's lungs to leather. Hirsch didn't say publicly then what that fatal something might be. But now, the doctor has spoken.

Monstrously, Hirsch said yesterday that, in his opinion, Zadroga brought about his own demise by crushing pill medications and taking them intravenously. Writ large, Hirsch blamed the victim and, even worse, left the lingering, disgraceful implication that Zadroga was a drug abuser.

He wasn't. And it is a sorry necessity to have to state those words about a dedicated cop and father of a young child, who worked for 450 hours in the thick of the poisonous cloud, began coughing after two weeks and suffered a steady, irrevocable descent to suffocation at age 34. Zadroga died despite excellent medical care, and his autopsy found that his lungs were filled with substances that hung in the air over The Pile. Among them, carbon, silica, calcium phosphate - found in concrete - talc and cellulose.

The New Jersey medical examiner who autopsied Zadroga concluded the toxins destroyed his lungs. Dr. Michael Baden, a former city chief medical examiner who is now the state police forensic pathologist, reviewed and confirmed the autopsy findings. And now Hirsch says that, beyond all question, he knows better.

All agree that crushing pills and injecting the powder can introduce talc and cellulose into the bloodstream. And all agree the substances can damage the lungs. Adding up those facts, and looking at microscopic slides of Zadroga's tissues, Hirsch says he has proof positive that the fatal injury began with materials in Zadroga's blood.

Baden, who is not being paid by Zadroga's family, emphatically differs with Hirsch: "I don't know what he would have to permit him to make the strong diagnosis he did, and whatever it is, he is wrong." So much for Hirsch's "certainty beyond doubt."

As for substantiating the medical examiner's judgment, his spokeswoman offered explanations that only made Hirsch's conduct more outrageous. She said Hirsch is not questioning that Zadroga became ill at Ground Zero; he has only concluded that injecting crushed pills was the intervening cause of death.

Here, then, is Hirsch's hypothesis for what happened: Zadroga serves his city and country valiantly, becomes agonizingly ill and injects painkillers. This is just a theory, because Zadroga's family says no such injections ever took place. But let's say Hirsch is right.

In that event, the truth is Zadroga - desperately ill, fighting for breath, heavily medicated and often out of touch with reality - tried to ease his own suffering as best he could.

Suffering that befell Zadroga only because he responded to 9/11.

Suffering brought on by inhaling the pulverized remains of the fallen twin towers.

Suffering that caused the death of a New York hero.

Suffering that was cavalierly trashed by a medical examiner whose continued tenure in office must be closely reviewed.

AuGmENTor

10-26-2007, 09:24 AM

Dr. Charles Hirsch needs to be tried as a criminal for falsifying documents. I wonder how much pressure he was under to do so.

simuvac

10-26-2007, 11:00 AM

It doesn't seem fair to have the city's examiner deliberate on a case that could cost the city billions of dollars.

If Hirsch wants a future working for the city, he has to come up with a conclusion like this.

AuGmENTor

10-26-2007, 11:06 AM

Gold9472

10-27-2007, 08:20 PM

Friends Come To The Aid Of 9/11 First Responder

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21502164/

10/27/2007

BARNEGAT TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A fundraiser was held Friday night to help a man who used to make a living helping others.
Images

The Jersey Shore resident was one of the first responders to the attacks at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. But as NBC 10?s Doug Shimell explained, these days, he's in need of a helping hand himself.

"This is not about me. This is about all the 9/11 first responders and rescue workers. Those of us that are sick and dying. We just want our dignity,? Charlie Giles said.

Giles, a former N.Y. EMT, can't work due to lung problems caused by the dust and debris at ground zero. The 9/11 Victims? Fund hasn't paid his medical bills and his Barnegat Township, N.J., home is in foreclosure. For those reasons, colleagues and local officials went to work to help Giles out. It has become a rescue mission for the rescuer.

"If the president and the national government, you know, the federal government would just step in, take a look at this and let's get something going for these people," Barnegat Township Mayor Al Cirulli said.

Ailing New York firefighter Billy Maher also came. In Michael Moore's documentary, "Sicko," Maher was flown to Cuba for medical treatment.

"We're all in this together. We're kind of like standing alone right now. We're fighting for all of us," Maher said.

Students from the Kenneth R. Olson Middle School in Tabernacle, N.J., raised nearly $800 for Charlie.

"We didn't think we'd raise that much money. We were just so excited when we found out. We were blown away by how generous people were," said one student.

But when John Feal arrived, Giles became emotional. Feal lost a foot as a 9/11 responder at ground zero. He is the founder of Feal Good Foundation and has adopted Giles? case.

"We're going to show the federal government that while they sit idle that people like us that really have nothing after 9/11, can still make a difference and help," Feal said.

Those who came to the fundraiser brought a donation. In the end, the amount totaled $5,000. The sum brought Giles to tears, once again.

Gold9472

10-27-2007, 08:23 PM

Error halts auction of 9-11 EMT's property

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/top_three/story/7512515p-7410909c.html

By EMILY PREVITI Staff Writer
Published: Saturday, October 27, 2007

BARGNEGAT TOWNSHIP - Friday was kind to Charlie Giles.

The sheriff's auction of his home, scheduled for Tuesday, was postponed until Nov. 13, Ocean County Undersheriff Wayne Rupert confirmed late that afternoon.

That evening, about 100 firefighters, police officers, activists, local leaders and friends of the Giles family gathered at the Pinewood Estates Fire-house on Route 72 to watch Giles receive $3,500 to help pay his medical expenses from the FealGood Foundation, the Barnegat Police Benevolent Association and We Are Change.

At one point during the ceremony, Giles sobbed.

"Six years I have been waiting for help from our government," he said. "The FealGood Foundation came into my life last Sunday. And in six days, more has happened to my family and myself than has happened in six years."

Giles, 39, responded on Sept. 11, 2001, as an emergency medical technician. He moved with his family to Barnegat in 2002. Since then, the family's financial situation has grown dire because of medical expenses related to his 9-11 response. In March, Giles received a foreclosure notice.

He has attributed his financial situation to bureaucratic red tape involving the New York State Crime Victims Board and New York State Workers' Compensation Board. The latter office cannot discuss cases without the written permission of the individual. Giles declined to give permission on the advice of his attorney, Sean Riordan of FealGood.

Riordan and the group's founder John Feal attended the event Friday night in Barnegat.

Feal lauded the recent response to Giles' plight, an unfortunate situation which, he pointed out, is not unique among Sept. 11 responders. In the past two months, Feal estimated Riordan, an attorney specializing in workers' compensation, had added 66 cases to his load, including Giles'. Riordan has taken Giles' case pro bono.

While the donations and support garnered for Giles have come courtesy of the community, the delay of the sale of his home was likely prompted by a filing or typographical error.

Wachovia Bank apparently was incorrectly named as the plaintiff in the foreclosure suits, according to the bank's in-house counsel Mark Farmer and Jerry Dasti, a lawyer for Giles.

"They don't know who holds the mortgage," Dasti said. "I expect to get that on Monday. It's my hope that we can tie this thing up one way or another next week.

Giles' mortgage is through Americas Servicing Company. However, Wachovia had sold the package of loans containing Giles' mortgage in 2005, according to spokesperson Don Vecchiarello. Dasti, Farmer and Americas Servicing Company executives have been trying since Monday to figure out how the mix-up happened.

Kevin Waetke, communications manager for Wells Fargo Home & Consumer Finance Group, the parent company of Americas Servicing Company, said the company incorrectly assigned the trustee.

"Obviously, there was some mess up on the other end," Dasti said. "I received a call late this afternoon from Americas Servicing Company. They're going to provide a proposal next week … and a solution to try to resolve it."

The law firm representing the plaintiff - Phelan, Hallinan & Schmieg LLP, which has offices in Mount Laurel and Philadelphia - has not returned repeated calls for comment.

Not everyone in the community has expressed support without question. Bernard Laufgas, of Barnegat, was one who questioned Giles' credentials and claims of Sept. 11 response. Laufgas also took issue with Giles' "using" the event to gain financial support.

"If he was there, God bless him," Laufgas said.

Court records show that Laufgas filed a lawsuit in 2006 against Giles and two of his running mates in a school board election for placing signs on property Laufgas owned.

The Press of Atlantic City obtained medical records that verify Giles' response to Ground Zero, and confirmed it with his employer at the time, Warren Golden, chief operating officer of Citywide Emergency Mobile Response Corp. The Press also has seen Giles' badge and certification.

"I have two weeks of breathing room to find out who owns my house," Giles said. "Hopefully my attorney can get something happening and worker's comp … or somebody comes through to help me."

To e-mail Emily Previti at The Press: EPreviti@pressofac.com

Gold9472

10-28-2007, 10:33 AM

Outpouring of help for afflicted 9/11 EMT
But he still faces losing his home

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071028/NEWS02/710280446/1070

BY MATT PAIS
MANAHAWKIN BUREAU
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/28/07

BARNEGAT — Charlie Giles has fallen on tough times, but those close to him are hoping to band together and rescue the 9/11 responder from financial ruin.

Giles — a certified emergency medical technician who responded to the World Trade Center as a supervisor with CityWide EMS and then returned to the site as a volunteer for two months — has been unable to work because of a series of health problems he says are related to breathing hazardous dust.

Now, crushed by the weight of medical bills, he's fallen behind on his mortgage and foreclosure proceedings are under way. The Ocean County Sheriff's Department is scheduled to auction off the home on Tuesday.

"Times are tough," Giles said.

The financial trouble for the 40-year-old Giles, his wife and two daughters has snowballed as his medical condition has worsened, he says. There have been more than a dozen trips to the hospital, piles of medication, a hip-replacement operation and pending knee reconstruction — the latter two procedures attributed to prolonged steroid use made necessary by a diminished lung capacity.

He's had to bear much of the cost for the procedures himself, with little income aside from the $241.57 weekly stipend he receives for disability. He has encountered a tangle of red tape while trying to claim disability, worker's compensation and crime-victim benefits he says he's entitled to.

Now, he hopes a last-ditch fundraising effort will be enough to help save his home.

"We've gotten a lot of help from a lot of people, and we'll see what happens," he said.

Among those lending the biggest hand are Giles' brethren at the Pinewood Estates Volunteer Fire Co., which he joined after moving to Barnegat six years ago. The company has raised more than $5,000 through a benefit account it established at Commerce Bank and through other fundraisers.

"He's an awesome guy and he's got a big heart. We're trying to do everything we can to help him out," said company member Mike Essig.

Foundation assistance
The efforts received a big boost this week when a published report about his struggles caught the eye of John Feal, a 9/11 responder who heads the FealGood Foundation — a nonprofit organization dedicated to spreading awareness about the disaster's long-term health effects on those who worked at the World Trade Center.

"In 2001, on Sept. 11, everybody was patriotic and everybody wanted to help. I hope I can resurface some of those feelings," Feal said. "You don't need a plane to hit a building to be compassionate."

Feal, who has helped dozens of other responders, began a massive public-relations campaign on Giles' behalf, including appearances on Star Jones' CourtTV show and CBS news.

He drummed up more than $2,000 in a few days, drawing donations from unlikely sources, including more than $100 from elementary school students in Purchase, N.Y.

"These were 10- and 11-year-olds doing what they can, and, meanwhile, our federal and state government sits by while more and more people die," Feal said.

As part of his foundation, Feal has advocated for the release of funding to help the estimated 30,000 responders suffering from 9/11-attack-related physical and mental illnesses.

"There are thousands of Charlie Gileses out there," he said.

In addition to raising money to save the Giles family home, Feal has found an attorney experienced with 9/11 workers' rights to handle Giles' government claims pro bono. While any government check is undoubtedly too far away to arrive in time for Tuesday's deadline, Feal said he hopes the attention drawn to Giles will spur more support for others in need.

"People like Charlie Giles can't move on because they don't have justice," he said. "The government needs to do more; that's the bottom line."

Gold9472

10-30-2007, 07:44 AM

The FealGood Foundation And WeAreChange Help Charles Giles

Click Here (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6868323736173969979&hl=en) (Google Video)

Thanks to both organizations.

Gold9472

10-31-2007, 02:54 PM

Again, Bloomberg called insensitive for 9/11-related remark

http://www.silive.com/newsflash/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-29/1193808853289220.xml&storylist=simetro

By SARA KUGLER
The Associated Press
10/31/2007, 1:17 a.m. EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — When Mayor Michael Bloomberg ignited a fury by saying a deceased police detective who worked on the World Trade Center cleanup was "not a hero" because of questions about the cause of his death, he found himself in a familiar place.

Bloomberg, a businessman who favors data and numbers over the touchy-feely side of governing, often lands in hot water when talking about issues related to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 disaster.

In his first year as mayor, shortly after the attack, he angered victims' relatives when he said he favored a "less is more" approach to the memorial. And when he said downtown residents wouldn't want to live next to a "cemetery," it made things worse.

The next year, during a meeting at City Hall, he upset Diane and Kurt Horning, who lost their son in the attack and were furious that the city buried sifted trade center dust in a Staten Island landfill.

Diane Horning says Bloomberg was "dismissive and abrupt" about their views on grieving and remains, and implied that he doesn't personally identify with their cause because he plans to donate his body to science.

Bloomberg's aides and associates say it is simply not his style to emote and dwell on the past, and that he has a more forward-looking approach, which can come across as cold and matter-of-fact.

In the latest confrontation, Zadroga's family and the city's police unions called for an apology from the mayor, saying his comment was heartless. They said every member of the police force is a hero for putting their lives on the line, particularly those who worked in the months-long cleanup at ground zero.

Speaking Monday to students at Harvard University, where he was accepting a public health award, Bloomberg was asked about the idea of applying hard science to public policy. In his answer, he brought up Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch's recent conclusion that Zadroga's fatal lung disease was not from trade center dust but because he had been injecting himself with ground-up pills.

"Nobody wanted to hear that — we wanted to have a hero and there are plenty of heroes," Bloomberg said. "It's just, in this case, science says this was not a hero."

"A nice human being, a tragic death, all of that is true," he added.

Zadroga's family disputes Hirsch's findings about drug use; a New Jersey medical examiner ruled separately last year that Zadroga died from inhaling the toxic ground zero dust. He put in more than 400 hours at ground zero, and his death at 34 made him a symbol of ailing Sept. 11 workers around the country.

The family sought Hirsch's opinion as part of the city's required process to include additional names on the official Sept. 11 victims list and memorial wall to be built at ground zero.

"The mayor is a political person, he's acting on a political agenda — to me, he's heartless, he has no compassion whatsoever for people and their lives and their families," said the detective's father, Joseph Zadroga. "He just doesn't understand what integrity means, what getting your name on the wall means, what getting a medal means, what honor and duty is."

Detectives' Endowment Association President Michael Palladino said the police force had lost faith in the mayor and City Hall, and that Bloomberg's comments stung the hundreds of rescue workers who say they have become sickened after working on the cleanup.

"Hirsch's findings and the mayor's comments are an insult to the families of those first responders who made the ultimate sacrifice, like Jimmy Zadroga, and all those other first responders that are still suffering with the illness of 9/11," Palladino said.

At a news conference in Brooklyn, Bloomberg backpedaled carefully, praising the detective for his "impressive record," saying he didn't mean to upset anyone. He declined to say whether he regrets the remark about Zadroga not being a hero.

"This was a great NYPD officer who dedicated himself, put his life in harm's way hundreds of times during his career, and you can use your own definition — I think it's a question of how you want to define what a hero is," Bloomberg said. "And certainly I did not mean to hurt the family or impugn his reputation."

Joseph Zadroga said he would like to meet with the mayor to explain the family's view of the detective's death, and Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser said he would be happy to do so.

The family has released more than 100 pages of medical records that showed Zadroga developed breathing problems just after the 2001 attacks.

Zadroga's father says the medicine his son was taking to treat his illness — including several strong painkillers and anti-anxiety pills — were never improperly injected.

Bloomberg's comments were "just heartbreaking, and my wife and my family just could not get over it," Joseph Zadroga said.

Gold9472

10-31-2007, 02:55 PM

Fury After Bloomberg Says 9/11 Cop Not A Hero
Family Demands Apology From Mayor

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/james.zadroga.michael.2.470432.html

10/31/2007

NEW YORK (AP) ― A fury erupted today over Mayor Michael Bloomberg's remarks that police detective James Zadroga, who worked hundreds of hours at ground zero cleanup, is "not a hero" because his death was ruled unrelated to the toxic debris.

At a news conference in Brooklyn today, Bloomberg praised Zadroga for his "impressive record," and said he didn't mean to upset anyone.

The Zadroga family and the city's police unions has called for an apology from the mayor.

Speaking to students at Harvard University yesterday, Bloomberg was asked about the idea of applying hard science to public policy.

His answer brought up Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch's recent conclusion that Zadroga's fatal lung disease wasn't from trade center dust but from injections of ground-up pills. The mayor added "science says this was not a hero."

Zadroga's family disputes Hirsch's findings; a New Jersey medical examiner ruled separately last year that Zadroga died from inhaling the toxic ground zero dust.

Gold9472

10-31-2007, 02:55 PM

‘My son is a hero’
Parents of fallen cop blast Bloomberg

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/My_son_is_a_hero/10541.html

by joshua rhett miller / metro new york
OCT 31, 2007

MANHATTAN. The family of a fallen NYPD detective and the city’s police unions demanded an apology yesterday from Mayor Michael Bloomberg for saying James Zadroga was “not a hero” because his death was ruled unrelated to toxic Ground Zero debris.

“I’m so upset about this,” Zadroga’s mother, Linda, told Metro yesterday. “New York killed my son and now it’s killing me.”

Linda Zadroga said she disputes Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsh’s finding that her son’s fatal lung disease did not stem from 400-plus hours at Ground Zero but because he had been injecting himself with ground-up pills. “My son was not on drugs,” she said. “My son is a hero.”

Bloomberg, speaking at Harvard University on Monday, relayed Hirsh’s findings when asked about applying hard science to public policy.

“It’s just, in this case, science says this was not a hero,” the mayor said. “A nice human being, a tragic death, all of that is true.”

A New Jersey medical examiner ruled last year that Zadroga died in January 2006 at age 34 from inhaling toxic dust, making him a symbol of ailing 9/11 rescue workers. Zadroga’s family then sought Hirsh’s opinion so he could be included in the city’s official Sept. 11 victims list and forthcoming memorial.

“We could care less about money,” Linda Zadroga said. “We want our granddaughter to know her father was a hero. We don’t want her to hear that her father was a drug addict, which he wasn’t.”

Detectives’ Endowment Association President Michael Palladino said his constituents had lost faith in Bloomberg and that his comments were an insult to hundreds of rescue workers who say they have become ill since their time on the pile. “I urge the mayor to publicly apologize to Zadroga’s family and his workforce,” Palladino said.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg yesterday praised Zadroga.

“This was a great NYPD officer who dedicated himself, put his life in harm’s way hundreds of times during his career, and you can use your own definition — I think it’s a question of how you want to define what a hero is,” he said. “And certainly I did not mean to hurt the family or impugn his reputation.”

Gold9472

10-31-2007, 02:56 PM

Mayor Backs Away From Questioning Dead Officer’s Heroism

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/nyregion/31hero.html?ref=nyregion

By DIANE CARDWELL
Published: October 31, 2007

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg backed away yesterday from his earlier statements that James Zadroga, a police detective who worked for hundreds of hours on the smoldering pile at ground zero, was “not a hero” because the city’s chief medical examiner ruled his death was not directly related to dust from the trade center site.

Go to City Room » “This was a great N.Y.P.D. officer who dedicated himself — put his life in harm’s way hundreds of times during his career — and you can use your own definition,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference in Brooklyn when asked if he regretted his earlier comments. “It’s a question of how you want to define what a hero is, and certainly I did not mean to hurt the family or impugn his reputation.”

A New Jersey pathologist concluded in 2006 that Mr. Zadroga’s death was directly related to his work at ground zero, but New York City’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, recently rejected that finding. He concluded that it was misuse of prescription medication, not World Trade Center dust, that caused the detective’s lung ailments.

The tone of Mr. Bloomberg’s comments yesterday veered sharply from statements he made on Monday after receiving an award from the Harvard School of Public Health. Asked why science could be unpopular, he said that it sometimes provided answers that people did not want to hear, as in the case of Mr. Zadroga. Referring to Dr. Hirsch’s finding, he said, “Nobody wanted to hear that.”

“We wanted to have a hero, and there are plenty of heroes,” he said. “It’s just in this case, science says this was not a hero.”

Yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg described Detective Zadroga as “a dedicated police officer” with an impressive record who “volunteered to work downtown, and I think that the odds are that he clearly got sick because of breathing the air — but that’s up to the doctors.”

That did little to assuage Mr. Zadroga’s family, their lawyer, Michael Barasch, said. He said that the only thing that would satisfy the family was an apology and adding Mr. Zadroga’s name to the official list of 9/11 victims, which Mr. Bloomberg said he would not seek to do because of Dr. Hirsch’s ruling.

Gold9472

10-31-2007, 03:05 PM

Sometimes... it's REALLY FUCKING HARD to be non-violent.

Gold9472

10-31-2007, 07:02 PM

A Little History On James Zadroga

Saying James Zadroga isn’t a hero is like saying Michael Boomberg isn’t the mayor, George Bush isn’t the president, and Christine Todd Whitman never lied. The sad fact is all three are true, and all three have played a part in the death of a NYPD hero, and countless others. In closing, science says Bush has no brains Bloomberg has no heart, and Whitman has no regard towards human life. - John Feal (http://www.fealgoodfoundation.com/)

By Jon Gold
10/31/2007

On 1/7/2006, it was reported (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=49745&postcount=1) that "a police detective has died from lung disease, which the NYPD believes he contracted while working at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks." [...] "The tragedy makes James Zadroga, 34, the first rescue worker to die from illness attributed to the Ground Zero rubble, a police spokesperson said yesterday." [...] "He was a hero, he disregarded his own health and life to rescue people at Ground Zero," said Michael Palladino, head of the Detectives' Endowment Association."

On 4/12/2006, the Zadroga family released the findings (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=56875&postcount=21) of the NJ Medical Examiner. It said, "It is felt with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of death in this case was directly related to the 9/11 incident," wrote Gerard Breton, a pathologist at the Ocean County (New Jersey) medical examiner's office in the February 28 autopsy."

On 10/1/2007, it was reported (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=86597&postcount=342) that "the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which sits in Manhattan, will hear oral arguments today on whether the city is immune from lawsuits brought by the thousands of firefighters, police officers, and construction workers who searched for survivors and cleaned up on the site of the World Trade Center." After hearing the oral arguments, the three judges on the panel decided that they would let the law suits go through.

On 10/16/2007, it was reported (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=87360&postcount=344) that "New York City is willing to enter discussions to settle a lawsuit with 9,000 rescue and cleanup workers at the World Trade Center disaster site who may be sick from inhaling toxic dust."

On 10/17/2007, it was reported (http://With%20about%209,000%20claimants,%20the%20average% 20payout%20would%20be%20some%20$66,000%20per%20wor ker,%20not%20nearly%20enough%20to%20cover%20medica l%20bills%20and%20lost%20wages,%20particularly%20i n%20the%20case%20of%20deaths.) that "with about 9,000 claimants, the average payout would be some $66,000 per worker, not nearly enough to cover medical bills and lost wages, particularly in the case of deaths." That meant that the settlement probably wasn't going to be accepted, and the trials were going to go ahead. Which meant that the money they might pay out would be staggering compared to the settlement.

On 10/19/2007 (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=87503&postcount=346), after being asked by Joseph Zadroga, James Zadroga's father, to verify the NJ Medical Examiner's findings so Joseph would be listed as a victim of 9/11, Dr. Charles Hirsch, the NY Medical Examiner said that "it is our unequivocal opinion, with certainty beyond doubt, that the foreign material in your son's lungs did not get there as the result of inhaling dust at the World Trade Center or elsewhere." [...] "Mayor Michael Bloomberg distanced himself from the medical examiner's office in a statement Thursday, saying the independent agency made its own decisions. The city is defending itself in a lawsuit filed by thousands of workers who say they were not properly protected from the dust that made them sick. Bloomberg has also lobbied the federal government for millions of dollars to treat and monitor the ailing workers. The medical examiner's "determination in this case does nothing to change New York City's commitment to make sure that all who were affected by 9/11 get the health care they need," Bloomberg said."

On 10/23/2007, it was reported (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=87757&postcount=352) that the NY Medical Examiner's claim was that James Zadroga died from "intravenous drug injections." Essentially saying that James Zadroga was a junky, and that's why he died.

On 10/25/2007, it was reported (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=87923&postcount=354) that, "Joseph Zadroga said the former detective was taking more than a dozen medications when he died, including anti-anxiety medicine and painkillers including OxyContin, but never ground up pills and injected them. He said he kept his son's medication locked in a safe in their New Jersey home and said his son was not capable of taking medicine himself. "His mother and I were taking care of him," Joseph Zadroga said. "He wasn't ever able to correctly take his medication."

On 10/25/2007, it was reported (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=87927&postcount=357) that, "the New York City Medical Examiner concluded last week that the foreign matter found in Zadroga's lungs definitely did not come from dust generated at the World Trade Center site. That conclusion will create extra hurdles for lawmakers trying to get the federal government to pay for treatment for ailing Ground Zero workers."

On 10/26/2007, it was reported (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=88008&postcount=359) that, "Zadroga died despite excellent medical care, and his autopsy found that his lungs were filled with substances that hung in the air over The Pile. Among them, carbon, silica, calcium phosphate - found in concrete - talc and cellulose. The New Jersey medical examiner who autopsied Zadroga concluded the toxins destroyed his lungs. Dr. Michael Baden, a former city chief medical examiner who is now the state police forensic pathologist, reviewed and confirmed the autopsy findings."

Finally, it was reported, like the Bush Administration has parroted its' "intelligence" in order to "catapult the propaganda", and after "distancing" himself from the NY Medical Examiner's office, Mayor Michael Bloomberg parroted the findings of Charles Hirsch by saying said (http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=88372&postcount=370), “We wanted to have a hero, and there are plenty of heroes,” he said. “It’s just in this case, science says this was not a hero.”

I gotta tell ya. Some days, it's very hard to be non-violent. No, that DOES NOT mean I condone violence. Just trying to point out how angry this makes me.

Gold9472

11-01-2007, 12:25 PM

http://home.comcast.net/~gold9472/zadrogapoll.gif

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/is-dead-new-york-city-cop-a-hero/20071101062709990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

Gold9472

11-02-2007, 11:01 AM

Mayor To Meet With Detective Zadroga's Family

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=3&aid=75167

October 31, 2007

Mayor Michael Bloomberg will meet with the family of James Zadroga Monday, several days after taking heat for some comments he made about the detective.

The meeting is scheduled for Monday afternoon at City Hall.

Earlier this week, the mayor said former NYPD Detective James Zadroga, who worked on the September 11th recovery efforts at the World Trade Center site, wasn't a hero. But, he later called him a great officer and said he didn't mean to cast doubts on his reputation.

The mayor's comments prompted Zadroga's father to say Bloomberg was heartless and mean-spirited.

A New Jersey medical examiner ruled Zadroga'a death was directly related to the time he spent working at the WTC site. However, the city's M.E. said he contracted lung disease by injecting ground up pills into his system and not from breathing in toxins at the site.

Gold9472

11-05-2007, 05:25 PM

Parents of WTC cop to Mike: You're wrong, our son's a hero

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/11/04/2007-11-04_parents_of_wtc_cop_to_mike_youre_wrong_o.html

BY PATRICE O'SHAUGHNESSY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, November 4th 2007, 10:37 AM

Joseph Zadroga considered the two stunning twists in the saga of his dead son and weighed which was the more painful.

Was it the meeting at the city morgue, where Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch told the family in dry, scientific terms that James Zadroga, a decorated detective, died because he misused prescription drugs - not from inhaling toxic dust at Ground Zero?

Or was it Mayor Bloomberg publicly declaring that Hirsch's findings prove Zadroga, who became a worldwide symbol of the insidious health damage of 9/11, was not a hero?

"What Hirsch said really hurt. I knew it wasn't true," Joseph Zadroga said. "He disgraced my son's and my family's reputation, to say not just he was misusing drugs, but he was an intravenous drug user."

Then Zadroga shook his head and his eyes saddened.

"When Bloomberg said that, I said, 'I don't friggin' believe this.'"

All the Zadrogas have wanted for more than five years is for their son to be acknowledged as a 9/11 hero.

"It would be nice for his baby," said James' mother, Linda Zadroga, speaking of her orphaned granddaughter. "It would mean something for her."

The torment that has consumed the Zadroga family since their Jimmy took ill in 2002 did not end when he died last year. It was extended by the findings of two pathologists - that inhaled dust from Ground Zero killed him, and then by the shocking ruling by Hirsch.

Joseph Zadroga sat last week in the kitchen of the spacious gray shingled house in Little Egg Harbor on the Jersey Shore that the three generations of Zadrogas called home, his eyes scanning the panoramic view of Winding Creek and Great Bay, with Atlantic City rising in the distance.

He said he is absolutely positive there was no drug abuse.

"Jimmy had an intravenous line. I was giving him strong antibiotics through it," Zadroga said, pointing to crook of his elbow. "We doled out the other medication. He had short-term memory loss and would forget to take them, and we were afraid he would overdose.

"He had a pain-management doctor, he was getting eight tablets of OxyContin a day and 12 other medications."

A retired police chief of North Arlington, in Bergen County, Zadroga, 60, has a shaved head, gravelly voice and is powerfully built, as his son was.

He opened the 1,200-pound gray iron Liberty safe in a closet in his bedroom, where he keeps his guns and where he stored his son's medicines.

"He was on powerful stuff. We wanted to keep them from the baby," he explained.

Zadroga's eyes well up when he tells of caring for his son, who moved back with his parents in 2004 because he was sick and his wife had died suddenly. He had a toddler daughter to care for.

"He had two bags of antibiotics a day, it took 45 minutes for them to drip in," Zadroga said. "It became quality time for us. We sat and talked. Most of the rest of the time he'd be sleeping. I'm glad we had that time."

James Zadroga died at 34 on Jan. 5, 2006. His father found him on the floor. He had gotten up to get milk for his daughter - the cup was in his hand.

Dr. Gerard Breton, Ocean County medical examiner, did an autopsy and consulted with Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and Dr. Michael Baden, a renowned expert in forensic pathology.

The Armed Forces Institute said Zadroga's lungs had talc, cellulose, methacrylate and calcium phosphate, carbon and silica. Breton concluded Zadroga died of severe scarring of lung tissue and said the cause of death was directly related to 9/11.

It was the first link established between a Ground Zero worker's death and exposure to the dust there. James Zadroga became the face of post-9/11 illness, and Congress passed bills named for him to fund treatment for ailing Ground Zero workers.

Zadroga's family then asked Hirsch to review his death. They wanted his sacrifice documented by the city.

Hirsch studied slides of Zadroga's lung tissue. Hirsch also reviewed the military pathologist's report, but he didn't look at Zadroga's medical records, the detective's father said.

When the Zadrogas met two weeks ago with Hirsch, they brought along James Zadroga's young daughter Tyler-Ann. She sat in the room with her grandparents and watched as Joseph Zadroga propped a photo of her father, robust and slightly smiling in his blue NYPD uniform, on the table between them and Hirsch.

"Hirsch never looked at it," Joseph Zadroga recalled.

The longtime medical examiner told the family he had concluded James Zadroga had ground up his medication and injected the drugs into his bloodstream, leaving traces of the pills in his lung tissue.

The talc and cellulose found in the lung tissue are often binding agents in pills and capsules.

Linda Zadroga became so upset after Hirsch gave them the news that she bolted from the room. Her granddaughter followed.

"She saw how upset I was, and she was trying to comfort me," Linda Zadroga said.

In their grief, the family believes Hirsch's decision is part of a campaign to deny that their son's death is related to 9/11. They say the campaign included the feds or the city pressuring doctors and hospitals to deny their son care, and harassment from the NYPD, with police helicopters flying over their house.

"They don't want to open the floodgates" to all the others sickened at Ground Zero, Joseph Zadroga said.

Baden, the doctor who had consulted previously with the New Jersey medical examiner, disagrees with Hirsch's findings.

Baden said the materials in James Zadroga's lungs are found in concrete and wood. Baden noted he also saw large glass fibers, plastic and other materials that would have come from toxic dust. He said the material was primarily in the airways and concluded the particles were inhaled, not injected.

Joseph Zadroga has a 4-inch-thick blue binder of his son's medical records, letters to and from elected officials, doctors and lawyers. A biopsy photo of his son's lungs shows a black mass.

James Zadroga and his daughter lived on the second floor of the house, which has a remarkable fireplace fashioned like a sand castle, with two turreted towers forming the mantle.

Prominently displayed are a cross made from World Trade Center metal, a replica of Zadroga's gold detective shield, No. 6663, and photos of Tyler-Ann, who turned 6 Thursday. Zadroga's parents are raising the girl.

James Zadroga had surprised his father when he joined the NYPD. He was appointed in 1994, worked in Greenwich Village, Harlem, the Bronx, and in the street crime unit when it was an elite citywide unit. His last command was the Manhattan South homicide squad.

His police record aside from his 9/11 duty would be enough to deem him a hero cop: He amassed 187 arrests - 136 of them felonies - and earned 38 citations.

"He never told us about them," the father said.

Zadroga grew up in North Arlington, played football in high school, went to Bergen Community College and loved to hang out across the Hudson River. He later wrote about "the two towers that I grew up with when I looked out my back door."

He developed the "World Trade Center cough" soon after the attack on the skyscrapers. James Zadroga spent 400 hours at the rubble, according to the NYPD.

It's going on two years, but Linda Zadroga hasn't cleaned out her son's room.

"I can't go up there," she said. "I made it to the landing, and I came back down the stairs."

Like many parents of cops and firefighters killed on 9/11, the Zadrogas wear symbols of their pain and loss.

The mother wears a silver heart with a photo of her dead son and the words "Jimmy 9/11 Hero." Her husband has a large tattoo on his forearm of the Ground Zero cross and his son's shield.

"Everyone praises the dead as heroes as they should, but there are more living suffering than dead," James Zadroga himself wrote a year after 9/11, when illness gripped him.

Since declaring Zadroga was not a hero, Bloomberg has tempered his remarks, calling the detective a dedicated cop. But it did not assuage the outrage from the family and the city detectives union, so Bloomberg has invited the Zadrogas to City Hall tomorrow.

"I've been asking to meet with him since '02," said Joseph Zadroga. "I hope he publicly apologizes."

Gold9472

11-05-2007, 05:25 PM

Bloomberg Sorry for 'Not a Hero' Remark

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gedchpIl6oM7F3AwCEyXaLDuYMzgD8SNODOG0

12 minutes ago

NEW YORK (AP) — A week after saying a ground zero worker was "not a hero" because drugs were found to have caused his death, Mayor Michael Bloomberg apologized to the man's father Monday.

After meeting with the mayor at City Hall, Joseph Zadroga said Bloomberg also told him he was going to try to find a way for the Sept. 11 victims memorial to include those who have been sickened by the toxic ground zero dust and debris.

Bloomberg drew outrage with his reaction to Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch's recent conclusion that Zadroga's son, James, contracted a fatal lung disease not from the World Trade Center dust he inhaled for weeks, but by injecting himself with ground-up pills.

"We wanted to have a hero," Bloomberg said Oct. 29. "There are plenty of heroes. It's just that in this case, the science says this was not a hero."

The family of James Zadroga, a retired police detective, rejects allegations that the 34-year-old took any medications improperly. At least two other medical experts have concluded that the material found in his respiratory system included microscopic shards of debris from the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The mayor backpedaled after saying Zadroga was not a hero, calling him "a great NYPD officer" who had repeatedly risked his life for the city and had gotten sick from breathing contaminated air at ground zero. He said, however, that it would be up to the public to decide whether Zadroga was a hero.

Hirsch's ruling meant the police detective would not be included on the official list of victims and his name would not be etched on the memorial wall. So far, only one person who survived the towers' collapse but died later of health problems has been added to the official death toll.

Gold9472

11-05-2007, 05:30 PM

Mayor sorry for calling Ground Zero cop 'not a hero'

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nyzero06,0,7946098.story

BY KARLA SCHUSTER | karla.schuster@newsday.com
3:48 PM EST, November 5, 2007

A week after he said a police detective who died after working at Ground Zero was "not a hero", Mayor Michael Bloomberg apologized to man's father on Monday, and promised that the city will find a way to memorialize rescue and recovery workers who died after being exposed to dust while working at the former World Trade Center site.

"The mayor apologized for his statement, the mayor was very gracious, he showed sympathy for James, he said James was a true hero, that he was just misquoted or taken out of context when he said what he said," said Joe Zadroga, father of detective James Zadroga, after a 35-minute meeting with Bloomberg Monday afternoon at City Hall.

Zadroga also said that the mayor, who heads the board of the National Sept. 11 Museum and Memorial at the World Trade Center, vowed to figure out a way to include those who worked at Ground Zero after the Sept. 11 attacks and were exposed to and sickened by toxic dust. "He understands that the people that are passing away after, such as Jimmy, and that he will go back to the (World Trade committee and figure out some way, that somehow they will come up with a way of recognizing these people that are passing away from their illnesses from the World Trade Center."

Det. James Zadroga, 34, who worked hundreds of hours at Ground Zero after the terrorist attacks, became a symbol of post-Sept. 11 illness after his death last year. The meeting came after the mayor, speaking in Boston last week, said that Zadroga was not a hero, referring to a ruling by the city's chief medical examiner, Dr. Charles Hirsch, that the detective's death was not a result of exposure to toxic trade center dust. Instead, Hirsch said that Zadroga's fatal lung disease resulted from Zadroga injecting himself with ground-up pills.

The conclusion contradicted a previous pathologist's report that said Zadroga's death was the result of his work after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

"We wanted to have a hero. There are plenty of heroes. It's just that in this case, the science says this was not a hero," Bloomberg said last Monday. But at yesterday's meeting, the mayor had a different take, according to Michael Barash, the Zadrogas' attorney.

"The mayor said 'you know - it mayor told them that it seems clear that his illness and disability were caused by World Trade Center exposure,' " Barash said. "The mayor seemed open-minded to us...We appreciate the fact that he's willing to have this looked at again by Dr. Hirsch and we're hoping we can win the battle. Who says you can't fight City Hall?"

Gold9472

11-05-2007, 05:30 PM

Mayor Bloomberg apologizes to WTC cop's family

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/11/05/2007-11-05_mayor_bloomberg_apologizes_to_wtc_cops_f.html

DAILY NEWS STAFF
Monday, November 5th 2007, 3:00 PM

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has apologized for saying that a police detective who died after working at Ground Zero "was not a hero," the cop's dad said Monday.

James Zadroga, 34, died in January of a lung disease. Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch recently concluded his illness was not caused by dust from the World Trade Center site, but rather by injecting himself with ground-up pills.

The ruling meant the police detective would not be included on the official list of victims and his name would not be etched on the 9/11 memorial wall.

Zadroga's father, Joseph, met Monday with the mayor at City Hall. The father said Bloomberg apologized for saying the ruling meant his son was "not a hero" and said he would try to find a way for the Sept. 11 victims memorial to include those who have been sickened by the toxic debris at Ground Zero.

AuGmENTor

11-05-2007, 07:18 PM

Didn't I read that the ME was going to meet with this family?

Gold9472

11-10-2007, 10:08 AM

9/11 responder laid to rest in Hauppauge

http://www.news12.com/LI/topstories/article?id=202753

(11/09/07) HAUPPAUGE - A New York City police sergeant who worked at ground zero was laid to rest in Hauppauge Friday after losing an 18-month battle with cancer.

Michael Ryan, of Hauppauge, was 41 years old when he passed away Monday. He was 39 when doctors diagnosed him with three different aggressive types of cancer.

Ryan spent hours working at ground zero and a Staten Island landfill after the Sept. 11 attacks. During that time, he inhaled dangerous toxins many believe directly caused hundreds of emergency workers to develop cancer and other ailments.

Ed Mullins, of the NYPD Sergeants Benevolent Association, said he will continue to fight for health care for the group that considers itself forgotten by the city it served. Ryan's funeral, held at Saint Thomas More Church in Hauppauge, was not conducted as an "in the line of duty" death, which Mullins said makes all the difference.

"There's a significant difference between this becoming a line-of-duty death and a non-line-of-duty death, as far as pensions go and benefits go," Mullins said. "The truth of it is he was a 39-year-old healthy individual involved in athletics, and two years later, at the age of 41, he's dead and it doesn't make sense."

Ryan, a 20-year police veteran, leaves behind his wife and four young children.

Neither New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg nor Police Commissioner Ray Kelly were in attendance for the funeral.

Gold9472

11-10-2007, 05:52 PM

New Study Released On Respiratory Problems For 9/11 Workers

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=75491

November 10, 2007

A new study released this month shows state employees who worked at the World Trade Center site after the toxic dust cloud cleared are suffering from the same respiratory problems as workers who were there during the actual September 11th terrorist attacks -- just to a lower degree.

The study by the New York State Department of Health looked at more than 1,400 state police, National Guard members, and state Department of Transportation workers, including 110 who were in the dust cloud when the Twin Towers fell.

Of those studied, one-third arrived during the first two days after the attacks and 57 percent arrived before Sept. 16, 2001.

The study found nearly 47 percent of workers not caught in the dust cloud reported lower respiratory problems, compared with a little more than 57 percent of those caught in the dust cloud.

Of those not caught in the cloud, 33 percent said they suffered from psychological symptoms – compared to just over 36 percent of those directly exposed to the cloud.

The report was published in the November issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Gold9472

11-14-2007, 09:40 AM

Former NFL player walks through Knoxville for 9/11

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/nov/13/former-nfl-player-walks/

By Lauren Spuhler
Updated 04:16 p.m., November 13, 2007

A retired New York Giant is walking through Knoxville today as part of a larger journey.

George Martin is spending nearly six months walking across America to raise money for 9/11 charities.

A defensive end and co-captain of the New York Giants Super Bowl-winning team in 1986, Martin started his walk, called "A Journey for 9/11," to raise money and awareness of health issues of recovery workers and the first responders at the World Trade Center tragedy.

"As a transplanted New Yorker, it's a blending of two passions that I have," Martin said.

Martin, a Greenville, S.C. native, said he's always wanted to walk across the country and loves the outdoors. Raising money for charities also allows him a chance to give back.

Martin arrived in Knoxville Monday night and walked along Magnolia and Western Avenues toward Oak Ridge on Tuesday. He estimates his walk through Tennessee will take about 40 days.

He's traveling with three other men and the weather has not slowed them down much.

"We did get drenched a little bit earlier," Martin said.

If it thunders this afternoon, the group will break for the day and start again Wednesday morning.

Martin's walk began on Sept. 16 at the George Washington Bridge in New York and will conclude at San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge in February or March.

To date, Martin has raised just over $1.4 million and hopes to reach $10 million when he finishes.

For his efforts, Martin will be awarded the second Heisman Humanitarian Award in December by the Heisman Trophy Trust.

Gold9472

11-14-2007, 04:17 PM

N.Y. State responders to 9/11 attack also have physical, mental health symptoms

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health1/ny-state-responders-to-911-attack-also-have-physical-mental-health-symptoms_1004633.html

November 14th, 2007

For the study, lead author Dr. Matthew P. Mauer of the New York State Department of Health, and colleagues evaluated health effects in 1,423 state workers who responded to the WTC disaster.

The majority of these workers were from the New York State Police, National Guard, or Department of Transportation.

As a group, the state workers had less-intense exposure to conditions at “Ground Zero” than reported in previous studies of first responders, such as New York City police or firefighters.

Still, two-thirds were working at the WTC site during the last two weeks of September, 2001. In addition, 110 of the state workers were in the vicinity of the WTC before the attacks and were caught in the cloud of dust when the towers collapsed, the researchers said.

When evaluated in 2002-2003, the state workers had elevated rates of physical and mental health symptoms, with nearly half having respiratory (breathing-related) symptoms. The most common symptom, reported by 30 percent of workers, was a dry cough.

The team found that nearly one-third of the state workers had experienced new or worsening psychological symptoms since working at the WTC site: most commonly sleep problems, fatigue, and irritability. Just three percent of affected workers had received any treatment for these symptoms.

Both types of symptoms were more common among workers who were caught in the cloud of dust. This included specific psychological symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as feeling jumpy/easily startled, difficulty concentrating or remembering things, and flashbacks.

Previous studies have reported various health effects in WTC first responders and community residents. The health evaluations in New York State workers provide an opportunity to evaluate the effects of later exposure to conditions at the disaster site.

The results suggest that, despite their lower exposure, state workers who responded to the WTC disaster have also experienced negative health effects. Although the workers in the new study generally have fewer symptoms, the types of symptoms are similar to those in studies of first responders.

Dr. Mauer and co-authors write, “Clinicians treating patients who responded to the WTC disaster should be aware that responders with less exposure than first responders have reported respiratory and psychological symptoms.”

The study is published in the November issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM). (ANI)

Gold9472

11-15-2007, 03:56 PM

Journey for 9/11 crosses East Tennessee
A former pro-football player is walking across the country for a good cause.

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=51322

By: Emily Stroud, Reporter
Date created: 11/14/2007 3:19:26 PM

Wednesday, that walk took him through East Tennessee.

The walk from New York to San Francisco is called "A Journey for 9/11."

George Martin is doing it to raise $10,000,000 for 9/11 first responders struck with respiratory illnesses.

"Now that they need our help, I feel that it's incumbent upon every citizen, even those of us who are former professional athletes, to lend a hand and call attention to the plight they are suffering right now," said Martin.

He and his support team cover about 20 miles or so a day.

"We're going to go 11 or 12 miles this morning," he said, walking with long strides on the shoulder of Highway 62. "And then we'll re-assess this afternoon depending on the weather conditions."

The weather conditions in Oliver Springs were foggy. But the former New York Giants football player has a sunny attitude about East Tennessee.

"The people have been fantastic," he said. "Tennesseans have been the best of all. They've brought us food, beverages, shelter, you name it. And they've made contributions to the journey for 9/11 which is the important thing."

So far he's raised almost one and half million dollars for his non-profit cause.

"Every dollar that's raised is going to be matched by an additional dollar by the medical community," he explained.

Martin plans to cross the Golden Gate Bridge and meet his $10,000,000 goal early next year.

"It's just a small way for us to show our appreciation and give back to true American heroes."

You can track his journey on the web. Click on the link in the upper right hand corner of this page.

Gold9472

11-25-2007, 07:13 AM

9/11 SUITS IN LEGAL LIMBO
GRAVELY ILL LEFT HANGING

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11252007/news/regionalnews/9_11_suits_in__legal_limbo_343414.htm

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11252007/photos/news014a.jpg

By SUSAN EDELMAN

November 25, 2007 -- The judge overseeing the lawsuits of thousands of sick 9/11 rescue workers says he won't speed up trials for several responders described as being "on death's door."

Manhattan federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein refused a request to set early trials for three World Trade Center workers who suffer severe lung disease.

"I'm not going to do that," Hellerstein said in court Nov. 16. He later heard details in his chambers about retired NYPD detective Michael Valentin, 43, retired NYPD officer Frank Maisano, 41, and Ground Zero morgue volunteer Mary Bishop, 45.

"All three of them are on death's door," lawyer Paul Napoli said.

While sympathetic, Hellerstein said there are too many legal issues to start individual cases, according to lawyers in the conference.

The city has so far refused to negotiate an out-of-court deal, but has urged Congress to reopen the Victim Compensation Fund to compensate sick workers.

Maisano arrived at Ground Zero when the second tower collapsed, and was caught in the dust and smoke, NYPD records show. He worked 16-hour shifts over the next four days, and later did tours sifting debris at Fresh Kills landfill.

Nearly three years later, he collapsed while chasing a robber.

His 9/11 line-of-duty disability pension pays three-quarters of his $60,000 officer's salary, without life insurance.

Bishop, who worked in an HIV lab at St. Vincent's Hospital downtown, boarded an ambulance to Ground Zero on 9/11 and stayed 24 days as a volunteer, labeling and bagging body parts.

She got skin cancer and developed chronic lung disease that is "too far gone" to operate, her lawyer, Marc Bern, told the judge.

Bishop shares a cramped Queens apartment with her 24-year-old daughter Natasha, a hospital worker who supports her. She relies on an electric respirator.

Her sister, Marlene, is bitter: "It hurts to see how my sister sacrificed, and what she got in return - a slap in the face."

Gold9472

11-25-2007, 07:17 AM

Lawyer accused of using scare tactics to get 9/11 victims to settle

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/11/25/2007-11-25_lawyer_accused_of_using_scare_tactics_to.html

BY THOMAS ZAMBITO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, November 25th 2007, 4:00 AM

Lawyers negotiating on behalf of thousands of 9/11 workers are being accused of using scare tactics - similar to those allegedly employed in another high-profile case - to get the ailing workers to settle quickly.

Lawyer Marc Bern sent a letter to 9/11 workers last month urging them to give his firm permission to negotiate a deal with the city to divide up $1 billion in federal money available to settle their claims.

Bern told 8,000 workers who blame their respiratory ailments on the time they spent working at Ground Zero that they might have to find another lawyer if they don't take a payout now. He warned that prolonging the case would rack up lawyer fees and expenses, siphoning off up to 40% of the payout.

"You get your money now," he wrote. "Your litigation costs are much lower now than they would be if you took your case to trial."

All that sounds familiar to Beverly Barker, a Henderson, Nev., woman who is among the millions who blamed their heart ailments on the use of the diet drug fen-phen.

Barker, 58, was represented by Bern's then-firm, Napoli Kaiser Bern, after she and some 5,600 others opted out of a $3.75 billion settlement reached in 1999 with drug maker American Home Products. They joined Bern in criticizing an earlier payout as too low and filed lawsuits in Manhattan Supreme Court beginning in 1997.

American Home Products offered to settle the Manhattan lawsuits for a lump sum as long as the law firm agreed to stop recruiting more clients, court papers allege. Estimates put the total payout in the hundreds of millions of dollars with Napoli Kaiser Bern taking a third for its work, court papers say.

Barker said Bern traveled to Las Vegas, where he met her in a room at the Four Seasons Hotel and urged her to take a payout. She said she balked, claiming the money being offered was far less than the millions that Bern's firm had said she could get.

She said Bern twice threw her out of the room when she turned down his offer and each time she returned he allegedly offered a little more cash.

"I finally caved in but I probably shouldn't have," she said.

Barker took an undisclosed settlement. But in 2001 she and two other fen-phen victims, William Buckwalter and Christine Dickey, filed a class action lawsuit in Manhattan Federal Court against Napoli Kaiser Bern, accusing the firm of breaching its fiduciary duty.

The case was tossed out in 2005 by a judge who said they should have read the fine print on their attorney agreement. Any disputes between the lawyer and client must go before an arbitrator, not a federal judge.

Barker's lawyers said dozens of others were treated to the same tactics in what they ruefully called the "Marc Bern Traveling Road Show."

Typically, fen-phen victims were offered $10,000 and told if they didn't take it they would have to find another lawyer, the tossed lawsuit claims. And, it adds, they were told that if they didn't settle soon, American Home Products would go bankrupt.

"The purpose of the scheme was to minimize the cost and effort on behalf of NKB and the individual defendants [Paul Napoli, Gerald Kaiser and Bern] and to maximize the profits to them," the lawsuit claims.

Bern declined comment yesterday.

Some Ground Zero workers who received the recent letter from Bern fear that if they don't sign up soon they'll lose out on money.

"What they think is that if they don't sign on, they're looking at nothing," said Julie Hernandez, a board member of Unsung Heroes Helping Heroes, an advocacy group for 9/11 workers. "They look around and see Vietnam veterans suffering from Agent Orange who are still waiting.

"They figure if they wait, they'll be dead."

Gold9472

11-25-2007, 11:27 AM

Medical Examiner, Differing on Ground Zero Case, Stands His Ground

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/nyregion/25medexaminer.html?em&ex=1196139600&en=f74c7fded0df27af&ei=5087%0A

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/11/25/nyregion/25med.600.jpg
Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, center, with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. Dr. Hirsch said a detective had died from ground up pills, not ground zero dust.

By ANTHONY DePALMA
Published: November 25, 2007

No New Yorker is privy to as many secrets of the dead as Dr. Charles S. Hirsch. During nearly two decades as New York City’s chief medical examiner, he has quietly overseen autopsies on more than 100,000 people, hoping to learn something more about the way they lived, and why they died.

After a long run marked by few major controversies, Dr. Hirsch, 70, now finds his objectivity and independence being questioned because of his review of a single autopsy — on the body of James Zadroga, 34, a New York City police detective who died in New Jersey last year. The Zadroga family had hoped he would agree with the Ocean County medical examiner’s finding that the detective’s death was linked to ground zero dust, which would add his name to the official list of victims of the 9/11 attack.

But last month Dr. Hirsch shocked the Zadroga family and others with his conclusion, “with certainty beyond doubt,” that the material in Detective Zadroga’s lungs was not dust from the trade center but ground up pills he had injected into his veins.

Dr. Hirsch, a tall, trim Midwesterner whose suspenders and pipe could make him a character on the TV show “C.S.I.,” is averse to publicity and has said nothing publicly about the case; in a brief telephone interview he declined to discuss details of his findings.

“I have no interest in embarrassing those people or dragging this out,” he said. “I have absolute confidence in our opinion.”

But the police union, members of Congress and others have raised doubts about his ability to make such a determination by himself. At the heart of their criticisms lies a single question: how could the same tissue samples, autopsy slides and medical records lead different forensic pathologists to radically different conclusions?

Dr. Hirsch is well known across the country as a meticulous investigator and a scientist who measures his words carefully. But certainty is an elusive quality in science. Dr. Gregory J. Davis, a University of Kentucky professor who is chairman of the forensic pathology committee of the Congress of American Pathologists, said that “certainty beyond doubt” was not a phrase he had ever used.

“But if Dr. Hirsch used it,” he said, “he must have had his reasons.”

Dr. Hirsch said he had used that phrase in cases when the cause of death was so clear — say, from an accident — that there could be no possible doubt about the cause. “It doesn’t come up very often,” he said, “But in our own discussions in the office, it’s a routine thing.”

Dr. Hirsch’s determinations about Detective Zadroga sharply conflicted not only with the conclusions drawn in the Ocean County autopsy but with the findings of other experts. A former New York City medical examiner, Dr. Michael M. Baden, examined the autopsy slides and said he was convinced that trade center dust had killed Detective Zadroga. The Police Pension Board in 2004 linked Mr. Zadroga’s illness to the dust when it approved a disability pension for him. And the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund concluded in 2004 that he had been harmed by the dust and gave him a substantial monetary award.

Detective Zadroga was at ground zero in the weeks immediately after 9/11, though it is not clear exactly where he worked or how many hours he remained on the site. His medical records show that he was sickened by his work at ground zero.

Dr. Hirsch’s findings about Detective Zadroga have generated controversy in part because many cases involving ground zero workers may have to be reviewed if the workers are to be included on the 9/11 victims list. The 9/11 victims’ fund gave more than 1,300 ground zero workers the same kind of injury award Detective Zadroga received, opening the door for future claims. Similarly, more than 175 police officers and 725 firefighters have received disability pensions for illnesses related to the trade center. And more than 20,000 workers have registered with the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board in case they become sick in the future.

Several members of New York’s Congressional delegation said they did not think Dr. Hirsch should have the power to decide whether deaths were linked to 9/11. This month, they urged Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to create a panel of independent medical experts. But the mayor rejected the proposal, saying such decisions should be based on science, not politics.

There is no national standard for determining a cause of death. Medical examiners and coroners set their own guidelines, and each relies on a combination of experience and interpretation to come to conclusions.

A medical examiner’s job is a mix of detective work and scientific observation. In determining the cause of death in most routine autopsies, a pathologist offers his or her “best medical opinion.” In civil lawsuits or legal proceedings, the standard rises to “preponderance of evidence.” Experts said that a stricter standard — “with a reasonable degree of medical certainty” — is used in criminal investigations or trials. Dr. Hirsch’s certainty in his review of the Zadroga case is exceptional.

“The general public likes to assume that pathology is an exact science and everything is objective,” said Dr. John Sinard, director of the Autopsy Service at Yale University School of Medicine. “The reality is that everything is subjective.”

During 18 years as head of one of the country’s busiest medical examiner’s offices, Dr. Hirsch, who once served as a captain in the Air Force Medical Corps, has earned a reputation among forensic pathologists as a skilled practitioner and a respected teacher, having held faculty positions at N.Y.U.’s medical school and others. He has trained 16 of New York City’s 26 deputy medical examiners and dozens of the 500 medical examiners in the country.

“He is a very conservative medical professional,” said Dr. Yvonne I. Milewski, the chief medical examiner of Suffolk County. “Nobody who knows him doubts his motives.”

Dr. Thomas A. Andrew, chief medical examiner of the state of New Hampshire, studied with Dr. Hirsch at the University of Cincinnati in the early 1980s. He was so influenced by Dr. Hirsch’s “quiet dignity” that he chose to follow in his footsteps, he said, switching his focus from pediatrics to forensic pathology.

“For me, he defines the word ‘mentor,’ ” Dr. Andrew said, “but I can’t tell you Word 1 about his private life, his social life or what makes him tick.”

Dr. Hirsch was appointed chief medical examiner by Mayor Edward I. Koch, who had dismissed Dr. Hirsch’s two immediate predecessors, Dr. Baden and Dr. Elliot M. Gross, faulting their performance.

Dr. Hirsch focused on managing the complex office instead of performing autopsies (he had already conducted 6,000 autopsies at other offices, and served as the Suffolk County medical examiner). Still, he said, he goes into the autopsy rooms every day, consults with his deputies, and is the final arbiter on all causes of death.

But, experts say, what seems certain can turn out not to be. In early 1989, Dr. Hirsch ruled that a 25-year-old black man named Richard Luke died while in police custody as a result of cocaine intoxication. Friends who said they believed Mr. Luke had been brutalized by the police, said that Dr. Hirsch had unjustly exonerated the police, and hundreds took to the streets in protest. Months later, an inquiry by the State Commission of Correction’s two-member medical review panel, which included Dr. Baden, concluded that Mr. Luke had choked on his own vomit.

Despite a lingering perception among some that the medical examiner’s office protects the police, there have been times when Dr. Hirsch’s rulings have put the department in a bad light. For example, in May 2003, Dr. Hirsch blamed the police for the death of a 57-year-old Harlem grandmother, Alberta Spruill, finding that the stress and fear of an early morning police raid had caused her fatal heart attack.

Yet his review of the Zadroga autopsy could help the city defend itself against the suits brought by more than 8,000 ground zero workers who say they became ill after working at the trade center site, said Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association.

The families of 9/11 victims have praised Dr. Hirsch for the sensitive way he has handled thousands of human remains that still have to be identified. But he was criticized by Mr. Palladino, among others, for being insensitive to the Zadroga family last month when he told them that he was certain that what looked like dust in the detective’s lungs was, based on a chemical analysis, actually talc and cellulose from ground up pills.

According to interviews with several pathologists around the country, including Dr. Michael Graham, the chief medical examiner for the city of St. Louis and a specialist in heart and lung pathology, the combination of talc and cellulose in the lungs usually indicates drug abuse. Dr. Hirsch said the talc was found in the capillaries of the lungs, not in the air sacs, another tell-tale sign of intravenous drug use.

Still, Dr. Graham said he would be reluctant to use Dr. Hirsch’s “certainty beyond doubt,” phrase.

“Unless we’re talking about metaphysical certitude,” he said, “there is no such thing as absolute certainty.”

Gold9472

11-26-2007, 09:01 PM

NYS Responders Report 9/11-Related Health Problems, Study Says

http://www.occupationalhazards.com/News/Article/76515/NYS_Responders_Report_911Related_Health_Problems_S tudy_Says.aspx

By Katherine Torres
11/26/2007

Despite arriving later and having less-intense exposure than first responders, New York state personnel who worked at the World Trade Center (WTC) site after the 9/11 attacks have increased rates of physical and mental health symptoms, reports a study in the November issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Led by Dr. Matthew P. Mauer of the New York State Department of Health, the researchers evaluated health effects in 1,423 state workers who responded to the WTC disaster. The majority of these workers were from the New York State Police, National Guard, or Department of Transportation.

As a group, the state workers had less-intense exposure to conditions at Ground Zero than reported in previous studies of first responders, such as New York City police or firefighters. Still, two-thirds were working at the WTC site during the last two weeks of September 2001. In addition, 110 of the state workers were in the vicinity of the WTC before the attacks and were caught in the cloud of dust when the towers collapsed.

When evaluated in 2002-2003, the state workers had elevated rates of physical and mental health symptoms. Nearly half had respiratory symptoms. The most common symptom, reported by 30 percent of workers, was a dry cough.

Nearly one-third of the state workers had experienced new or worsening psychological symptoms since working at the WTC site. Symptoms most commonly included sleep problems, fatigue and irritability. Just three percent of affected workers received treatment for these symptoms.

Both types of symptoms were more common among workers who were caught in the cloud of dust. This included specific psychological symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as feeling jumpy/easily startled, experiencing flashbacks and having difficulty concentrating or remembering things.

Previous studies have reported various health effects in WTC first responders and community residents. The health evaluations among New York state workers provide an opportunity to evaluate the effects of later exposure to conditions at the disaster site.

Gold9472

11-26-2007, 09:18 PM

NYC M.E. Rules Against Another 9/11 Responder
PBA President Furious Over Ruling On James Godbee

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/james.godbee.911.2.596025.html

11/26/2007

NEW YORK (CBS) ― There was outrage Monday night over another controversial ruling by New York City's Medical Examiner.

Some say the ruling disrespects yet another first responder who worked on the debris pile at ground zero.

The family and friends of police officer James Godbee are furious.

"This is ridiculous, an outrage," said Patrolmen's Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch said.

Lynch was speaking for many Monday in his fury at City Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch, who refuses to say a hero cop who died of lung disease after working for hundreds of hours at ground zero was a 9/11 homicide.

The reason? Godbee started work on Sept. 13.

"This medical examiner once again proves that he's looking at this from a litigation standpoint rather than a right and wrong standpoint," Lynch said.

In a letter to Godbee's widow, Michelle, Hirsch wrote:

"We must adhere to the principle that fatalities caused by work related or inhalation of dust … are classified as natural deaths."

Lawyer Michael Barasch represents Det. James Zadroga, another 9/11 hero cop who died of lung disease. He says it doesn't make any difference once you started to breathe the toxic dust at ground zero

"The building was burning for 99 days," Barasch said. "You were breathing the exact same air.

Lynch and Barasch say Hirsch has too much power, and that a blue ribbon commission should be set up to review each ground zero first responder death. Mayor Michael Bloomberg disagrees.

"This city is lucky as I said to have Dr. Hirsch," Bloomberg said. "He is scrupulously honest and has nothing to do with politics. Having a blue ribbon commission just says lets decide based on political reasons."

A spokesman for the medical examiner refused to comment, saying that the letter speaks for itself.

The mayor did praise officer Godbee, saying he was "exactly the kind of police officer you want in this city."

He said the 9/11 Memorial Commission, which he chairs, should find a way to recognize 9/11 responders.

Gold9472

11-28-2007, 10:46 AM

Doctor's ruling angers family of city cop James Godbee

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/11/26/2007-11-26_doctors_ruling_angers_family_of_city_cop.html

BY RICH SCHAPIRO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, November 26th 2007, 4:00 AM

Godbee's widow, Michelle Haskett-Godbee, with her two children looking over family picture albums.

The city medical examiner has refused to even review the death of a city cop who toiled for hours at Ground Zero because the officer began working at the site Sept. 13 - a mere 48 hours after the towers fell.

In a stunning decision that could set a precedent for ailing 9/11 responders and affected civilians, Dr. Charles Hirsch told the family of Officer James Godbee that because he was not at the site the day of the attacks, his cause of death would remain "natural."

"All persons killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 and others who died later from complications of injuries or exposure directly caused by the collapse of the Twin Towers on that day are homicide victims," Hirsch wrote in a letter dated June 13.

"However, P.O. Godbee first arrived at the World Trade Center site on September 13, 2001."

Hirsch's perplexing determination has infuriated Godbee's family and put in doubt the likelihood of others being added to the official list of 9/11 victims.

Godbee's widow, Michelle Haskett-Godbee, told the Daily News she wants to meet with the medical examiner.

"Shame on him," she fumed. "I would like to know how he can justify the statement that because [my husband] wasn't there that day, it didn't affect him.

"The medical examiner should be ashamed of himself for saying that. He's a doctor. He should know how the body works, how diseases progress."

Hirsch's office did not respond to requests for comment.

His silence left several questions unanswered.

"If a person who inhaled the dust on 9/11 is deemed to be a homicide victim, then this person who inhaled the same dust caused by the same criminal act two days later has to be classified the same way," said Dr. Michael Baden, chief forensic pathologist for the New York State Police.

"What is the cutoff?" Baden asked. "Is the cutoff 12:01 a.m. at 9/12? It's all the same stuff."

James Godbee, 44, a 19-year veteran, died of a heart attack in December 2004 after he spent hundreds of hours amid the noxious fumes at Ground Zero, his relatives said.

A city medical examiner ruled the heart attack was caused by sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that causes scarring of the lungs and other organs.

Dr. Frank Accera, a pulmonary specialist at Beth Israel Medical Center, determined Godbee's exposure to the toxic dust at the Trade Center site "either caused or aggravated his sarcoidosis and ultimately caused his death."

Gold9472

11-28-2007, 10:46 AM

Set fair standards for judging WTC deaths

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/11/26/2007-11-26_set_fair_standards_for_judging_wtc_death-2.html

Monday, November 26th 2007, 4:00 AM

Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Charles Hirsch sparked an uproar when he ruled on Detective James Zadroga's cause of death. Although Zadroga had spent hundreds of hours working 9/11 rescue and recovery, although Zadroga had been grievously sickened by inhaling the Ground Zero dust, Hirsch found another reason for the fatality.

Shocking the cop's family and contradicting findings of other pathologists, Hirsch concluded Zadroga had mortally hurt his lungs by injecting ground-up prescription pills. His family says nothing of the sort occurred.

In the ensuing furor, the Daily News and several elected officials called on Mayor Bloomberg to create an expert panel to set scientific and legal standards for reviewing deaths of 9/11 workers. The mayor spurned the idea, asserting such a panel would inject politics into science. But he also said he'd look for a means to memorialize men and women who were sickened by their service and died as a result.

One wonders how, as Hirsch seems to have adopted a policy that would make it all but impossible for Bloomberg to accomplish his goal. Without public comment, Hirsch appears to have decided the ME will perform scientific reviews only of deaths of people who were at Ground Zero on 9/11. Not of those who arrived thereafter.

That is the clear import of a letter Hirsch sent to the family of Officer James Godbee, who his lawyer and police duty rosters say worked on or near the Trade Center site between Sept. 13, 2001, and June 2002. Two years later, Godbee was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, a lung-scarring disease. He died in December 2004 at age 44, with the autopsy, done by Hirsch's office, naming sarcoidosis as the cause of death. Widow Michelle Haskett-Godbee was granted a line-of-duty death benefit.

Her attorney asked Hirsch to rule Godbee's death an accident or homicide due to 9/11 and to add his name to the official roster. This would require Hirsch to find that breathing Ground Zero dust caused the cop's illness.

Hirsch refused to consider the issue. He wrote: "All persons killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and others who died later from complications of injuries or exposure directly caused by the collapse of the Twin Towers on that day are homicide victims. However, P.O. Godbee first arrived at the World Trade Center site on September 13, 2001."

While expressing sympathy, Hirsch also stated that "fatalities caused by work-related inhalation of dust ... are classified as natural deaths." He concluded, "we decline to express an opinion about the cause and effect relationship between P.O. Godbee's work at the site of the World Trade Center and his subsequent development of sarcoidosis."

Hirsch didn't respond to written questions asking him to elaborate on standards he has adopted for judging 9/11-related deaths. Which is unfortunate, because the Godbee letter extends a record of confusing positions by the medical examiner.

He added to the roster of victims the name of Felicia Dunn-Jones, a lawyer who was caught in the 9/11 dust cloud and died five months later of sarcoidosis - but not until her family's attorney broached a lawsuit. Then he ruled that Zadroga's debilitating lung illnesses, which started within weeks of 9/11, were not relevant to his death.

Godbee's case raises new questions: Will Hirsch accept as a victim of the terror attack a firefighter who arrived on 9/11 after the towers fell and later fell sick with an illness that proved fatal? If so, why would he not accept a firefighter who arrived a day or two later? Or has he determined that none of the Forgotten Victims of 9/11 are worthy of the memorial list?

These are not issues of science. These are legal and policy matters with profound social implications that should not be one person's to address. That's why we still believe Bloomberg would be wise to seek the counsel of a blue-ribbon panel as he devises a way to memorialize the sacrifices of Zadroga, Godbee and others still to come.

Gold9472

11-28-2007, 10:46 AM

Medical Examiner Poked, Prodded After Autopsy Verdict

http://gothamist.com/2007/10/19/mes_office_says.php

11/26/2007

Dr. Charles S. Hirsch is the chief medical examiner of New York City and has overseen the autopsies on more than 100,000 people. He would probably remain a mystery to most New Yorkers, if it weren't for his ruling on the death of Det. James Zadroga, who worked clean-up at Ground Zero after September 11, 2001.

Hirsch said that Zadroga's death wasn't related to Ground Zero dust, but ground-up pills the detective was allegedly injecting. Two other pathologists - including Dr. Michael Baden, probably best known for his HBO autopsy-mystery series - had ruled that Zadroga's death was due to exposure to the harmful dust emanating from Ground Zero. The detective was awarded a disability pension and the September 11 Compensation Fund gave his family a substantial award upon his death.

Zadroga's father went to the the NYC's ME with his son's medical records, in an attempt to have his son counted on the city's list of 9/11 victims. But Hirsch recently determined that was not the case, and said "with certainty beyond doubt" that Ground Zero dust was not the cause of Zadroga's death, leading Mayor Bloomberg to say Zadroga was not a hero and then take it back and apologize to his family.

The Times spoke to other pathologists who all respect Hirsch but would hesitate to use such unequivocal language in their rulings. And the Times article included a small aside: "Detective Zadroga was at ground zero in the weeks immediately after 9/11, though it is not clear exactly where he worked or how many hours he remained on the site." Another police officer, Ceasar Borja, was previously heralded as a fatal victim of toxic Ground Zero, but it was eventually revealed that he spent virtually little time near Ground Zero.

Today, the Daily News reported Dr. Hirsch wouldn't even review the case of Officer James Godbee, who died from a heart attack in 2004. (The city says that anyone who died in the 9/11 attacks or from effects directly experienced on that day should be considered a homicide victim.) Officer Godbee arrived on the scene at 9/13/01, and died from a heart attack determined to be brought on by sarcoidosis, a disease that inflames the lungs and other organs. Earlier this year, the ME's office did declare that a Staten Island woman, who was at the World Trade Center on September 11 and later died of sarcoidosis, was a victim of the attacks.

Gold9472

11-28-2007, 10:46 AM

Death Ruled Not Homicide for Officer at Ground Zero

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/nyregion/27dust.html?ref=nyregion

By ANTHONY DePALMA
Published: November 27, 2007

New York City’s chief medical examiner has decided not to reclassify the death of a police officer who worked at ground zero as a homicide linked to the attack on the twin towers because the officer did not arrive at the site until Sept. 13, 2001.

The latest news and reader discussions from around the five boroughs and the region.

Go to City Room » The examiner’s decision appears to cast doubt on the future of thousands of cases involving sickened rescue and recovery workers whose relatives may in the future seek to have them included on the 9/11 victims’ list.

When the officer, James J. Godbee Jr., died in December 2004 at age 44, the medical examiner’s office listed the cause of death as sarcoidosis, a disease that scars the lungs and other organs. Although the death certificate did not link Officer Godbee’s disease to the days he spent at ground zero, the police pension fund did make that link later, granting the officer’s widow a line-of-duty pension.

Earlier this year, the officer’s widow, Michelle Haskett-Godbee, formally requested that the medical examiner review the case. She hoped that if her husband’s death was formally linked to the trade center attack, his name would be added to the official list of 9/11 victims.

But the medical examiner, Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, turned down Mrs. Haskett-Godbee’s request in a letter dated June 13, which was reported Monday in The Daily News.

“All persons killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 and others who died later from complications of injuries or exposure directly caused by the collapse of the twin towers on that day are homicide victims,” Dr. Hirsch wrote. “However, P.O. Godbee first arrived at the World Trade Center site on September 13, 2001.”

Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner, said Dr. Hirsch drew a distinction between the manner of death, which she defined as the circumstances leading up to a fatality, and the cause of death, which she said is the underlying reason a person died.

“If you were there when the towers came down and were enveloped in the dust cloud, that was a direct result of what was happening at the time the attack was under way,” Ms. Borakove said. “On other hand, if you were there later on and you were doing work, you may be in a position where you were exposed to the same dust, but since you were not exposed during the time of attack, then that becomes work-related.”

New York City death certificates list the immediate cause of death separately from the manner of death.

Homicide is given as the manner of death for the 2,750 names on the official victims’ list. In the letter about Officer Godbee, Dr. Hirsch stated that deaths linked to inhalation of dust while performing work are classified as “natural deaths,” not homicide.

In May, Dr. Hirsch reclassified the death of Felicia Dunn-Jones, a lawyer who was engulfed in the dust plume on the morning of Sept. 11 as she ran from her office in Lower Manhattan, as homicide. In that case, he focused special attention on the fact that Mrs. Dunn-Jones, 42, had inhaled trade center dust on the day of the attack.

That reversal opened the way for other cases to be reviewed. According to Ms. Borakove, Dr. Hirsch has declined to reclassify three or four other cases, including those of Officer Godbee and Detective James Zadroga, whose death in early 2006 had been linked to trade center dust by a New Jersey medical examiner.

Dr. Hirsch’s decision to disallow those who arrived at ground zero after Sept. 11 from being considered possible homicide victims confused some legal experts. Stephen M. Gillers, a law professor at New York University, said that a fatality that is a “foreseeable consequence” of a particular crime is usually considered to have been caused by that crime.

“Because Godbee arrived only two days later, you could make a pretty strong case that it was 9/11 exposure,” Professor Gillers said in a telephone interview. “The medical examiner may just be saying, ‘If I allow Sept. 12 or 13, I may be nickel-and-dimed to Sept. 15 and beyond.’ At some point, you just need to get on with things.”

Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, who, with other members of New York’s Congressional delegation, has sponsored a bill providing compensation for ill ground zero workers, called Dr. Hirsch’s decision on Officer Godbee “absolutely arbitrary” and sure to increase the anger and frustration of many New Yorkers.

Gold9472

11-28-2007, 10:47 AM

Hero cop who died after WTC work denied memorial honor roll place

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/11/27/2007-11-27_hero_cop_who_died_after_wtc_work_denied_-1.html

BY KIRSTEN DANIS and CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Tuesday, November 27th 2007, 4:00 AM

Mayor Bloomberg Monday turned his back on a hero cop who died after working at Ground Zero but was denied a place on the memorial honor roll because he didn't arrive at The Pile until two days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Bloomberg also flatly rejected a renewed call for a special panel to set scientific and legal standards for reviewing the deaths of 9/11 workers like Officer James Godbee.

"Having a blue-ribbon commission just says, 'Let's decide based on political reasons, some of these things,'" the mayor said.

Bloomberg was peppered with questions a day after the Daily News revealed the city's medical examiner, Dr. Charles Hirsch, told Godbee's widow her husband's death would remain classified as from "natural" causes because he was not at the site on the day of the terror attacks.

The former Marine got to Ground Zero two days later and spent hundreds of hours working in the toxic stew. A physical fitness buff, Godbee was felled by a heart attack in December 2004. He was 44 years old.

Bloomberg praised Godbee as "the kind of police officer you want in this city" but also called Hirsch "scrupulously honest."

"The medical examiner was asked to rule on whether or not the legal definition of death is homicide," he said. "This is strictly the legal definition based on what the law is, and the medical examiner made a finding. They did not look at what the actual cause of death was."

That legalistic approach dismayed Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, both Manhattan Democrats, and Vito Fossella, a Republican from Staten Island.

"It seems clear that an otherwise healthy man who worked for countless hours on The Pile at Ground Zero and who later developed sarcoidosis and died should have his case heard by the city's medical examiner," they wrote.

"At the very least, there should not be an arbitrary 'cutoff' for who can be considered a victim of 9/11. Many who are sick now were not at Ground Zero the moment the towers collapsed - but their suffering and medical conditions are real."

Hirsch did not return a call seeking comment about the Godbee ruling, which infuriated the officer's family and cast doubt on whether other Ground Zero workers could be added to the official list of 9/11 victims.

It also raised more questions about the competency of Hirsch, who sparked an uproar last month when he denied NYPD Detective James Zadroga a spot on the official victims' list.

Hirsch, 70, ruled Zadroga injured his lungs by injecting groundup prescription pills - a finding that Zadroga's parents and two other pathologists dispute.

Gold9472

11-28-2007, 10:47 AM

Give us clarity, Mike

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/11/27/2007-11-27_give_us_clarity_mike.html

Tuesday, November 27th 2007, 4:00 AM

One thing was clear from Mayor Bloomberg yesterday regarding how, in his words, he will find "ways to pay tribute and to memorialize those whose lives were lost because of the work that they did down at Ground Zero after the terrible tragedy of 9/11": The mayor is not interested in the least in seeking the guidance of experts.

All else was logic-defying confusion.

His pronouncements on the case of Officer James Godbee, who was killed by a lung-scarring disease after laboring at the Trade Center site, served mainly to cloud a situation that cries out for clarity - and a little mayoral common sense.

As revealed in yesterday's Daily News, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Charles Hirsch refused even to review Godbee's cause of death on the ground that Godbee did not arrive at The Pile until two days after 9/11. Since he was not there the very day of the terror attack, he cannot be classified as the victim of either a homicide or an accident, Hirsch concluded.

In the medical examiner's judgment, as a matter of established legalities, Godbee died of natural causes.

The concept of "natural causes" brought on by the worst mass murder inflicted on the U.S. is preposterous - even if you can divine it from a medical examiner's legal handbook.

And the idea is also arbitrary and unworkable. By seeming to agree that Hirsch was correct in declining to state a scientific opinion about what killed Godbee, the mayor appears to have endorsed a policy that the medical examiner will review only the deaths of those who were at Ground Zero on 9/11, despite the fact that the fires burned until December.

Who, then, will make the call as to those who responded on later days? Who will certify that, for serving, they paid with their lives? If not the medical examiner, who, Mr. Mayor?

Gold9472

11-28-2007, 10:47 AM

City: Officer's death was not related to 9/11

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nywtc1128,0,3421745.story

BY ANDREW STRICKLER | andrew.strickler@newsday.com
8:39 PM EST, November 27, 2007

Digg Del.icio.us Facebook Fark Google Newsvine Reddit Yahoo Print Single page view Reprints Post Comment Text size: It was the desire for recognition of James Godbee Jr.'s nearly two decades in NYPD blue, and the memory his children will carry of their father, that compelled his widow to try to have his name added to the registry of 911 victims, her attorney said Tuesday.

"Emotionally, for her and the children, she wanted to see him recognized," said attorney John Rudden regarding Michelle Haskett-Godbee, whose husband died in 2004. "It was not a dollar-and-cents thing."

But that effort was thwarted after city Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch, who reviewed Godbee's medical records at his family's request, concluded in June that his death was not a direct result of the World Trade Center attacks because he arrived at the site two days later.

Officer Godbee, who was 44 when he died, initially worked in Manhattan housing projects as a New York City Housing Authority police officer. After the NYPD absorbed that department in 1995, he joined the 18th Precinct in midtown and continued to work as a housing patrolman, according to the attorney.

On Sept. 13, 2001, Godbee was assigned to help direct traffic and work security on the WTC site perimeter in lower Manhattan, where he remained for hundreds of hours.

Almost immediately, Rudden said, Godbee began coughing and showing other signs of pulmonary illness. He was hospitalized with a collapsed lung in March 2004 and died later that year. His autopsy attributed his death to scarring of the lungs.

Although Godbee's family will not fight the medical examiner's decision, Rudden said, they remain convinced his name should appear with 2,750 others who lost their lives in the attack. "He worked there, he did his service and he died as a result of it," Rudden said. "There is no question about it."

Rudden said Michelle Haskett-Godbee got some comfort in the NYPD's recognition of her husband's service, and she began receiving his pension benefits earlier this year after an initial denial of line-of-duty benefits was reversed.

The money has helped Haskett-Godbee buy a home in Teaneck, N.J., where she now lives with her daughter Imani, 9, and son, Kai. "Financially, they are taken care of, but these two children have no father," Rudden said.

Gold9472

11-28-2007, 10:47 AM

HANG TOUGH, MIKE

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11282007/postopinion/editorials/hang_tough__mike_436459.htm

(Gold9472: Disgusting. Susan Edelman is the only thing that makes the NYPost worth anything.)

November 28, 2007 -- New Yorkers owe a debt to 9/11 re sponders sickened by their service at Ground Zero, but let's be clear: Emotion can't be allowed to trump science in determining liability in this matter.

And to say that politics should be excluded from the process is to understate the case.

Fortunately, Mayor Bloomberg and Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch this week showed they understand this.

Hirsch refused to reclassify the death of Police Officer James Godbee, who worked at Ground Zero, as a homicide - because, Hirsch said, the officer wasn't on-site until two days after 9/11.

The ME applied a strict interpretation of the definition of homicide: an act by one or more people that results in someone else's death. He's arguing, in effect, that if someone showed up days later, as Godbee did, then his death can't be classified as having been caused directly by the World Trade Center attack.

Now, you can argue with that standard.

But at least it's a standard.

The strike on the Twin Towers and their subsequent collapse constituted "a discrete, unique event," explains Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for Hirsch.

Deaths linked to someone's presence at the time of the terrorist strike or during the buildings' collapse thus could be considered homicides. But "anything else," she said, "would be arbitrary."

Which is exactly what some demagogic politicians, their fellow travelers - and even some well-intended, but emotion-driven, New Yorkers - want.

The more arbitrary the standard, the easier it will be to rule any death a 9/11 homicide.

That may qualify some workers - or even passersby - for unwarranted compensation.

And that way lies fiscal chaos.

Moreover, it would be historically misleading (and morally wrong) to overstate the number of true 9/11 victims, even if it makes the public feel good about doing something "nice" for recovery workers.

It matters whether these folks were injured on 9/11, got sick later or suffered from unrelated maladies.

Alas, some folks don't seem to care whether a person's illness is truly linked to the attack. Anyone who was anywhere near New York in '01 or thereafter, they seem to suggest, should get victim status - and perhaps extra cash.

Not Mayor Mike, to his credit. He not only backed Hirsch, he has also firmly resisted calls to let a politically created new panel set the rules.

"Having a blue-ribbon commission just says, 'Let's decide based on political reasons,' " Mayor Mike said. Right on.

Likewise, Manhattan federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein refused to skip steps for three sickened rescue workers in the lawsuit against the city and Ground Zero contractors, even though their lawyer said they were "on death's door."

These (and other) workers certainly merit New York's sympathy and gratitude. But it would be unfair - to both sides - to skip key legal steps in a lawsuit and rush to judgment.

Hellerstein, Bloomberg and Hirsch, no doubt, were all under great pressure. But they did the right thing. New Yorkers should be grateful for that, too.

Gold9472

11-28-2007, 06:34 PM

Children Exposed to 9/11 Air More Likely to Develop Asthma

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2007/11/_it_was_bad_eno.php

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/pwdr0179l.jpg

posted: 2:25 PM, November 28, 2007 by Michael Clancy

It was bad enough when the only known casualties of the EPA's lies about the safety of the air downtown after 9/11 were first responders, now add children to that list.

Children who breathed the air downtown after 9/11 have increased instances of asthma as compared to other youngsters in the Northeast region, according to a new World Trade Center Health Registry report to be presented this evening by the city Department of Health. What's worse is that children exposed to the Twin Tower's toxic dust cloud were twice as likely as those just living downtown to develop asthma, the survey found.

The DOH said in a release:

According to the survey, half of the 3,100 children enrolled in the registry developed at least one new or worsened respiratory symptom, such as a cough, between 9/11 and the time of the interview....Prior to 9/11, asthma rates among child enrollees were on par with national and regional rates, but at the time of the interview, about 6% of enrolled children had received a new asthma diagnosis. Children exposed to the dust cloud following the collapse of the towers were twice as likely to be diagnosed with asthma as those not caught in the dust cloud, the survey found.
According to the DOH, "This survey included children under 18 years of age on 9/11/01, who lived or went to school south of Canal Street (preschool and K-12) or were south of Chambers Street on 9/11. The findings will be presented at the Second Annual Meeting of WTC Health Registry at Pace University this evening, but the DOH provided some further data.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/asthma1.png

Chart courtesy NYC DOH.

The rate of asthma prevalence among children age 2 to 4 in the Northeast is 7 percent, according to the DOH. The rate of asthma prevalence among children the same age exposed to the WTC disaster is 12.3 percent, according to the DOH. The asthma rate among children age 2 to 4 who were directly exposed to the dust cloud soars to 20.9 percent, the DOH survey found.

In the 5 to 11 age group, the Northeast asthma rate is 16.8 percent. The survey found a slightly lower rate, 15.7 percent, among those children in the same age group exposed to the air downtown. But for those caught directly in the dust cloud, the asthma rate climbs to 24 percent, according to the survey.

For more information about the survey and the city's World Trade Center Health Registry go to www.nyc.gov/9-11health (http://www.nyc.gov/9-11health)

Gold9472

11-28-2007, 06:36 PM

Kids near towers on 9/11 more likely to get asthma

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-liwtc1129,0,1919001.story

BY JOHN VALENTI | john.valenti@newsday.com
1:34 PM EST, November 28, 2007

Children under age five when exposed to the fallout of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center had an increased likelihood of being diagnosed with asthma within three years of the disaster, according to officials at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The findings were released Wednesday in conjunction with the second Annual meeting and Resource Fair at Pace University, where health department researchers are to meet with WTC Health Registry members and others to discuss the the registry's initial survey, conducted between 2003 and 2004.

Half of the 3,100 children enrolled in the registry "developed at least one new or worsened respiratory symptom, such as a cough," between the attacks and the time they were interviewed, researchers found. Those children developed asthma at twice the regional rate for the same age group -- though at a lower rate than adult rescue workers.

The survey did not find evidence of elevated levels of post-traumatic stress in children.

The survey included children under 18 years of age on Sept. 11, 2001, who lived or went to school south of Canal Street or who were south of Chambers Street at the time the Twin Towers fell.

The health department is now working of its second survey, which includes more than 70,000 enrollees, officials said.

"We know that some children, too, were affected by exposure to the dust cloud," Health Department Deputy Commissioner Lorna Thorpe said in a prepared statement. "The registry is helping us learn more about the health effects of 9/11 and share these findings with the public."

Gold9472

11-28-2007, 06:38 PM

Study finds increased asthma rates among 9/11 kids

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5icJSufLqxrc5HGAeHSkJMHVgiP0Q

3 hours ago

NEW YORK (AFP) — Children exposed to the dust of the collapsed World Trade Center after the September 11 attacks on New York in 2001 are twice as likely to have asthma as other children, health officials said Wednesday.

The findings by the New York City health department reflect similar studies on asthma in adults caught up in the tragedy.

According to the survey, half of 3,100 children enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Registry had developed at least one new or worsened respiratory symptom between the attacks and their interviews in 2003 and 2004.

The registry was set up in 2003 to track the health of rescue workers, New York residents and office workers affected by the attacks.

"Children exposed to the dust cloud following the collapse of the towers were twice as likely to be diagnosed with asthma as those not caught in the dust cloud," the health department said in a statement.

"The survey found that children under five had an increased likelihood of being diagnosed with asthma in the two to three years following the event, though not as sharp an increase as rescue workers," it added.

However, the study showed that children from downtown Manhattan were no more likely to be suffering from post-traumatic stress than any other children.

Officials were conducting a follow up survey to assess whether children were still experiencing worsened respiratory symptoms six years after the attacks.

The department said further research was needed to assess whether some of the increase in asthma rates was due to better detection of asthma in children with exposure to the World Trade Center or because parents of children with asthma symptoms were more likely to enroll their children in the registry.

The survey included children under 18 at the time of the attacks who lived or went to school in downtown Manhattan in September 2001, or were visiting when the atrocity occurred.

Gold9472

11-28-2007, 06:48 PM

It breaks your heart.

Gold9472

11-30-2007, 05:55 PM

Bravest assigned to Ground Zero during 9/11 to be laid to rest Saturday

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/11/30/2007-11-30_bravest_assigned_to_ground_zero_during_9-1.html

BY JONATHAN LEMIRE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, November 30th 2007, 4:00 AM

An FDNY Emergency Medical Service lieutenant assigned to Ground Zero on 9/11 will be laid to rest Saturday - his life taken by his devotion to helping others, his colleagues say.

Lt. Brian Ellicott arrived at the World Trade Center site the night of the attack and logged more than 100 hours working near the smoldering pile in the following two weeks, according to the Uniformed EMS Officers Union.

Ellicott, 45, died Tuesday at Staten Island University Hospital after a three-month battle with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, leaving behind a wife and two kids.

"Brian would always say, 'This is my job, this is what I have to do,'" said his former EMS partner, Edward Cosenza. "Danger never entered the equation for Brian."

"But what he did there made him sick," Cosenza said. "His body just gave out on him.... It was horrible to see."

The EMS Officers Union says Ellicott deserves to be listed as an official 9/11 victim.

To date, no first responder who became sick and died after toiling at Ground Zero has been added to the list.

"This was a true hero, and he lost his life doing his job and serving his city," said union President Thomas Eppinger. "His family deserves everything that should come to them."

An FDNY official confirmed that Ellicott arrived at Ground Zero shortly before midnight on 9/11 and was assigned to the site in the aftermath of the collapse. The official could not specify exactly how many hours Ellicott worked at Ground Zero.

Eppinger said the city has denied requests to classify Ellicott's death as in the line of duty, which would increase the benefits his family would receive.

An FDNY source said insufficient paperwork was filed for an increase in workers' compensation benefits. A decision on whether the death would be considered in the line of duty has not yet been made, the source said.

The city medical examiner conducted an autopsy to determine the cause of death, and the results are pending, a spokeswoman said. Eppinger said two tumors were found along Ellicott's spine.

Signed time sheets, provided by union officials, indicate that Ellicott worked 113 hours - including 41 hours of overtime - at the World Trade Center between Sept. 11 and Sept. 22.

Ellicott was assigned to "morgue detail" and charged with transporting bodies recovered amid the ruins to a staging area on Vesey St., Cosenza said.

Ellicott did not wear a mask or any respiratory protection during those shifts, Cosenza said.

Union officials said Ellicott logged another 100 hours at the Ground Zero site in the weeks after the attack, but did not provide paperwork to detail those hours.

Ellicott, who lived on Staten Island, joined the FDNY in 1993 and had worked at EMS Station 4 on Manhattan's lower East Side. He was later promoted and became a supervisor of EMS dispatchers.

His funeral will be held at the Holy Child Catholic Church in Eltingville, Staten Island.

Many EMTs and paramedics who worked at Ground Zero fear his fate could become their own.

"We're asking, 'Is that going to be me?'" Eppinger said. "We're worried because we know Brian was as tough as they come."

Gold9472

11-30-2007, 05:56 PM

How much do you want to bet the Medical Examiner AGAIN finds that this person didn't die from exposure to the toxic dust?

Gold9472

11-30-2007, 08:22 PM

Devoted N.Y. 9/11 responder dies after battle with cancer
EMS lieutenant spent 100 hours on 'The Pile' killed by cancer at 45

http://www.firerescue1.com/fire-ems/articles/320277/

By Tevah Platt
Staten Island Advance
11/30/2007

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — As an EMS worker, Lt. Brian Ellicott was best at comforting his patients: "When you're better, you'll go out dancing," he used to tell them, distracting them from their pain. Lt. Ellicott, described as a big, "teddy bear" of a guy and a father of two, did that most every day.

Sept. 11, 2001, was different; there were few injuries to dress, just toil to be done in the dust.

Lt. Ellicott spent months working in "The Pile" at Ground Zero, toiling for 100 hours in the first two weeks after the terrorist attacks, according to the Uniformed EMS Officers Union.

His partner said he'd spent those hours facing the fact that "you never know when your time is going to come."

Lt. Ellicott didn't know that his own life span may have been refigured in those first 100 hours of labor.

Physicians and researchers are hesitant to draw a link between Sept. 11 and cancer, a disease that can take years or even decades to emerge after patients are exposed to carcinogens.

But whether or not Lt. Ellicott's work was tied to his death, as his family and some of his co-workers firmly believe, his 100 hours of service in the days when the environmental risk was the greatest representation of the life he led and his commitment to the city at large.

The FDNY Emergency Medical Service worker and Great Kills resident died Monday in Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He was 45, and the third Staten Islander this year to die from an illness potentially tied to the recovery effort, according to Advance records.

The Brooklyn native moved to Eltingville in 1972 and graduated from Tottenville High School.

His 'Soulmate'
In 1986, he wed Deborah Thoma, a friend from childhood and his absolute "soulmate," she said. After their wedding at Borough Hall, the couple remained in Eltingville until they settled in Great Kills two years ago.

Lt. Ellicott began working as a machinist at a former Champion Envelope manufactory in New Jersey. But the death of his mother, Mary Ellicott, in 1990, prompted him to pursue a career in the medical field, his wife said.

He worked for the Dell Ambulance Co. out of Brooklyn for two years before he joined the Bravest in 1993, working first at Station 4 in Manhattan's Lower East Side and later as a supervisor of emergency medical dispatchers at the FDNY's Brooklyn headquarters.

FDNY officials confirmed that Lt. Ellicott worked at Ground Zero in 2001 out of Station 4.

He liked the thrill and excitement of the job, of not knowing what might happen from one day to the next, said his partner, Edward Cofenza, whom Lt. Ellicott trained while working at Dell.

He also loved being able to help people, and his gentle but firm manner put his patients at ease, said Mr. Cofenza. "He lived for his job and for his children."

Loved His Leisure
Lt. Ellicott was a gamer and an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy novels. He shared his love of Dungeons and Dragons with his children, especially his daughter, Rose, and he volunteered with Cub Scout Pack 6 when his son, Brandon, was a member.

His illness emerged suddenly and lasted three "short, but long" months, Mrs. Ellicott said.

Lt. Ellicott spent only 12 days at home and the rest in the hospital after he initially sought treatment for pain in his shoulder.

Doctors don't know what causes non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but exposure to certain chemicals has been identified as a risk factor.

The toxic dust-cloud that shrouded Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11 contained various dangerous substances, including dioxins, benzene and asbestos; the 14,500-some New York City firefighters and EMS workers who worked at Ground Zero had some of the greatest exposure to toxins there.

Thousands of workers have become sick after responding at the World Trade Center site; a report issued by Mount Sinai Medical Center, which operates an ongoing screening program, found that nearly 70 percent of Ground Zero workers suffered lung problems as a result of their exposure to toxins in the dust-cloud.

But the number of fatalities from illnesses tied to the recovery effort is not known, in part because it is nearly impossible to determine a causal link between exposure at Ground Zero and illnesses that arise on an individual basis.

An FDNY Report
The FDNY in September released a 64-page report, the "Six-Year Assessment on the Health Impacts of 9/11 on FDNY Rescue Workers," that contained a promissory note on the subject: "It is too soon to comment on patterns or types of cancers. We are in the process of intensive investigation and will continue to obtain information from active members and retirees before finalizing our statistical analyses. A full report will be forthcoming in the near future."

Manhattan trial lawyer David Worby has filed more than 10,000 lawsuits claiming the city failed to protect workers from toxins.

And as federal and local governments respond to pressure to pay for health treatment for first responders and others exposed to the post-9/11 toxic dust and debris, illnesses are reported in increasing numbers - including numerous cancers, police officers and firefighters say. FDNY authorities urge that rescue workers, including retirees, continue to be monitored for late-emerging diseases.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that all these healthy men who were working in their 30s are dying in their 40s now," said John Feal, head of the not-for-profit Feal Good Foundation, which advocates for 9/11 responders and their families. "In 10 years, we're going to outnumber the people who died [on Sept. 11]."

All three Sept. 11 responders who died this year on Staten Island were in their 40s; all left wives and children.

In addition to his wife of 21 years, Deborah, and his children, Rose and Brandon, Lt. Ellicott is survived by his father, William; a brother, Matthew, and a stepsister, Alice Van Pelt.

The funeral will be Saturday from the John Vincent Scalia Home for Funerals, with a mass at 10:45 a.m. in Holy Child R.C. Church, both in Eltingville. Burial will be in Evergreen Cemetery in Hillside, N.J.

Gold9472

12-02-2007, 10:06 AM

Cop's widow rallies for name on 9/11 list

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nywtc025485123dec02,0,3682745.story

BY ANDREW STRICKLER | andrew.strickler@newsday.com
December 2, 2007

It was the desire for recognition of James Godbee Jr.'s nearly two decades in NYPD blue, and the memory his children will carry of their father, that compelled his widow to try to have his name added to the registry of 9/11 victims, her attorney said.

"Emotionally, for her and the children, she wanted to see him recognized," attorney John Rudden said Tuesday about Michelle Haskett-Godbee, whose husband died in 2004. "It was not a dollar-and-cents thing."

But that effort was thwarted after city Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch, who reviewed Godbee's medical records at his family's request, concluded in June that his death was not a direct result of the World Trade Center attacks because he got to the site two days later.

Officer Godbee, who was 44 when he died, initially worked in Manhattan housing projects as a New York City Housing Authority police officer. After the NYPD absorbed that department in 1995, he joined the 18th Precinct in midtown and continued to work as a housing patrolman, according to the attorney.

On Sept. 13, 2001, Godbee was assigned to help direct traffic and work security on the WTC site perimeter in lower Manhattan, where he remained for hundreds of hours.

Almost immediately, Rudden said, Godbee began coughing and showing other signs of pulmonary illness. He was hospitalized with a collapsed lung in March 2004 and died later that year. His autopsy attributed his death to scarring of the lungs.

Although Godbee's family will not fight the medical examiner's decision, Rudden said, they remain convinced his name should appear with 2,750 others who lost their lives in the attack. "He worked there, he did his service and he died as a result of it," Rudden said. "There is no question about it."

Rudden said Michelle Haskett-Godbee got some comfort in the NYPD's recognition of her husband's service, and she began receiving his pension benefits earlier this year after an initial denial of line-of-duty benefits was reversed.

The money has helped Haskett-Godbee buy a home in Teaneck, N.J., where she now lives with her daughter Imani, 9, and son, Kai. "Financially, they are taken care of, but these two children have no father," Rudden said.

Gold9472

12-02-2007, 10:13 AM

Demonstrators Set To Gather Outside M.E.'s Office To Protest 9/11 Related Deaths

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=76133

December 02, 2007

A protest is planned today over the classification of some 9/11 related deaths, one day after an EMS worker who took part in the recovery at the World Trade Center was laid to rest.

A group is set to protest at the medical examiner's office today arguing some deaths in the wake of the terror attacks have been misclassified.

On Saturday, a funeral service was held on Staten Island for Lieutenant Brian Ellicott. He died last Monday of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, after being diagnosed just three months before.

His union and other mourners believe Ellicott's death is a direct result of his work at the World Trade Center site. A claim for Ellicott's family to receive worker's compensation was not approved.

The FDNY says that's because it was submitted incorrectly. The department says the family is eligible to reapply in his name.

Gold9472

12-02-2007, 10:15 AM

CITY BEGINS MAJOR 9/11 CANCER STUDY

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12022007/news/regionalnews/city_begins_major_9_11_cancer_study_193657.htm

By SUSAN EDELMAN

December 2, 2007 -- The city Health Department has launched a sweeping study - the first of its kind - of cancers among 9/11 responders and thousands of others who lived or worked near the World Trade Center.

"We're starting to look at all cancers now. It's a high priority," said Lorna Thorpe, the department's deputy commissioner for epidemiology.

"There's reason for concern," Thorpe said, because of known carcinogens in Ground Zero dust and smoke such as benzene, asbestos, silica, and chemicals emitted in fires.

The study aims to identify all cancers among 71,000 people in the city's WTC Health Registry, including Twin Towers survivors and nearby office workers, lower Manhattan residents, kids, school staff, and 31,000 rescue, recovery and cleanup workers.

The study is already zeroing in on blood cancers - leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and non-Hodgkins lymphoma - which can develop in two to 10 years, sooner than most tumor cancers.

Blood cancers recently killed two 9/11 heroes. A funeral was held in Staten Island yesterday for FDNY emergency medical service Lt. Brian Ellicott, 45, a father of two who died Tuesday of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

NYPD Sgt. Michael Ryan, 41, a father of four, died of the same disease Nov. 19.

susan.edelman@nypost.com

Gold9472

12-02-2007, 10:16 AM

Thank you Susan for being the only thing worth a damn at the NYPost.

Jon Gold

Her response...

Thanks for your support.

Gold9472

12-02-2007, 12:30 PM

Rally for 9/11 responders Sunday

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=5808683

Sunday, December 02, 2007 | 9:42 AM

NEW YORK -- -- A rally today in Manhattan aims to highlight the deaths of emergency responders who were exposed to toxic chemicals at Ground Zero.

Protesters say the New York City medical examiner should recognize that responders who died should be officially considered victims of the 9/11 attacks.

The protestors will march outside the medical examiner's office at First Avenue and 30th Street.

They are also asking the New York State health commissioner to take up the issue.

Gold9472

12-03-2007, 05:55 PM

Doctor Narrows Definition of 9-11 Death

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gedchpIl6oM7F3AwCEyXaLDuYMzgD8T9KV600

By AMY WESTFELDT – 21 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Police Officer James Godbee began directing traffic just outside the World Trade Center site two days after Sept. 11, 2001, working hundreds of hours before developing a cough.

He died in 2004 of sarcoidosis, a disease that studies have linked to inhalation of toxic dust that hung over the towers' ruins for months. But because he was not at the trade center when the towers collapsed, the city medical examiner has declined to add him to the official Sept. 11 victims' list.

With government officials, scientists and courts in a continuing debate over which deaths can be linked to the trade center dust, Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch has so far drawn the most narrow definition as he considers requests to reclassify several respiratory deaths as homicides.

"All persons killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and others who died later from complications of injury or exposure directly caused by the collapse of the twin towers on that day are homicide victims," Hirsch wrote in a letter made public last week that denied a request to call the 44-year-old Godbee a homicide victim. "Mr. Godbee's manner of death will remain 'natural.'"

For Hirsch to consider ruling as a homicide the death of a person exposed to trade center dust, "they had to be there at the time of attack, up to and including when the towers came down and the dust form settled," said spokeswoman Ellen Borakove.

"This has been the standard that was decided in our office. There had to be a cutoff," she said.

The decision means Godbee will not be listed on the official Sept. 11 memorial. No money is at stake.

Some other medical examiners and experts called the distinction arbitrary. Families and attorneys of ailing or dead workers said it was wrong.

"What happened 9/11 and in the aftermath of 9/11 can by no stretch of the imagination be called natural," attorney Norman Siegel said Sunday at a news conference protesting Hirsch's decision.

Michael Baden, chief forensic pathologist for the New York State Police, said Hirsch's distinction was artificial.

"It's very arbitrary and unprecedented that someone who inhaled the dust a minute before midnight is a homicide and someone who inhaled the dust a minute after midnight is natural," he said. "If somebody dies as a result of an illegal act, then it's murder."

While Hirsch declined to add Godbee to the Sept. 11 victims' list, the officer had already received line-of-duty benefits from a police pension board.

Scientific studies that have found links to respiratory disease and work at ground zero are based on patients who were at the trade center on and after Sept. 11. A federal judge hearing a lawsuit filed by thousands who said they were made sick by ground zero dust has not put those caught in the dust cloud into a separate category.

Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw the Sept. 11 victim compensation fund that distributed more than $1 billion to people who said they became sick at or near ground zero, limited the fund to workers who were at the trade center site within four days of Sept. 11, or residents who were there within 24 hours.

He cited a congressional statute that said the fund was to help people killed or injured on Sept. 11 or in its immediate aftermath.

"I had to decide, what is immediate aftermath?" said Feinberg. "I think the line drawing has to be done with care."

Gold9472

12-03-2007, 05:55 PM

9/11 Responders Protest ME's Stand on Ground Zero Deaths

http://gothamist.com/2007/12/03/911_responders.php

12/3/2007

2007_12_gzair.jpgFirst responders gathered in front of the NYC Medical Examiner's office to protest how the ME has classified deaths seemingly related to Ground Zero illnesses. State Senator Eric Adams said he would introduce legislation making sure first responders who worked at Ground Zero will "get the same line-of-duty benefits" as September 11 victims.

Recently, the ME's office has not named two rescuers, who worked at the World Trade Center site after September 11 and later died from complications of illnesses (seemingly caused by the toxic dust), as victims of the September 11 attacks. In fact, a letter ME Dr. Charles Hirsch sent to one of the families narrowed the definition of a 9/11 death: "All persons killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and others who died later from complications of injury or exposure directly caused by the collapse of the twin towers on that day are homicide victims."

Adams said, "We still hear the voices and pain of those that did not die on 9/11, but died after and will die in the future. My bill would allow the medical examiner to list those who worked on Ground Zero on 9/12 and after as victims of 9/11." Lawyer Norman Siegel of the ACLU added the responders are "American heroes...we must do everything we can help them and their families."

And the wife of one NYPD detective who is suffering the aftereffects of working 400 hours at Ground Zero said, "People who are ill are vilified rather than granted mercy."

Gold9472

12-03-2007, 05:56 PM

Protests continue over classification of 9/11 deaths

http://action3news.com/Global/story.asp?S=7440886

Associated Press - December 3, 2007 2:43 AM ET

NEW YORK (AP) - Just who should be considered a victim of the World Trade Center attacks? The answer to that question is generating no small controversy.

Some Ground Zero workers who took ill because they worked in the aftermath of the attacks say they should be considered attack victims, just as those who died when the planes hit and the towers collapsed.

A protest in New York City over the weekend stressed that point. Families of workers took issue with a decision by New York's chief mMedical examiner to narrow the definition of who is considered a 9/11 victim.

An attorney for families of workers affected by the dust and debris says the deaths of those workers can "by no stretch of the imagination" be called natural.

Gold9472

12-03-2007, 05:56 PM

Pols Push Bill To Clarify Classification Of 9/11-Related Deaths

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=6&aid=76145

December 03, 2007

Lawmakers joined World Trade Center site recovery workers and victims families for a protest outside of the city medical examiner's office Sunday to announce that they will push for legislation that would clarify the city's position regarding the deaths of September 11th first responders. NY1’s Lindley Pless filed the following report.

"Shame on them. Shame on them,” said Norman Siegel, an attorney who was among those protesting outside the city medical examiner’s office Sunday.

Siegel’s outrage was re-ignited last week when the medical examiner refused to review the death of a city police officer who worked at the World Trade Center site because his efforts began on September 13th, less than 48 hours after the towers came down.

Those of us who are here today – and you will hear from various speakers, object to the medical examiner's analysis – his reasoning, and conclusion, which we submit is arbitrary, illogical, inhumane, and not consistent with the principles and values of New York City,” said Seigel, who, along with a handful of local politicians and family members affected by 9/11, gathered outside the M.E.’s office Sunday afternoon.

In June, Dr. Charles Hirsch sent a letter to the family of 44-year-old Officer James Godbee saying his cause of death would remain classified "natural."

Godbee worked hundreds of hours at the WTC site. He died of a heart attack in 2004 due to an inflammatory disease that causes scarring of the lungs and other organs.

Some lawmakers feel the M.E.'s office may be labeling deaths similar to Godbee's incorrectly because of a logistical issue. They're proposing a bill that will allow the cause of death for first responders to be redefined so their families will receive the medical and financial help they deserve from the city.

"The M.E. must change his decision,” said Brooklyn State Senator Eric Adams. “My bill will be introduced next week, and I am asking all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle – if the law is in the way, my bill will remove the impediment and allow the medical examiner to indicate clearly how these heroes died."

For family members like Jimmy Richards, a firefighter who lost his son on 9/11 and who is also experiencing respiratory problems from working at the site after the attacks, the message is clear.

We went down there and all we heard was, ‘Never forget. America is never going to forget 9/11.’ Well, they've got a short memory,” he says.

The medical examiner's office declined to comment on Sunday's protest.

Gold9472

12-03-2007, 05:56 PM

Legislation requiring details of 9/11 rescue worker deaths to be introduced

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/12/03/2007-12-03_legislation_requiring_details_of_911_res.html

BY TAMER EL-GHOBASHY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, December 3rd 2007, 4:00 AM

A state lawmaker will introduce legislation this week that will require the city medical examiner to provide a detailed description of the causes of death of rescuers who worked at Ground Zero after 9/11.

State Sen. Eric Adams hopes the new law will compel the medical examiner to link the deadly illnesses suffered by first responders to breathing in World Trade Center dust, clearing the path for them to be listed as official victims of 9/11.

The move comes a week after the Daily News demanded that Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Charles Hirsch examine the deaths of cops, firefighters and paramedics who arrived at the disaster site in the days after the terror attacks.

"We still hear the voices and pain of those that did not die on 9/11, but died after and will die in the future," said Adams (D-Brooklyn) at a rally yesterday in front of the city medical examiner's office.

"My bill would allow the medical examiner to list those who worked on Ground Zero on 9/12 and after as victims of 9/11."

In his review of the death of Police Officer James Godbee, who began working at the Trade Center site on Sept. 13, 2001, Hirsch concluded that the cop died of sarcoidosis, a lung-scarring disease.

An attorney for Godbee's wife, Michelle Haskett-Godbee, asked Hirsch to rule the cop's death an accident or homicide due to 9/11 and add his name to the official roster.

Hirsch refused, writing in a letter that only people who died on Sept. 11, 2001, could be considered victims of the attacks.

Critics charge that the medical examiner's opinion diminishes the sacrifices and lives of those who have fallen ill and died years after 9/11 from diseases related to working at the site - and deprives them of benefits afforded to civil servants who died that day.

"People who are ill are vilified rather than granted mercy," said a tearful Donna Michaels, whose husband, NYPD Detective Thomas Michaels is on terminal leave, suffering from breathing and brain disfunction after she said he logged more than 400 hours of work at Ground Zero.

"'This is murder in broad daylight,'" she said, quoting her ailing husband.

Gold9472

12-04-2007, 06:19 AM

Feds target overseer of $1B 9/11 insurance fund fighting claims

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/12/04/2007-12-04_feds_target_overseer_of_1b_911_insurance.html

BY LEO STANDORA
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, December 4th 2007, 4:00 AM

WASHINGTON - Federal officials want to know why the overseer of a $1 billion Sept. 11 insurance fund created to cover claims of sick Ground Zero workers is fighting every case rather than giving money to those who clearly deserve it.

They said Monday they'll investigate the World Trade Center Captive Insurance Co., which has taken roughly 8,000 claims into the federal courts

Homeland Security Department inspector general Richard Skinner said his probe will determine why the company "has chosen to litigate all claims instead of settling whenever possible."

Documents sent to Congress and due to be released later this week say the review also will determine "what procedures have been established to receive, review and pay medical, hospital, surgical and disability benefits to injured persons," as well as benefits to the relatives of those killed.

The insurance company has also been challenged by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the chairman of and ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The controversy has put lawyers for New York City on the defensive, because the city and some construction contractors are protected by the program.

City Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo has defended the company as "an insurance company, not a compensation fund," and argued that as such, it is obliged to defend legal claims.

Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg is urging Congress to redirect the insurance company money to create a new compensation fund for workers sickened by dust, fumes and debris at Ground Zero and give the city and the contractors immunity from such lawsuits.

A spokeswoman for the city's Law Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

The company issued a statement saying it was cooperating with the inquiry and welcomes the review.

Gold9472

12-06-2007, 08:42 AM

9/11 toxins tied to NYPD sergeant Michael Ryan's death

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2007/12/06/2007-12-06_911_toxins_tied_to_nypd_sergeant_michael.html

BY ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF
Thursday, December 6th 2007, 4:00 AM

Two doctors who treated an NYPD sergeant said the fatal cancers that riddled his body were likely caused by his exposure to toxins at the Fresh Kills landfill.

Sgt. Michael Ryan, 41, died Nov. 5 from three different forms of aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma - the kinds of blood cancers that independent doctors monitoring Sept. 11 responders warned could be the "third wave" of sickness caused by exposure at Ground Zero and the landfill.

The 20-year NYPD veteran and father of four had thought nothing of working 80-plus-hour weeks at the landfill in the aftermath of the Sept.11 attacks.

He was diagnosed with his first cancer in May 2006. His doctors at North Shore Long Island Jewish and the University Hospital said they believed the prolonged exposure to volatile organic compounds cataloged at Ground Zero caused the cancer.

A medical panel will rule on whether Ryan's death was 9/11-related.

Though in intense pain, Ryan continued to follow his football passion of football by agreeing to help coach 9-year-olds in the Hauppauge Youth Organization when no other coach was available.

He is survived by his wife, Eileen, a retired NYPD officer, and their four children - William, 12; Erin, 10; Casey, 6, and Aidan, 4.

Donations can be made to the Michael Ryan Children's College Fund, PO Box 5041, Hauppauge, NY, 11788.

Gold9472

12-06-2007, 04:18 PM

Millstone businessman supports 9/11 workers
Peter Grandich urges community to help sick, dying responders

http://examiner.gmnews.com/news/2007/1206/Front_Page/018.html

12/6/2007

MILLSTONE - Around the holidays, it's not unusual for people to get the urge to give to a worthy cause.

When Millstone's Peter Grandich took a few moments this holiday season to reflect on all he has been blessed with, he, too, felt the desire to help others who are less fortunate.

During his search to find a cause he could dedicate himself to, Grandich came across a group of people who gave of themselves to help others only to face sickness and death as a result - the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center first responders. Grandich learned of their plight from the Long Island-based FealGood Foundation, and immediately wanted to help.

"It's an American tragedy that has gripped my heart," Grandich said. "Of the 40,000 people who responded to Ground Zero after the attacks, 70 percent, or 33,000, are sick or dying as a result of their service."

He continued, "We are talking about thousands of EMTs [Emergency Medical Technicians], EMS [Emergency Medical Service] workers, police, fire, military, construction workers and volunteers from all over the country who now suffer from breathing and lung ailments, post-traumatic stress disorder, organ failure and other horrific physical and mental illnesses."

Grandich pointed out that many of these first responders can no longer work, cannot pay medical bills, and are at risk of losing everything at a time when their primary concern should be staying alive.

John Feal, founder of the FealGood Foundation, said, "These people risked their lives without prejudice. There is no money in the world that is going to save their lives, but we can give them a little compassion and respect. We give them a safety and support system and give them hope."

Feal is a 9/11 first responder. He is one of the many injured at what he calls "The Pile." Feal has had to have his foot amputated and underwent months and months of therapy to recover from the ordeal. Like many 9/11 responders, he also suffers from breathing ailments as a result of his work at the site and can no longer work. Yet, in 2005, he started the FealGood Foundation to help those who are so much worse off than he is.

Although he may no longer be able to work a job, Feal has made it his daily duty to help other survivors and advocate on their behalf. He even donated a kidney to another first responder - a man he had never met - whose kidneys failed because of his 9/11 service.

"In 2001, on Sept. 11, everybody was patriotic and everybody wanted to help," Feal said. "You don't need a plane to hit a building to be compassionate."

Grandich, the founder of Trinity Financial, Sports and Entertainment Management in Wall Township, has committed to putting his efforts and resources behind Feal's group.

"As an American and a native New Yorker, I'm extremely upset that the true heroes of America's greatest single tragedy are being totally discarded and left to literally die," Grandich said. "And, despite this truly appalling occurrence, not one of them has been known to say if they had to do it all over again, they wouldn't. That's beyond any call of duty and deserving of every American's immediate attention and help."

Grandich has made a donation to the organization and has also spent the past several weeks recruiting friends and business associates to join him, including several bigname athletes who are on his company's advisory board.

"Trinity Financial has two separate divisions - one that assists the average American and one to serve the unique needs of professional athletes," he said. "So, we have been blessed to have many athletes associated with the firm, and each of those men is happy to help the FealGood Foundation in whatever ways they can."

Joe Klecko, a former New York Jet, fourtime member of the "New York Sack Exchange," and only defensive National Football League player to go to the Pro Bowl in three different positions, said that people usually look up to football players and call them heroes.

"We're not heroes," he said. "The real heroes are the men and women who spent months sifting through the rubble to find survivors and victims. The real heroes are the police and fire and military who put their lives on the line for our safety every day. We owe them a debt of gratitude and I am happy to lend my name to the effort."

Another member of Grandich's advisory board who has pledged to support FealGood is two-time Super Bowl winning New York Giant Lee Rouson.

"Helping others was a major focus from day one at Trinity Financial," said Rouson, who co-founded the company with Grandich.

He continued, "The Bible tells us in John 15:13-14 'Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.' The 9/11 responders have done so and are deserving of our government and its people to help them now for helping us in our time of need."

Grandich said he hopes stirring up support for Feal's nonprofit will convince more people to step forward for the 9/11 responders with donations of money, Christmas toys, pro bono services, and organ donations.

"They helped America without even questioning if it was in their best interest," Grandich said. "Now it's time for America to help them."

Those who would like to help the Feal- Good Foundation can send donations to FealGood Foundation, 144 Shenandoah Blvd., Nesconset, NY 11767.

To learn more about the organization, visit www.FealGoodFoundation.com (http://www.FealGoodFoundation.com).

For more information, contact Peter Grandich at (732) 642-3992 or e-mail him through his Web site at www.TrinityFSEM (http://www.TrinityFSEM). com.

Gold9472

12-10-2007, 08:46 AM

Businessman set to walk length of Cape Cod for 9/11 charity fund

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1049808

http://multimedia.heraldinteractive.com/images/fcf5d1474a_walker12102007.jpg

By Eva Wolchover
Monday, December 10, 2007 - Updated 1h ago

Snowstorms and icy blasts won’t keep one big-hearted businessman from completing his “Winter Walk for Charity.”

On Dec. 18 and 19, Jeffrey Liskov, 37, of Plymouth, a vice president at Fidelity Investments, will walk 100 miles, from Provincetown to Plymouth Rock, in hopes of raising at least $2,500 for the Feal Good Foundation - a nonprofit charity founded in 2005 to aid sick or injured 9/11 rescue workers.

“I’m doing the charity walk to raise awareness of a situation that is happening to 9/11 first-responders,” Liskov said.

The foundation “sends out checks to them to help put food on the table, to pay rent if need be, and pays medical bills,” he said.

This year the organization has made 91 donations to 9/11 rescuers.

He may be joined by the Feal Good Foundation founder. John Feal, 41, of New York, was the supervisor of a demolition company when he responded to Ground Zero on Sept. 12, 2001. He was hospitalized for 11 weeks after a beam weighing several tons fell on his feet.

Realizing that thousands like him also suffer from illnesses and injuries as a result of their 9/11 rescue work, Feal founded his organization to help supplement governement aid to the nearly 40,000 rescue workers.

Gold9472

12-10-2007, 08:47 AM

Ex-Giant George Martin takes 9/11 walk

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2007/12/10/2007-12-10_exgiant_george_martin_takes_911_walk.html

BY OWEN MORITZ
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, December 10th 2007, 4:00 AM

Former Giant George Martin at the beginning of his 3,200-mile 'Journey for 9/11' on the George Washington Bridge last September. Albans/News

Former Giant George Martin at the beginning of his 3,200-mile 'Journey for 9/11' on the George Washington Bridge last September.

Ex-Giant lineman George Martin is tackling some unexpected danger in the back hills of Virginia and Tennessee on his coast-to-coast walk to raise millions for ailing 9/11 first responders: Dogs - and lots of them.

The Giants' retired co-captain said he came across "an inherent canine danger" as he approached the Tennessee border.

"Dogs are everywhere, and apparently leash laws here are as scarce as dental coverage," he joked.

No number of vicious dogs will deter him from his goal of raising $10 million for 9/11 heroic first responders, however.

"There are thousands of true national heroes of 9/11 who are now suffering medically," he said. "And I believe we owe them our support for helping our nation survive and heal after such a horrific tragedy."

Martin, 54, is walking up to 30 miles a day on his 3,200-mile journey. The trip began in September at the George Washington Bridge and will end at the Golden Gate Bridge by early March.

And while Martin says most of the locals along the way treat him kindly, some at first look at the 6-foot-5, 260-pound former defensive end with suspicion.

"Despite the pleasant warnings that we might be viewed as an oddity in this region of the country," Martin said, "we have actually grown accustomed to being stared at by the locals as though we were escapees from Roswell's Area 51."

He estimates his walk has raised $1.5 million so far. The figures are promised to be matched by medical institutions and corporate supporters.

Martin's route can be tracked online at www.ajourneyfor911.info.

Gold9472

12-10-2007, 04:54 PM

Congress seeks more treatment for 9/11 workers in spending bill

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--attacks-health1210dec10,0,318599.story

By DEVLIN BARRETT | Associated Press Writer
1:49 PM EST, December 10, 2007

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and New York area lawmakers have added $109 million in health care for sick ground zero workers as part of a massive spending bill that faces an uncertain future in a budget standoff between Democrats and the White House.

The money for treatment of ground zero workers _ double the amount provided in an earlier emergency spending bill _ was wrapped into a $500-billion-plus spending bill being finalized by the Democratic Congress, one that the White House has already threatened to veto.

As a senator, Clinton has pushed for years for the government to provide a long-term health care program for those sickened from their work at the toxic World Trade Center debris pile following the 2001 terrorist attacks. As a presidential candidate, she has highlighted her work on the issue.

"Today's announcement marks another step toward addressing those enduring wounds," Clinton said in a statement.

The new spending was pushed by lawmakers from New York and New Jersey.

Gold9472

12-10-2007, 08:56 PM

DOJ: Don't Blame Whitman for 9/11 Speech

http://www.fool.com/news/associated-press/2007/12/10/doj-dont-blame-whitman-for-911-speech.aspx

By Associated Press December 10, 2007

A government lawyer urged a federal appeals panel Monday to find that former EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman cannot be held liable for telling residents near the World Trade Center site that the air was safe to breathe after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Department of Justice attorney Alisa Klein said that holding Whitman liable will set a dangerous precedent in future disasters: "The consequence would be a default to silence. If you speak, you will be potentially held liable. Then the clear message for government officials is to say nothing."

Residents, students and workers in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn filed the lawsuit, saying they were exposed to hazardous dust and debris from the fallen twin towers after Sept. 11. They say Whitman should be forced to pay damages to properly clean homes, schools and businesses and be forced to create a fund for medical monitoring of victims, some of whom claim they suffer from asthma, lung disease and other ailments.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts in Manhattan refused to dismiss Whitman as a defendant, calling the actions of the former New Jersey governor "conscience-shocking."

"No reasonable person would have thought that telling thousands of people that it was safe to return to lower Manhattan, while knowing that such return could pose long-term health risks and other dire consequences, was conduct sanctioned by our laws," Batts wrote.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case Monday.

The EPA's Office of the Inspector General said the agency did not have data and information to support statements made in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks that the air was safe to breathe.

The EPA's internal watchdog concluded that the agency, at the urging of White House officials, gave misleading assurances that there was no health risk from the dust in the air after the towers' collapse.

The lawyers and judges on the panel agreed that holding a member of the president's cabinet personally liable was unprecedented.

Still, Judge Jon Newman said there was a question of accountability.

"There's an important government interest in a false reassurance (to the public) _ seems to be what you are saying," he told Klein.

The appeals court declined to immediately rule.

Gold9472

12-10-2007, 09:05 PM

Can we at least blame Condoleezza Rice (http://www.911blogger.com/node/3340) for the killings (http://criminal.findlaw.com/crimes/a-z/murder_second_degree.html) caused by her dangerous conduct, and her obvious lack of concern for human life?

AuGmENTor

12-10-2007, 11:00 PM

Gold9472

12-10-2007, 11:03 PM

No.

simuvac

12-11-2007, 12:21 AM

dMole

12-11-2007, 04:31 AM

This is the Teflon White House, Jon. Nothing sticks to them. Nothing.

Didn't Jon recently explain this same thing to me on a "Hillary's camp" thread? Are we at the nexus of the vortex yet, or what?

Time... space... reality... truth... you have entered a shadowy world-- known simply as... the Twilight Zone...

Gold9472

12-11-2007, 09:56 AM

Christie Whitman lied about Ground Zero air quality, 9/11 victims' lawyers say

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/12/11/2007-12-11_christie_whitman_lied_about_ground_zero_.html

BY THOMAS ZAMBITO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, December 11th 2007, 4:00 AM

Christie Whitman lied about air quality after the 9/11 attacks and should have to pay for medical monitoring and a cleanup, lawyers for lower Manhattan residents told an appeals court Monday.

The lawyers urged a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a lower court decision declaring the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency can be held personally responsible for her deceptive comments.

Five days after the attacks, Whitman told reporters, "The good news continues to be that air samples we have taken have all been at levels that cause no concern."

In their class-action suit, residents, workers and students living around Ground Zero say they relied on Whitman's comments in deciding whether to return to an area coated with dust from the twin towers' collapse.

"If she had not said this, they probably would have made their own decision," Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan) said after the hearing. "She was telling people it was safe when she knew damn well it wasn't."

Manhattan Federal Court Judge Deborah Batts suggested in a February 2006 ruling that Whitman's comments were irresponsible.

A Justice Department lawyer warned the appeals panel that if Whitman can be held personally responsible, public officials will remain mum after future disasters.

"The consequence would be a default to silence," lawyer Alisa Klein said. "If you speak, you will be potentially held liable. Then the clear message for government officials is to say nothing."

Gold9472

12-11-2007, 09:56 AM

WHITMAN: CUT ME OUT OF 9/11 SUIT

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12112007/news/regionalnews/whitman__cut_me_out_of_9_11_suit_966302.htm

By KATI CORNELL

December 11, 2007 -- Former EPA chief Christie Todd Whitman is asking a federal appeals court to give her a pass for downplaying post-9/11 dangers from toxic dust near the World Trade Center site - and to remove her name from a lawsuit by downtown residents and workers.

Lawyers for Whitman yesterday argued that holding her personally liable for misleading the public about the air quality in the wake of the terror attacks in an attempt to prevent panic would gag public officials in times of crisis.

It would send the message that "if you speak, you will be potentially held liable. Then the clear message for government officials is to say nothing," lawyer Alisa Klein said at a hearing in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

But lawyers for lower Manhattan residents, their children and workers said silence would have been far better than Whitman's false assurances.

Last year, Manhattan federal Judge Deborah Batts ruled Whitman is a rightful defendant in the suit, calling her 9/11 response "conscience-shocking."

Gold9472

12-11-2007, 09:56 AM

Government's Post-9/11 Actions Questioned

http://www.nysun.com/article/67846

By SARAH PORTLOCK
Special to the Sun
December 11, 2007

A federal appellate judge questioned the government's accountability with respect to air quality in Lower Manhattan in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, during oral arguments yesterday in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.

The arguments before a panel of federal judges focused on whether a former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, should be held liable for saying the air was safe in Lower Manhattan.

An attorney for the federal government, Alisa Klein, said holding Ms. Whitman liable would encourage other officials to be silent in the wake of future emergencies.

"If government officials could be made personally liable, the consequence would be a default to silence," Ms. Klein said. "If you speak, you will be potentially held liable. Then the clear message for government officials is to say nothing."

That point did not seem to impress one of the judges on the panel, Jon Newman.

"There's an important government interest in a false reassurance, seems to be what you are saying," Judge Newman said.

"There may be," Ms. Klein responded.

In the weeks following September 11, Ms. Whitman maintained the air was not safe at ground zero, but was fine in surrounding areas. Scientists with the EPA have said they still do not have conclusive data to support those statements. Rep. Jarold Nadler, a Democrat of Manhattan whose congressional district includes Lower Manhattan, attended the oral arguments and said later that given a choice of lies or silence from the federal government, he would prefer silence.

"If Christine Todd Whitman had said nothing, people would have used their own sense of self-preservation to make decisions for themselves to keep free from harm," Mr. Nadler said. "People trusted the government, and by extension may have made decisions that put themselves in harms' way."

In April, a separate panel of judges dismissed a similar lawsuit brought by first-responders who cleaned up the site in the months after the attacks. An attorney for the residents, Sherrie Savett, argued that this case was different because the clean-up workers inherently knew of their dangerous job conditions.

The appeals court did not immediately issue a ruling yesterday.

Gold9472

12-11-2007, 09:57 AM

Court weighs 9/11 lawsuit

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Court_weighs_911_lawsuit/11048.html

By Amy Zimmer / metro new york
DEC 11, 2007

Lower manhattan. A federal appeals court heard arguments yesterday on whether former Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman can be sued for allegedly false statements about air quality after 9/11.

Last year, Judge Deborah Batts said Whitman’s actions rose to the level of “shocking the conscience,” and ruled that the case filed by a group of Lower Manhattan residents, students and office workers should move forward.

The plaintiffs claim Whitman and the EPA failed to follow federal laws mandating they take responsibility for the cleanup of hazardous substances in buildings and homes by delegating that to the city, which was ill-equipped for such a project. They want Whitman to pony up for the area’s cleanup and fund a medical monitoring program for those exposed to 9/11-related toxic dust — a move that would bankrupt her.

Whitman’s statements were made with “reckless indifference to the truth,” the plaintiffs’ lawyer Sherrie Savett told the judges. “The EPA evacuated and professionally cleaned their own office at 290 Broadway, but knowingly led residents, students and office workers into the snake pit.”

Savett acknowledged that the remedy being sought was without precedent, but so were the circumstances, she said.

Dept. of Justice attorney Alisa Klein said holding Whitman liable will set a dangerous precedent: “The consequence would be a default to silence. If you speak, you will be potentially held liable. Then the clear message for government officials is to say nothing.”

A different federal judge granted Whitman immunity in a lawsuit filed by Ground Zero recovery workers (who are appealing).

U.S Rep. Jerrold Nadler said after the hearing the legal issues were different in that case where the government had a “competing consideration” to get the cleanup completed.

A decision is expected in a few weeks.

Gold9472

12-11-2007, 05:06 PM

Closing Arguments in Case Against the Former Head of the EPA

http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/90203

By Fred Mogul

NEW YORK, NY December 10, 2007 —A federal appeals court heard arguments today about whether former Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman can be sued for her actions following the World Trade Center Attacks. WNYC’s Fred Mogul has more.

A lower court ruled that Whitman’s statements about post-9/11 air quality were quote,“conscience-shocking,” and amounted to her violating the due-process rights of residents, office workers and students in Lower Manhattan. The appeals panel, however, questioned the legal claim, with Judge Jon Newman asking one of the lawyers, “Even if you’re right, how does the head of an agency become liable to pay damages?” Plaintiffs Attorney Sherrie Savett said a high-level official should be as liable as a police officer in a brutality claim.

When Newman pointed out there was no precedent for an official being held liable in a large class-action suit, Savett said there was no precedent similar to 9/11. For WNYC, I’m Fred Mogul.

Gold9472

12-11-2007, 05:06 PM

Awaiting Decision of 9/11 Panel

http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/90232

By Fred Mogul

NEW YORK, NY December 11, 2007 —A federal appeals panel will decide whether the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency Christie Whitman can be held liable in a lawsuit against her. Whitman is accused of knowingly misleading the public when she said residents, workers and students could return to lower Manhattan. WNYC’s Fred Mogul has more.

At issue is whether a governmental official can be held financially liable for false statements, even if plaintiffs could prove those statements were intentionally misleading. Justice Department attorneys argued that if plaintiffs were allowed to sue federal officials in emergency situations, those officials would remain silent rather than risk misinforming the public.

Appeals Judge Jon Newman challenged them, asking if that meant the government had a legitimate interest in providing false assurance to the public. Newman also questioned the plaintiffs claim, saying it would be unprecedented to make an individual official liable for damages from a whole class. For WNYC, I’m Fred Mogul.

Gold9472

12-12-2007, 08:44 AM

Students try to help 9/11 responders

http://www.nj.com/news/gloucester/local/index.ssf?/base/news-8/119744924150080.xml&coll=8

By Jessica Beym
jbeym@sjnewsco.com
Wednesday, December 12, 2007

MONROE TWP. A group of Williamstown Middle School students is trying to raise money and awareness for the volunteers who responded to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and are now suffering illnesses from breathing in toxins at the site.

Fifth-grade teacher Doris Freeman said the students planned to spend Monday night outside the school's gym where a student-faculty basketball game was to take place to spread the word about their cause.

The students made a PowerPoint presentation filled with statistics about the terrorist attacks and how it affected the first-responder volunteers.

"I heard on the radio one morning that one responder's house was going up for foreclosure and he was going to be homeless because he's backed up with medical bills because he's so sick," Freeman said. "So I talked to the class, and we decided to do some research. I didn't know there were so many responders in the same positions financially and healthwise."

Freeman, a language arts and math teacher, said their effort is just getting started. Any more they raise will be donated to the Feel Good Foundation, which helps the sick Sept. 11 responders.

The students also plan to start a collection for items needed by the families of the responders, Freeman said, including things such as socks, shampoo, lotion.

The project has also served as a way to educate the fifth-graders about the Sept. 11 attacks, Freeman said.

"They don't know too much about 9-11 because they were only 3 when it happened," she said. "They thought we were attacked by another country."

The students will be showing their presentation at Williamstown High School on Tuckahoe Road Thursday night. To make a donation directly, visit www.fealgoodfoundation.com.

Gold9472

12-12-2007, 09:48 PM

AIRGATE

Click Here (http://youtube.com/watch?v=P470wsnH-6Q) (GooTube)

Gold9472

12-12-2007, 10:56 PM

Millstone businessman supports 9/11 workers
Peter Grandich urges community to help sick, dying responders

http://tritown.gmnews.com/news/2007/1213/Front_Page/040.html

12/12/2007

MILLSTONE - Around the holidays, it's not unusual for people to get the urge to give something to a worthy cause.

When Millstone Township's Peter Grandich took a few moments this holiday season to reflect on all he has been blessed with, he, too, felt the desire to help others who are less fortunate.

During his search to find a cause he could dedicate himself to, Grandich came across a group of people who gave of themselves to help others only to face sickness and death as a result - the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center first responders.

Grandich learned of their plight from the Long Island-based FealGood Foundation, and immediately wanted to help.

"It's an American tragedy that has gripped my heart," Grandich said. "Of the 40,000 people who responded to Ground Zero after the attacks, 70 percent, or 33,000, are sick or dying as a result of their service.

"We are talking about thousands of EMTs (emergency medical technicians), EMS (emergency medical service) workers, police, fire, military, construction workers and volunteers from all over the country who now suffer from breathing and lung ailments, post-traumatic stress disorder, organ failure and other horrific physical and mental illnesses," he said. Grandich pointed out that many of these first responders can no longer work, cannot pay medical bills, and are at risk of losing everything at a time when their primary concern should be staying alive.

John Feal, founder of the FealGood Foundation, said, "These people risked their lives without prejudice. There is no money in the world that is going to save their lives, but we can give them a little compassion and respect. We give them a safety and support system and give them hope."

Feal is a 9/11 first responder. He is one of the many injured at what he calls "The Pile." Feal had to have a foot amputated and underwent months of therapy to recover from the ordeal. Like many 9/11 responders, he also suffers from breathing ailments as a result of his work at the site and can no longer work.

Yet, in 2005, he started the FealGood Foundation to help those who are so much worse off than he is. Although he may no longer be able to work a job, Feal has made it his daily duty to help other survivors and to advocate on their behalf. He even donated a kidney to another first responder - a man he had never met - whose kidneys failed because of his 9/11 service.

"In 2001, on Sept. 11, everybody was patriotic and everybody wanted to help," Feal said. "You don't need a plane to hit a building to be compassionate."

Grandich, the founder of Trinity Financial, Sports and Entertainment Management, Wall Township, has committed to putting his efforts and resources behind Feal's group.

"As an American and a native New Yorker, I'm extremely upset that the true heroes of America's greatest single tragedy are being totally discarded and left to literally die," Grandich said. "And, despite this truly appalling occurrence, not one of them has been known to say if they had to do it all over again, they wouldn't. That's beyond any call of duty and deserving of every American's immediate attention and help."

Grandich has made a donation to the organization and has also spent the past several weeks recruiting friends and business associates to join him, including several athletes who are on his company's advisory board.

"Trinity Financial has two separate divisions - one that assists the average American and one to serve the unique needs of professional athletes," he said. "So, we have been blessed to have many athletes associated with the firm, and each of those men is happy to help the FealGood Foundation in whatever ways they can."

Former New York Jets defensive lineman Joe Klecko said people usually look up to football players and call them heroes.

"We're not heroes," he said. "The real heroes are the men and women who spent months sifting through the rubble to find survivors and victims. The real heroes are the police and fire and military who put their lives on the line for our safety every day. We owe them a debt of gratitude and I am happy to lend my name to the effort."

Another member of Grandich's advisory board who has pledged to support FealGood is Lee Rouson, a member of the New York Giants two Super Bowl championship teams.

"Helping others was a major focus from day one at Trinity Financial," said Rouson, who co-founded the company with Grandich. "The Bible tells us 'Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.' The 9/11 responders have done so and are deserving of our government and its people to help them now for helping us in our time of need."

Grandich said he hopes stirring up support for Feal's nonprofit will convince more people to step forward for the 9/11 responders with donations of money, Christmas toys, pro bono services and organ donations.

"They helped America without even questioning if it was in their best interest," Grandich said. "Now it's time for America to help them."

Those who would like to help the Feal- Good Foundation may send donations to FealGood Foundation, 144 Shenandoah Blvd., Nesconset, NY 11767.

To learn more about the organization, visit www.FealGoodFoundation.com.

For more information, contact Peter Grandich at (732) 642-3992 or e-mail him through at www.TrinityFSEM.com.

Gold9472

12-13-2007, 08:51 AM

Lawmaker Pushes For Those Killed From 9/11-Related Illnesses

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=76523

December 12, 2007

The fight to honor first responders killed from toxic September 11th dust continues.

State Senator Eric Adams met with top city officials Wednesday afternoon to propose legislation that would require the medical examiner to list 9/11 as the cause of death on the death certificates of workers who died from illnesses developed after the attacks.

"The most important message we want to send for the family members of 9/11 is that their loved ones were there for us when we needed them and we're going to be there for them," said Adams.

"We believe that the 9/11 emergency responders are heroes and that their illnesses and their deaths that have occurred, and unfortunately the many that will occur in the future, are related to 9/11," said civil rights attorney Norman Siegel.

The city does not support Adams' plan. It does, however, want to honor fallen workers.

Adams says he'll hold off on introducing his legislation while discussions on the matter take place.

Gold9472

12-15-2007, 12:26 AM

Federal Government To Scrap Center For Those With 9/11 Health Issues

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=76592

December 14, 2007

The federal government's decision to cancels plans for a national processing center dealing with health problems stemming from the September 11th terrorist attacks has local lawmakers demanding answers.

The Department of Health and Human Services filed paperwork Thursday scrapping plans to hire a company to set up the center, saying it just doesn't have money to cover the $165 million cost of the project.

The center was designed to improve various September 11th-related health programs and help victims living outside of the New York area find coverage.

Five lawmakers, including Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton, sent a letter to the head of HHS asking him to further explain the move. A noon protest is scheduled for Saturday near the World Trade Center site.

Gold9472

12-15-2007, 12:27 AM

Unreal.

Gold9472

12-15-2007, 09:15 PM

NY lawmakers rally at ground zero against halting 9/11 funding

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--attacks-health1215dec15,0,2612369.story

3:05 PM EST, December 15, 2007

NEW YORK - New York lawmakers say the federal government's plan to stop health monitoring for ground zero workers across the country is unfair and misguided.

New York's congressional delegation and some ailing workers stood outside the World Trade Center site Saturday to protest this week's decision to not fund screening of workers outside New York City.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services filed paperwork this week canceling plans to pay a company to medically screen those who got sick after working in the toxic rubble of the trade center.

The government said the program could cost far more money than Congress has provided. U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., on Saturday said of the explanation: "That takes a lot of chutzpah."

Gold9472

12-15-2007, 10:16 PM

National 9/11 health care plan halted

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nywtc1216,0,3356207.story

BY ANDREW STRICKLER | andrew.strickler@newsday.com
8:06 PM EST, December 15, 2007

A decision by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to halt a plan to create a national Sept. 11th health program could cripple the effort to help sick workers living outside of New York, state officials said Saturday.

"This is no time to say 'no' to first responders who have now retired and moved to warmer climates for their health," Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said at a midday news conference outside the PATH station at the World Trade Center site. "This was an unfair, misguided decision."

Citing confusion among potential bidders and expected cost overruns, CDC officials said Thursday the agency was halting the process of gathering proposals to create a World Trade Center Business Process Center.

The federally funded center would reimburse doctors treating people who traveled to assist in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks on the trade center, as well as first responders who then lived in the New York metropolitan area and later moved away. The program also would gather data about 9/11-related illnesses.

Maloney and other members of New York state's congressional delegation said the CDC showed bad faith in its handling of the program when it pulled the plug before the proposal process was complete.

"If there is confusion with the proposal, you amend the proposal," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.).

The contract had aimed to organize and improve various Sept. 11 health programs and provide pharmacy benefits. Health officials feared the work could cost as much as $165 million, far more than the $52 million Congress had provided.

"Obviously, we had a big gap that made the contract unreasonable," Alan Kotch, the CDC's director of procurement and grants, told The Associated Press. He said federal officials would go back to the drawing board to make sure they get "the best possible product" that is realistic.

Maloney and Nadler characterized such explanations as a smoke screen meant to obscure a Bush administration decision to kill the program before it began.A message left for a CDC spokesman was not returned yesterday.

"9/11 was an act of war, and we need to support the troops of 9/11," said Marvin Bethea, 48, of Kew Gardens Hills, a former hospital paramedic and co-founder of Unsung Heroes Helping Heroes, a nonprofit organization. Bethea has not worked since 2004 because of 9/11-related health problems, he said, and keeps in touch with other sick responders who live far from the state's health care programs.

"How can you expect them to travel when they're too sick to work?" he asked.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Gold9472

12-16-2007, 09:09 AM

Bush's EPA and the Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up
Lying to "Reassure" the Public

http://www.counterpunch.org/orkin12152007.html

By JENNA ORKIN
12/15/2007

Might it sometimes be appropriate for the government to lie in order to reassure the public? Asked this question during a Court of Appeals hearing yesterday in Benzman vs. EPA, the case brought by residents, students and office workers exposed to and in many cases sickened by the environmental hazards following 9/11,* EPA lawyer Alisa Klein answered, "Yes."

Competing interests such as the economy or the "return to normalcy" [sic] might supercede that of public health, she argued.

There's no question that Ms. Klein accurately represented EPA's position. In addition to their compelling urge to reopen Wall St. ASAP after 9/11, the protocols they have developed to respond to a dirty bomb also take into account the economic import of the area exposed, regardless of the fact that an area that's important to the economy will also be more densely populated.

Accepting, for the moment, the mindbending reasoning that requires us to be reassured by a government which has admitted that it will lie whenever it feels like it, let us turn now to some situations in which said government has seen fit not to reassure us but in fact, to scare the sh*t out of us.

The lead-up to the Iraq war, when Condoleeza Rice dropped a metaphorical bomb into the conversation with her allusion to a mushroom cloud, comes to mind, as do the "Hoo-oo-oo - Be very afraaaaid" references at the time to chemical and biological weapons labs.

Ditto Iran, up until last week.

Then there are all those toys with kooties and that contaminated toothpaste from China. I'm not saying they're safe. I'm just wondering why they've garnered such prompt headlines while the press on American products such as Zonolite has traditionally been sluggish, never mind Agent Orange and depleted uranium. Some of the interests that have rightly decried lead-contaminated toys from China have, on the other hand, put up the strongest resistance to changing the lead laws in New York City housing, for example. (Also compare the press on avian flu with that on the numerous offenses of the American food industry.)

And remember the good old days of Homeland Security orange alerts and Osama's sneak previews? The ones that tended to come just before an election or some other sensitive event?

They don't fall into the category of reassurance but doubtless those in charge knew what they were doing those times also.

The government may not be consistent about wanting to reassure us but it certainly is consistently entertaining.

*I am one of the original plaintiffs in the case.

Jenna Orkin, founder of the World Trade Center Environmental Organization, is one of twelve original plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against the EPA. She can be reached at: Jennakilt@aol.com

Gold9472

12-16-2007, 09:13 AM

It's good to hear from Jenna.

Gold9472

12-17-2007, 08:02 AM

9/11 HERO MEETS HIS 'CELL' MATE
TRANSPLANT MIRACLE

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12172007/news/regionalnews/9_11_hero_meets_his_cell_mate_11157.htm

By SUSAN EDELMAN
12/17/2007

December 17, 2007 -- It took a stranger from across the Atlantic to save the life of 9/11 hero and retired NYPD Detective John Walcott.

Walcott, 43, who was stricken with leukemia in May 2003, had received an NYPD line-of-duty disability pension for his 9/11 rescue and recovery work.

But it was Olaf Gierszewski, now 38, a petty officer in the German Navy, who came to Walcott's rescue in an unusual international stem-cell transplant.

The pair recently met.

"We saw each other from a distance and connected instantly," Walcott said of the moment he spotted Gierszewski on a pier in Hamburg, Germany.

"For the first few minutes, we just hugged."

After a shipmate took ill in 1999, Gierszewski signed up with the German DKMS, the Bone Marrow Donor Center, which has a registry of 1.6 million possible donors.

The group has a Manhattan-based branch, DKMS Americas.

But it wasn't until October 2003 that the sailor got a call from his commanding officer, who told him, "Somebody is sick. You seem to be a match."

Without hesitation, Gierszewski underwent a five-hour procedure to extract his blood and run it through a machine that removes white cells.

Those cells were jetted to America and given to Walcott in a blood transfusion after his chemotherapy.

With the one-in-a-million match, Walcott, who lives in Rockland County, was given new hope to live.

Gierszewski's stem cells "acted like a Pac-Man to kill any remaining cancer cells and jump-start my own cells," said Walcott, the father of a 5-year-old girl.

His leukemia has remained in remission since.

Gold9472

12-17-2007, 11:06 AM

A Giant cause
Martin walks for Ground Zero victims; Fine 15, more

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/peter_king/12/16/week15/

Posted: Monday December 17, 2007 9:44AM; Updated: Monday December 17, 2007 10:00AM

BRUCETON, Tenn. -- "Ladies and gentleman,'' the Northwest flight attendant intoned last Wednesday evening, "our scheduled flight time from New York to Memphis today is two hours and 39 minutes. And if you're one of our valued WorldPerks members, you'll be credited with 986 miles for this flight.''

That's when it hit me: My God, George Martin has walked this. All of it.

You may remember Martin as a 14-year New York Giant, an athletic defensive end who had a few moments of fame, including his sack of John Elway just before halftime of Super Bowl XXI; the safety started the G-men on a run of 26 unanswered points that opened the door to a 39-20 win. Martin is doing something slightly more important now.

I'm taking a detour from the games and the stars (and I promise, Jamal Lewis' resurgence and piling onto Bobby Petrino, and the Dolphins breaking the schneid and other news of the day is coming) to start the column this week with a message from the real world, way out here in rural west Tennessee.

Martin began walking from New York to San Francisco in September, and on Thursday, with me and an HBO crew in tow, he walked the 1,000th mile of his trip just outside this little town. (You can see a profile of Martin's walk Wednesday night on HBO's Inside the NFL' show. You can even see me keeping up with him for all of Thursday's 18 miles. And let me tell you, the man can walk.)

Martin is walking to raise money and awareness for the mental and physical health problems that first-responders to the terrorist attacks at Ground Zero have suffered. Martin has raised $1.5 million of his $10 million goal; matching donors at three New York-area hospitals will boost the count to $3 million. Approximately 40,000 firefighters, police, EMS and volunteers have been affected by the inhalation of toxic contaminants from the pulverized buildings -- and have contracted lung disease and even cancer -- because most worked without protective masks. Even worse, some of those workers don't have health insurance, and a majority have inadequate health insurance to deal with the onslaught of new treatments they must use to stave off disease. At least eight first-responder deaths, including one of a nun, have been directly connected to ground-zero poisoning.

"Have you watched film of that day?'' Martin asked when we met on this morning. "Watch the scenes of all the people running from the site .Thousands of them. Then watch the people who are actually running toward the site, and watch the firefighters running into the buildings.

"It astounds me. It's so counter-intuitive. But have we forgotten the events of that horrible day? Have we grown tired of the aftermath? If so, shame on us. When the first fatality came, it barely caused a whimper in the media. But I was touched deeply.''

He had to do something. But what? Run a golf tournament to raise money for the second wave of 9/11 victims? A banquet?

I covered Martin late in his Giants career. The lithe defensive end was 32 when I met him, and the most mature man in the locker room. Some young teammates called him Pops. He was the cool head. Bill Parcells always thought if he coached one player who was going to save the world, it would be Martin. He started to, with the Giants, partnering with Fairleigh Dickinson University to get players to earn the degrees they never did at their original colleges; 16 teammates completed their schoolwork because of that program. The son of a South Carolina sharecropper, he lived the first 12 years of his life with a heavy sense of wanderlust tied to a 25-acre plot of ground; the family later moved to California, and he was a basketball and football player at Oregon before getting drafted by the Giants in 1975.

"I was an impressionable kid,'' he said. "I grew up in the time of the Kennedys. And I was really struck by two things they said. President Kennedy said, 'Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.' Bobby said, 'Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream of things that never were and say why not.' I met people, healthy people in their 40s and 50s, who can't walk up stairs anymore, who have to decide whether to spend the money they have on medicine or food but sometimes not both. If I didn't do something to help this issue, then I wasn't the man I thought I was.''

These people need money, Martin thought, and not just $200,000. They need big money. He thought, "I've got do something big" and then, "This country needs to be reminded of the suffering of these heroes, and we've got to urge those in government to not forget them."

So he took a leave from his job as a vice president at AXA Equitable in New York to walk 3,300 miles -- from the George Washington Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge, via the southern route because he'd be walking in the fall and winter. He decided he would do every interview, talk to everyone he met along the way about the issue, and stop at schools to spread the word. In essence, he set out to do something Kennedyesque.

Which brings us to Tennessee last Thursday. We started in Camden, in Benton County, on state highway 641 south just outside the Faith Christian Fellowship Church, on day number 56 of his walk (he has taken some days off for personal events, like the his son's wedding).

There was nothing momentous about our walk. We just walked, the two of us, and talked. "If I wrote a book about this,'' he said, "I'd have a chapter called 'Road Kill.' I've seen it all out here. Deer, possum, armadillo, snakes, squirrel, skunk. In Virginia, we were walking and all of a sudden out of the brush ahead of us comes this giant thing. It just wanders into the middle of the road. We get close enough to see it, and it's a hog. A 400-, 450-pound hog. Traffic stops. An 18-wheeler has to brake to stop from hitting it. The thing just sniffs the air for a while, doesn't smell anything like food, and goes back where it came from.''

That was the conversation much of the day. Anything goes. Ten times he found some reason to come back to the cause. "The people have been amazing,'' he said. "The heartland is amazing. I'm walking one day, and an 18-wheeler stops and pulls over and the drivers leans out and says, 'You're George Martin.' I said, 'Yes I am, sir.' He says, 'I heard about what you're doing. Do you take donations?' And he gives me one right there. A couple of days ago, a pickup pulls over and the guy gets out, tells me how proud he is of what I'm doing and gives me $20. A while later, the same guy come back -- I guess he was ashamed of his original donation -- and gives me $100 more. These people understand sacrifice, and they don't forget what makes this country great.''

This is how much we walk: A reporter from a paper in Benton County pulls over on the side of the road a mile into the morning's walk, just after we turn onto U.S. 70, and asks Martin what he's doing. That afternoon, around 4, a reporter from the next county's paper, in Carroll County, is waiting by the side of the road where another impromptu interview happens.

He talks about the impact of Bill Parcells a lot. "Every day I think about him, and about the lessons he taught me about so many things,'' Martin said. "Sometimes I'll be out here on the road and he'll call me. The other day he called and said, 'Hey Martin, you gotta get out of Tennessee! Winter's coming.' Bill's been great. He's the one who made the donation that got us over $1 million.''

Parcells gave $10,000. Jim Fassel and Mark Bavaro have also given.

At one point on this 41-degree, raw, slate-gray day, Martin and I walk for at least four miles without seeing any man-made structures. We're walking through the woods, on a ribbon of asphalt. For an hour. And Martin loves it. "I haven't regretted the decision once. Not one time," he said. "I really consider it a blessing.'' And his health is good. It's amazing, but he has no strains, no sore back, nothing.

Martin travels with a medical technician to make sure that he's properly hydrated, a former New York City cop who walks with him and provides security, and an advance man to help with publicity and the scouting of the routes. On this day, Lee Reeves, the advance man, has arranged for Martin to meet the police, fire and EMS workers in Bruceton (pop. 1,554), a railroad burg on the Big Sandy River, then to speak an impromptu school assembly at the K-12 school in town.

The school principal has downloaded Martin's theme song, "Walk a Mile in My Shoes,'' and it's playing when he walks into the gym. When Martin takes the mike, you can tell he's done this before. He tells the kids people have called him a hero, but he never saved anyone's life or taught classes how to read. Those are the heroes, he tells the kids.

And he has the kids give ovations to the police and fire and EMS workers, and another one to the teachers. The kids are rapt. And he tells them why he's making the walk, to help people like the one who protect them every day.

Then he takes the police, fire and EMS folks out to lunch at a Mexican place. He's in no hurry. The mayor comes by to say hello. By 2:15, he's stretching again, then back on the road, where he sees an Amish family clip-clop by in their horse-and-buggy. "I don't know there were Amish people here,'' he said. "You find out a lot you didn't know by taking this walk.''

Late in the afternoon, we pass a little ranch home, well-kept, with a pond in the front yard and a swing set on the side of the house. Martin stops on the side of the road and motions to the house. "See, something like this, it's beautiful,'' he said. "I've seen places like this a thousand times on this trip, but never one exactly like this. It's all new to me. I love it.''

Martin is looking for a hotel sponsor, to house his small crew along the way. He's looking for a gas sponsor for his two support vehicles. I asked Martin how the people who read this column could help his cause.

"People are in awe of the feat, of someone walking from New York to California,'' he said. "But that doesn't help us achieve our objective. Tell people to go to ajourneyfor 911.info and please help the people who put their lives on the line for us --and are paying so dearly for it now.''

'Tis the season.

If you believe in what Martin is doing, or if you love where you live, or both, ajourneyfor911.info should be your first stop today. Click on the donate bar. One man can make a difference. And you can help him prove it.

Gold9472

12-19-2007, 08:12 PM

Senate Approves Additional Funding For 9/11 Workers

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=76737

December 19, 2007

The Senate gave final approval Wednesday to funding health care for September 11th terror attack workers.

Lawmakers, including Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, say $108 million in federal funding is being earmarked to address the health issues of first responders on 9/11.

This amount will be added to $50 million that was provided in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill earlier this year.

The Health Department is also urging adults enrolled in the World Trade Center health registry to complete the follow-up survey by the December 31st deadline. The department says the survey is the best way to monitor their health conditions.

Gold9472

01-02-2008, 08:24 AM

N.Y.C. Marathon big, FDNY 9/11 vet, dies

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/01/01/2008-01-01_nyc_marathon_big_fdny_911_vet_dies.html

By Jotham Sederstrom
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, January 1st 2008, 4:00 AM

Victor Navarra, a veteran firefighter who was start coordinator of the New York City Marathon and helped create the Tunnel to Towers Run, has died of cancer at age 55.

The Staten Island native died Sunday of head and neck cancer he believed was caused by his work at Ground Zero, his family said. He was diagnosed in 2005.

"Until his death, he was a very healthy person who never smoked, never drank and had a history of relatives who lived into their late 80s and 90s," said family friend Terry Raskyn.

The avid runner volunteered for the marathon in 1981 and became start coordinator in 1983. He became so good at it that other cities turned to him for advice, a gift he spun into a successful race consulting firm.

Navarra lost his vision because of cancer, but still attended the marathon in November as his wife, Joanne, coordinated the start of the race.

Navarra helped create the Tunnel to Towers Run with the family of a firefighter who died on 9/11.

Gold9472

01-06-2008, 11:05 AM

CHARTING POST-9/11 DEATHS

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01062008/news/regionalnews/charting_post_9_11_deaths_653043.htm

By SUSAN EDELMAN

January 6, 2008 -- At least 204 Ground Zero rescue and recovery workers have died since 9/11 - succumbing to a range of cancers and other ailments, according to preliminary results of a state Health Department study.

Researchers have confirmed 98 fatalities so far with death certificates. They show that 77 died of illnesses, including 55 from lung and various other cancers, the lead researcher told The Post.

Traumatic injuries, such as from car crashes or gunshots, killed the other 21, including three suicides. Five deaths were homicides - four of them cops in the line of duty.

"We're not saying they are all World Trade Center related; we're just saying this is what people are dying from," said Dr. Kitty Gelberg, the state Bureau of Occupational Health's chief epidemiologist.

The WTC Fatalities study, launched a year ago, expects to collect many more names of deceased 9/11 responders over the next 18 months.

"I think it's underreported right now," Gelberg said of the 204 figure. "We want to know about anyone who worked there and died."

Of those deaths, about a third occurred in New York City, a third in Long Island or upstate, and the rest in 15 other states.

The FDNY, the NYPD, the WTC Medical Monitoring Program at Mount Sinai Hospital, and the city's WTC Health Registry have yet to share their data, pending negotiations on patient confidentiality, Gelberg said.

Lawyers for 10,000 WTC responders or their families who have filed toxic-injury suits have turned over names on the condition that the next of kin not be contacted, she said.

The study received a $165,000 federal grant and authority to obtain medical records, autopsies and death certificates. Researchers are also interviewing relatives but will not release any names, Gelberg said.

Several of the 55 responders who died of cancer had the disease before 9/11, but the majority developed it afterward, Gelberg said. After 19 cases of lung cancers, the second-largest cause of death was heart disease, including 10 heart attacks.

susan.edelman@nypost.com

Gold9472

01-07-2008, 10:03 AM

9/11 Health Effects Persist

http://www.newuniversity.org/checkDB.php?id=6377

By Daniel Johnson
1/7/2008

A new study helmed by Alison Holman, professor in nursing science at UC Irvine, shows that stress responses linked to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 are greater than previously thought.

The study shows that the attacks have been connected with a 53 percent increase in cardiovascular ailments in the three years following the events, according to a UCI press release.

These findings contrast considerably with an earlier study that showed 17 percent of America’s population outside of New York had reported post-traumatic stress symptoms in the months following the attacks.

Holman commented on the groundbreaking nature of the study, as well as the impact the events of 9/11 had on individuals not immediately connected with the tragedy.

“Our study is the first to show that even among people who had no personal connection to the victims, those who reported high levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms in the days following the 9/11 attacks were more than twice as likely to report being diagnosed by their doctors with cardiovascular ailments like high blood pressure, heart problems and stroke up to three years later,” Holman said.

The study consisted of a randomly selected body of 2,000 volunteers from across the United States.

According to the UCI press release the participants filled out surveys that included questions that indicated whether they had stress-related responses, continuing concerns about such issues as terrorism, and medically diagnosed ailments.

With close to 3,000 deaths resulting from the events of Sept. 11, the gravity of the attacks cannot be denied. For this reason, among others, 9/11 has become one of the defining traumatic events of the decade on a global scale.

According to Angela Wang, president of the Public Health Association at UCI and a fourth-year public health policy major, traumatic events generally contribute to stress on an emotional and physical level, which can linger on for years.

“Traumatic events can contribute to the usual stress by disrupting our emotional and physical being. Even years later, people can still have flashbacks of the events,” Wang said.

Wang gave specifics concerning the emotional and physical reactions caused by traumatic events and confirmed their connection to cardiovascular difficulties, as was similarly stated in the UCI study.

“Emotionally, you may experience mood swings, anxiety and sometimes depression. Physically, as you think back to the event your body may [experience] shock and become numb.

Even worse, your heartbeat may increase and you develop a difficulty in breathing,” Wang said. Wang went on to note a list of seven side effects caused by traumatic events.

These effects include an increased difficulty in decision-making, a disruption in sleep and eating patterns, becoming distant with family and friends, suffering panic disorders and depression, a tendency toward substance abuse, chronic sleep deprivation and having relationship problems when support is needed.

Although such concerns as terrorism have lingered on past the Sept. 11 attacks, on a global scale many health ailments go untouched by such issues.

Vy-van Tran, co-president of the World Health Organization of Students at UCI and a fourth-year biological sciences major, addressed how many suffer throughout the world from diseases such as huntington’s disease, muscular dystrophy and juvenile diabetes that are in no immediate way tied to traumatic events such as those caused by terrorism.

“Honestly, I can’t say that terrorism has been a contributing factor for the health issues we’ve discussed. It hasn’t really come up, but it’s an interesting idea to think about,” Tran said.

Still, despite admitting a lack of medical expertise on the issue, Tran believes that continuing stresses over terrorism can negatively affect both an individuals’ mental and physical health.

“I think, to some extent, the stresses of terrorism can play a significant role in health, but I’d think that mental health rather than physical health would be impacted more,” Tran said.

Unlike many who took part in the study, Tran noted her personal experience of having a distant feeling to the Sept. 11 attacks and went on to hypothesize why many may feel this way.

“I think the level of stress someone may have felt from the attacks is probably correlated to how close they were to them … [such as] if a loved one was lost in the attacks or was sent overseas as a result of the attacks,” Tran stated.

Gold9472

01-09-2008, 02:36 PM

9/11 INJURY-FUND OVERSEER QUITS

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01092008/news/regionalnews/9_11_injury_fund_overseer_quits_922138.htm

By SUSAN EDELMAN

January 9, 2008 -- The controversial head of the fund set up to pay medical expenses for 9/11 heroes - who has fought nearly every claim while collecting a $350,000-a- year salary - is stepping down.

Christine LaSala, president and CEO of the $1 billion World Trade Center Captive Insurance Co., submitted her resignation effective July 1 - or as soon as a replacement is found.

Sources told The Post yesterday that LaSala, 57 - who has also been condemned for spending exorbitant sums on lawyers and consultants - was pressured to leave by the Bloomberg administration, which governs the fund.

But the city Law Department issued a statement denying she was forced out, adding, "the city deeply regrets [her] departure."

She declined to comment beyond issuing a statement saying: "After nearly four years at the WTC Captive, I have concluded that this is an appropriate point to resume my retirement."

Her resignation comes a month after The Post reported that the fund for rescue and recovery workers spent more than $100 million, mainly on high-priced lawyers and consultants, as of Sept. 30. But it paid out just $320,000 to six workers with orthopedic injuries.

She also came under fire after the embarrassing disclosure that the fund picked up a $1,390 tab for cocktails for six at Sir Harry's in the Waldorf-Astoria and dinner for eight at posh Giovanni Ristoranti. The guests were lawyers and Captive executives.

When confronted with receipts, the fund said it would ask the lawyers to pay back the liquor costs.

In her statement, LaSala praised herself for "prudent management" of the fund.

LaSala's departure comes as Manhattan federal judge Alvin Hellerstein steps up efforts to settle 8,600 claims of respiratory or toxic injuries.

Congress members in New York welcomed her exit.

"If the Captive is going to keep refusing sick workers' claims, it would be cheaper just to buy a rubber stamp," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan).

"The hundreds of thousands of dollars she's been paid over the last several years could have done a world of good for suffering 9/11 heroes."

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes Ground Zero, blasted "a process that has been too slow and cumbersome to help those who need help."

susan.edelman@nypost.com

Gold9472

01-10-2008, 11:59 AM

NJN News Covers School Kids Raising Money For The FealGood Foundation

Click Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jesr8ZZdOdU) (GooTube)

The coverage starts at 23minutes into the clip. This is really cool to see. Those kids and their teacher should be very proud of themselves.

Gold9472

01-17-2008, 04:26 PM

9/11 responders left waiting by feds

http://www.queenscourier.com/articles/2008/01/17/news/local/news03.txt

BY CHRISTINA SANTUCCI
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 6:36 PM EST+

If anyone deserves to be called “Hometown Heroes,” it’s Marvin Bethea and James Dobson - two Queens paramedics who responded on 9/11 and were stricken with disabling illnesses afterward - according to several New York Congressmembers.

However, neither paramedic has even received a response from the Federal Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) about their applications to the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits (PSOB) program. They sent the paperwork in more than a year ago along with applications of three other 9/11 responders - Michael Roberts and Bonnie Giebfried, both of who are living, and David Sullins, who is believed to have died at the site.

In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, five Congressmembers wrote, “Now, over a year after submitting their PSOB program applications, these five are still waiting for an answer. The heroes of 9/11 deserve better.”

The letter is much like one sent by four Congressmembers - Carolyn Maloney, Anthony Weiner, Vito Fossella and Peter King to then-U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez dated December 2006. A spokesperson for Maloney said that none of the legislators, recently joined by Jerrold Nadler, have received any response to their requests.

Nor have 48-year-old Kew Gardens resident Bethea and 55-year-old Middle Village resident Dobson, both of whom applied in December 2006, Bethea said. Bethea, who was diagnosed with World Trade Center (WTC) cough, sinusitis, asthma, depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), had to stop working in 2004, about the same time as his paramedic-partner Dobson had to quit his job because of similar afflictions.

“Here it is over a year now, and they still haven’t given us a decision one way or the other,” Bethea said, who said he has sought legal help but was told, “There is nothing they can do until we get a formal decision.”

Since filing their application, however, Bethea said he has heard about three other 9/11 responders who have been awarded benefits through the BJA program.

“At least tell us something. They could say, ‘We don’t feel you are qualified to receive something,’” Bethea said, adding, “You try to be diplomatic about it but how much longer are we supposed to wait?”

So Bethea is forced to wait as he makes repeated phone calls to inquire about his application. Several calls to the BJA from The Queens Courier were not also returned by press time.

In the meantime, Bethea hopes to enlist more elected officials when he travels to Washington, D.C. to attend the State of the Union address given by President George Bush on Monday, January 28. He is also considering calling a press conference to alert more media of his situation and that of the four other New York responders.

“Hopefully we will be able to get more politicians on board,” he said.

Bethea is also strongly encouraging elected officials to support a federal bill, named for 34-year-old New York Police Department (NYPD) Detective James Zadroga, whose death was the first officially linked to time spent at Ground Zero.

On the second anniversary of Zadroga’s death - January 5 - Maloney, Nadler and Fossella pledged to double their efforts to pass the bill, which would ensure that everyone exposed to the Ground Zero toxins have the chance to be medically monitored. Additionally, those who are sick as a result would have access to treatment, there would be an expansion of the “Centers of Excellence” medical care, and care would be increased to anyone including local residents, teachers and children who were exposed and compensation provided for economic damages by reopening the 9/11 Compensation Fund.

“On this sad occasion, we honor Detective Zadroga’s sacrifice and we applaud his family’s tireless efforts to ensure that our country will finally do right by the heroes of 9/11,” Maloney said in a statement released on Friday, January 4.

Still, Bethea counts a law signed into effect by Governor Eliot Spitzer in October 2007 as a big victory for 9/11 responders.

The law amended the Workers’ Compensation Law to raise benefits for paramedics and EMTs from private hospitals who died or were left permanently or temporarily disabled after responding to the attacks on the World Trade Center. Until last year, responders like Bethea whose jobs were contracted through private institutions, received much less than their city-employed counterparts, even though both were required to respond to the World Trade Center attacks.

“New York State has recognized us as being part of the system,” Bethea said, later adding, “Now we are getting abandoned by the Justice Department.”

Despite the setbacks, Bethea said that he continues to advocate for responders so that their actions are not forgotten.

“People tell me, ‘Marvin, you are always in the news,’ but everyone else is either sick or not with us anymore,” he said.

Gold9472

01-26-2008, 12:38 AM

Father heads to Capitol for 9/11 responders

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080125/NEWS/801250387/1070/NEWS02

By ANGELA SANTORIELLO • MANAHAWKIN BUREAU • January 25, 2008

LITTLE EGG HARBOR — A promise to his dying son is why Joseph Zadroga will be present for President Bush's State of the Union Address Monday: to remind Capitol Hill of the importance of continuing health care and compensation for responders exposed to ground zero toxins.

The death of James Zadroga, a New York City detective who responded to the World Trade Center after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has gained national attention. Two pathologists agreed that his death Jan. 5, 2006, resulted from pulmonary fibrosis, which they linked to ground zero contaminants.

Joseph Zadroga said he was invited by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., to the House chamber Monday night for President Bush's State of the Union Address. Maloney is the sponsor of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health Compensation Act to continue funding health programs for workers and residents exposed to the toxins at ground zero.

Joseph and Linda Zadroga sat in their home here Thursday talking candidly about how they believe the NYPD turned its back on their son, who served the city for 13 years and received more than 40 citations for bravery.

"He never told us about the citations," his father said. "His partner told us about them at his funeral."

His parents said that James Zadroga fought to stay alive as long as he could for his daughter, Tylerann, and wife, Rhonda, who died at age 29 from a heart ailment less than four months before his death.

Joseph and Linda Zadroga are convinced that the stress the NYPD placed on their son to continue to work while he was falling ill contributed to the death of Rhonda Zadroga, who they said begged James not to go to ground zero.

"When he was alive he told me one of the hardest things he ever had to do was back out of the driveway while she was crying for him to stay," Joseph Zadroga said.

Tylerann, now 6, is being raised by her grandparents. Her colorful toys are around the house, and a picture of her near the glass-encased NYPD badge 6663 show that James Zadroga remains a presence in the home.

Helicopters flying over his home and NYPD sergeants showing up at his door daily to ensure he was following house rest orders in compliance with his sick leave were all part of how James Zadroga lived while slowly dying.

James Zadroga's last wish was to have an NYPD honor guard at his funeral for Tylerann. But even that was a fight, said Joseph Zadroga. He said Michael Paladino, president of the Detective Endowment Association, called the New York Daily News. The outcry from the resulting story was the only way his son received his dying request, he said.

According to the Zadrogas, New Jersey showed their son more respect than New York, with Jersey City and Bergen County police officers and firemen lifting fire ladders and playing the pipe and drums at his funeral.

"That was the catalyst that brought us into the public view," Joseph Zadroga said.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is also a sponsor of the bill, he said.

"Even though she is campaigning, she still calls to see how we are doing," Linda Zadroga said.

The couple credits Clinton, Maloney and other members of Congress for enactment of previous legislation that provides Tylerann and other children of deceased 9/11 responders with their parents' full pensions until the children reach the age of 21.

The current New York City medical examiner contends that James Zadroga died because he injected crushed medications into his veins. That is untrue, the Zadrogas said, citing their son's pain management records, which do not show needle markings on his arms.

Though Tylerann won pension benefits, Joseph Zadroga continues to press for legislation benefiting the 9/11 responders.

"I promised Jimmy when he was dying, his death would not be useless and (I'd) see that everyone gets help," he said.

Gold9472

01-26-2008, 09:16 PM

What Giuliani Should Do Once He Drops Out of the Race

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-breitweiser/what-giuliani-should-do-o_b_83236.html#postComment

Kristen Breitweiser
Posted January 25, 2008 | 10:13 AM (EST)

1. His Deadly Judgment: Before 9/11, Giuliani is the person responsible for deciding to locate NYC's emergency command center in the World Trade Center complex along with a diesel fuel tank (against the advice of FDNY officials). The World Trade Center was a known al Qaeda target (the towers were struck in 1993 and al Qaeda publicly promised to return to finish the job). Why would anyone locate an emergency command center in such a dangerous, vulnerable place?

During the 9/11 attacks, because New York City's emergency command center was utterly paralyzed (since it was located in the World Trade Center that was being attacked), the city was unable to properly coordinate emergency response workers like the police and firemen. That inability to coordinate cost many uniformed and civilian lives.

Anyone who wants to witness the results of NYC's abysmal emergency response to the attacks need only listen to the previously-released 911 tapes that reveal the total lack of coordination and life-saving information that plagued the city that day.

Frankly speaking, the reason Giuliani was on television all day on 9/11 and able to conduct so many on-the-street interviews was because he was scrambling to set up a temporary command post.

2. His Poor Leadership: Part of being a great leader is making sure your followers (be it troops, staff members, or citizens) are properly equipped. One of the biggest grievances people have with President Bush is that he sent our troops into Iraq without the proper equipment and support. It is bad enough to lie about entering a war, even worse to set up your troops for certain failure by not planning properly.

Giuliani should know something about this concept, because he was responsible for allowing the FDNY to use inoperable Motorola radios for years before 9/11. On the day of 9/11, firemen were killed because their radios simply did not work. Men who had stormed the towers to rescue civilians were unable to hear the order to evacuate the towers prior to their collapse. Giuliani knew their radios didn't work. He knew that the FDNY needed working radios. Yet, he did not provide them with those radios--and people died as a result.

3. His Failure to Support the Creation of the 9/11 Commission: As a family member who fought for the creation of the 9/11 Commission, I can tell you first hand that Mayor Giuliani told the 9/11 family members that it was none of our business to investigate the 9/11 attacks or our government. Instead, he told us to let the government investigate itself. Hmmm. I always find it interesting that the man who utters 9/11 in nearly every other sentence was completely opposed to finding out everything about 9/11 so that people could be held accountable and we could save lives in future terrorist attacks. But, then again when we examine Giuiliani's own responsibility for the lives that were needlessly lost on 9/11, I guess his opposition to the 9/11 Commission should not come as a surprise.

4. Bernard Kerik: enough said.

5. His Failure to Ensure that 9/11 Rescue Workers Receive Proper Medical Care, Treatment, and Benefits: The men and women who volunteered at Ground Zero on the day of 9/11 and in the months and years thereafter are still desperately sick and in need of health benefits. Yet, to date, most of these people have been ignored and forgotten.

Rudy Giuliani, like many others, knew that the air quality in lower Manhattan after the attacks was bad. Giuliani, like many others, knew that all of the rescue workers were placing their long-term health at great risk. Yet Giuliani did nothing about it then, and he has done nothing about it since.

So what should Giuliani do once he drops out of the presidential race?

If he really wants to be a 9/11 hero, then Rudy should devote his time, money, and name to getting every single 9/11 rescue worker the proper health care benefits and support they deserve.

Gold9472

01-27-2008, 08:01 PM

NYC lawmakers call on Bush to fund 9/11 health programs

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--attacks-health0127jan27,0,6085794.story

By KAREN MATTHEWS | Associated Press Writer
3:00 PM EST, January 27, 2008

NEW YORK - Lawmakers and World Trade Center health advocates said that President Bush should promise in his State of the Union Address on Monday night to fund programs to treat sick ground zero workers.

"We know the president is going to talk about homeland security," Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Manhattan Democrat, said on Sunday. "He's going to talk about the war against terror. But let me tell you something he's not probably going to say. He's not going to say that he's going to provide health care to the men and women who rushed in to save the lives of others."

The advocates were angered last month when the government halted an attempt to organize health monitoring for ground zero workers spread across the country, saying the program could cost far more money than Congress has provided.

The Department of Health and Human Services canceled the effort to hire a company to create a "processing center" for medical screening of those who worked on the toxic rubble of the trade center after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

"I'm outraged that we have to be here today to say yet again that the Bush administration is yet again betraying the heroes of 9/11," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes the trade center site. "I am outraged that they suddenly canceled a request for proposals to provide medical care to the thousands of brave Americans who came to ground zero from all across the country after the collapse of the World Trade Center."

Sean Kevelighan, a spokesman for the White House budget office, said, "The president's final budget will be released a week from Monday and it will reflect his continued commitment to World Trade Center workers."

He said he could not provide details.

Marvin Bethea, a paramedic who rushed to the trade center site and now suffers from a range of afflictions including post-traumatic stress disorder and asthma, said he would attend his third State of the Union speech on Monday.

"Sit down and meet with myself or some of the responders when we're there tomorrow," said Bethea, who joined Maloney, Nadler and other ground zero workers across the street from the trade center site. "We went from being called heroes to now they treat us like zero."

John Feal, a demolition supervisor who lost part of a foot at ground zero, said, "I am sick and I am disgusted that we're out here in the cold begging for help."

The canceled contract had aimed to organize and improve various Sept. 11 health programs and provide pharmacy benefits. Health officials feared the work could cost as much as $165 million, compared to the $52 million Congress provided.

Gold9472

01-27-2008, 08:23 PM

City Lawmakers To Hold Rally For 9/11 Relief Workers

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=77893

January 27, 2008

New York City lawmakers are calling on President Bush to restart a nationwide program providing health care to World Trade Center relief workers.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney are holding a rally one day before the president gives his State of the Union speech.

Last month, the Bush Administration scrapped plans for a national processing center to help September 11th first responders outside the New York metro area, saying costs had skyrocketed.

As it stands now, first responders suffering from September 11th-related health problems are only able to seek treatment here in the city.

Gold9472

01-28-2008, 11:16 AM

Care for 9/11 Responders Is Piecemeal
Plan for Processing Center On Hold, Funding Uncertain

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/27/AR2008012701629.html?hpid=topnews

By Robin Shulman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 28, 2008; Page A06

NEW YORK -- As President Bush gives his State of the Union speech Monday, there will be one man in the audience who plans to sit quietly and watch, his very presence a form of protest.

Joseph Libretti, 51, is sick. He has been diagnosed with chronic lung disease since volunteering after Sept. 11, 2001, to cut through steel to remove bodies from the gritty, smoking pile of detritus of the World Trade Center. Now, too weak to return to his job as an ironworker, he mostly keeps close to his Pennsylvania home.

He is among a group of responders demanding a coherent national program to provide local medical treatment for Ground Zero workers from outside New York City who answered the call to help after the terrorist attacks. An existing program was effectively halted in December, when the federal government canceled its search for a contractor to process medical reimbursements.

"The president should take care of the workers," Libretti said during a telephone interview in which he frequently coughed and lost his breath. "If he sees me and other first responders, he'll know we're there."

His protest was helped by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), who has made medical care for Ground Zero workers her cause.

"What kind of a nation are we?" Maloney said. "What kind of a message are we sending to future responders? 'You are rushing into tragedy, and we are not going to be there.' "

Right now, Libretti's son regularly drives him two hours to Manhattan to consult with a pulmonologist and a psychiatrist at Mount Sinai Medical Center, which runs a program providing comprehensive treatment to first responders who suffer from some common ailments: cough, asthma, headaches, nosebleeds, other respiratory ailments and post-traumatic stress disorder.

People came from all 50 states to help in rescue, recovery and cleanup at Ground Zero, and the federal government had been searching for a contractor to run a business center to manage their health care since then. The center would help clinics across the country treat and monitor first responders, streamline existing payment and pharmaceutical plans, and pay medical bills.

On Dec. 13, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention canceled a request for proposals to establish the business center. Without the center, there would be no entity to offer medical referrals to responders far from New York City, or any single scheme for the government to reimburse their doctors or to streamline pharmaceutical reimbursements.

James Melius, an occupational health specialist who is the chairman of the steering committee of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program, said the center is critical because funding to treat and monitor the health of first responders across the country is about to expire.

The Red Cross is providing limited funding to treat about 500 first responders outside the New York City area, but that will end in coming months, while another contract for monitoring about 2,000 people will run out in June, Melius said.

"These people will basically be on their own," he said.

Bernadette Burden, a spokeswoman for the CDC, said the contractor request was canceled because its language was unclear and confusing.

"We wanted to review the requirements," she said, "to make certain this solicitation was accurate and fair and to make a determination as to whether a new solicitation should be issued in the future."

Funding was uncertain, and there was little interest in filling the contract, added Holly Babin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services.

But Congress had already appropriated $50 million for treating and monitoring first responders, and it approved another $108 million shortly after the contract was called off, Rep. Maloney said.

simuvac

01-29-2008, 05:05 PM

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-us9110129,0,5035840.story

A WTC worker's silent State of the Union protest

BY CAROL EISENBERG

carol.eisenberg@newsday.com

11:17 PM EST, January 28, 2008

WASHINGTON

John Feal of Nesconset, had vowed never to return to the nation's capital.

The former demolition supervisor, whose left foot was crushed by an eight-ton steel beam while he worked to remove debris from Ground Zero, said it was simply too painful to be reminded of what he sees as the Bush administration's abandonment of him and other 9/11 responders.

But Monday, Feal, 41, gave it another shot, sitting in the gallery of the U.S. Capitol, along with eight other first responders, who are battling illnesses and other disabilities related to their service. Their presence was both rebuke and de facto demand to the Bush administration.

"I want to hear him say, 'I'm sorry,'" Feal said. "I want to hear him say that he's going to leave a billion dollars or more for 9/11 responders when he leaves office."

But Feal, who has set up his own foundation to help ailing 9/11 workers, admitted he is not terribly optimistic.

Earlier in the day, he and other men who became ill after working at Ground Zero appeared at a news conference alongside New York lawmakers and labor leaders, demanding the administration explain why it last month halted plans for a health monitoring and treatment program for Ground Zero workers around the country. They also urged passage of a long-term program to monitor those exposed to toxins after the Twin Towers' collapse.

"This isn't a political issue," said Feal, who has developed lung problems in addition to having 11 surgeries on his feet. "This is a moral and human issue. This is about people dying."

Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton), praised Feal for the work of the Feal Good Foundation, but added, "he ought not have to do that. ... The public sector has the resources and it has the obligation."

Lt. James Riches of Brooklyn, an FDNY deputy chief who lost his firefighter son Jimmy that day, predicted that more people would eventually die from toxic exposure than were killed on 9/11. He has developed severe lung disease after search and recovery work.

"When I was down there digging through the pile, there was a gigantic sign, 'Never forget 9/11.' We hope our politicians don't forget us now," he said.

Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc. (http://www.newsday.com/)

Gold9472

02-06-2008, 05:28 PM

NY Lawmakers Shocked At Bush's 77% Cut In 9/11 Health Funding

http://www.qgazette.com/news/2008/0206/features/012.html

BY JOHN TOSCANO
2/6/2008

New York lawmakers in Washington who have been persistently pressing the White House for increased funding for healthcare programs for ailing 9/11 World Trade Center workers were jolted last week when President George W. Bush's proposed budget slashed those programs by 77 percent.

Only last Wednesday, they pointed out, a White House spokesman had issued a statement that the president's 2009 budget would "reflect his continued commitment" to WTC workers. In reality, the budget issued appropriated a paltry $25 million, down from $108 million in the present spending plan.

"This dramatic and unwarranted cut flies in the face of common sense, compassion and just plain fairness," Senator Charles Schumer declared as he promised to "fight these cuts tooth and nail to ensure these heroes receive the health care they need and clearly deserve".

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton stated she was "disappointed and saddened to see that the president chose not to acknowledge the clear healthcare needs of these heroes", and Congressmember Carolyn Maloney said it was "shocking that the president would use his final budget to take an axe to the 9/11 healthcare programs".

Maloney (D- Queens/Manhattan) noted: "Just a few weeks ago, the administration canceled a program for 9/11 responders from around the country because they said it lacked funding, and now they release a budget that doesn't even ask for the money they said they needed.

"The administration has failed in every single one of its budget proposals to deliver adequate help to the heroes of 9/11. Sadly, it looks like this is yet another problem the president will be leaving to his successor."

Maloney pointed out that the Fiscal Year 2008 budget had for the first time included $25 million for 9/11 health programs, even though the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) estimated these programs would need more than $200 million.

The administration at that time promised more funds would be provided, but nothing more was added.

Ultimately, under pressure from the New York congressional delegation, the administration relented and provided $108 million for sick responders, residents, and students, plus another $50 million for 9/11 health needs in an emergency spending bill.

Gold9472

02-06-2008, 05:29 PM

Bush's budget may cut 9/11 health funds

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/02/06/bushs_budget_may_cut_911_health_funds/1705/

Published: Feb. 6, 2008 at 12:58 AM

NEW YORK, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush's new budget would cut health funding for people affected by the 9/11 terrorist attacks by more than 75 percent, a report said.

Monday's budget release came a day before the publication of a study in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, which cites continued emotional distress and sleeping problems for preschool children who witnessed New York's 9/11 terrorist attacks, the New York Daily News reported Tuesday.

"It looks like we found the children the president wants to leave behind," Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said.

The study reportedly shows preschool children who saw the attacks on 9/11 are three times more susceptible to anxiety and depression and five times more susceptible to sleeping difficulties than kids who did not witness the events.

The children were 16 times more susceptible to behavioral problems and 21 times more susceptible to having emotional troubles, the report said.

Bush's budget would cut 9/11 health funds from $108 million to $25 million and eliminate money for the screening and treatment of downtown residents and students.

Gold9472

02-06-2008, 05:29 PM

Piece of shit.

AuGmENTor

02-06-2008, 05:33 PM

There is nothing in there that surprises me in the least. DisGUSTS me maybe, but doesn't surprise me...

Gold9472

02-07-2008, 09:43 AM

City Council backs James Zadroga bill to help sick 9/11 responders

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/02/07/2008-02-07_city_council_backs_james_zadroga_bill_to-2.html

BY FRANK LOMBARDI
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU
Thursday, February 7th 2008, 4:00 AM

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn pushed Wednesday for speedy passage of a federal bill to help sick 9/11 responders and other victims of its "toxic cloud."

The bill is named for the late James Zadroga, 34, the former NYPD detective who died of lung and brain damage that a New Jersey medical examiner "directly" linked to his more than 450 hours of work at Ground Zero.

City officials dispute that Zadroga's death was caused by inhaling dust at Ground Zero after 9/11. He died in January 2006.

Quinn said the Council was set to pass a resolution calling on Congress to swiftly enact "this lifesaving piece of legislation."

"It isn't just something we want," Quinn said. "It's something we need and it's something we deserve."

Supporters of the resolution include Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan, Brooklyn) and Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan, Queens), chief sponsors of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.

They contended Washington has "a national responsibility" to care for ongoing victims of "a national attack."

The legislation would pay for the monitoring and treatment of anyone - including volunteers, residents, area workers and others - who is ill, or becomes ill, as a result of exposure to the toxins of Ground Zero. It would also reopen the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund.

"I feel that we're getting momentum," Maloney said. "I think we're going to pass this thing."

Gold9472

02-10-2008, 11:51 AM

John Feal On 2/16/2008 Money Bomb

http://www.1stresponders1st.com/banners/1r1468x60.jpg

Video
Click Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C3WxqB7Ju8) (GooTube)

www.fealgoodfoundation.com (http://www.fealgoodfoundation.com/)
www.1stresponders1st.com

Gold9472

02-16-2008, 12:08 AM

Illness-stricken 9/11 workers, families planning protest in Washington

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/02/15/2008-02-15_illnessstricken_911_workers_families_pla.html

BY ADAM NICHOLS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, February 15th 2008, 4:00 AM

A convoy of heroes - Ground Zero first-responders and their families - will travel later this month to Capitol Hill to demand government not turn its back on them.

Busloads of cancer victims and people crippled by breathing problems and horrific injuries will make the 250-mile trek to Washington to protest a planned slash in health care funding and to demand support from the next President.

"I would think when they see us, they will have to do the right thing," said AnneMarie Baumann, 42, whose husband Chris was an NYPD officer blinded on 9/11.

She, her husband and their two teenage children will join more than 300 people expected at the Feb. 26 rally.

"Morally and ethically, how could they ignore what is happening to these people?" said Baumann.

Buses will pick up the first-responders in Manhattan, Long Island and New Jersey, and drive them to the nation's capital on Feb. 25. The next day they'll rally outside Congress.

Planned meetings with specific representatives are still being arranged.

"We want to implore our new President to make 9/11 health care an issue," said John Feal, a Ground Zero volunteer whose foot was crushed by an 8-ton steel beam.

His FealGood Foundation, set up to draw attention to the health problems of Ground Zero workers, organized the trip after Congress cut health care funding by 77%.

Only $25 million has been budgeted for 2009, down from $108 million this year, he said.

"The bottom line is, human life has taken a backseat to economics," said Feal. "It's an insult.

"Six years ago, the government vowed to help us. Now these heroes have been kicked when they were down and told to go away. A lot of people in Congress are championing our cause, but they need help and they're not getting it. We want to convince the government to help."

Another traveler is Joe Zadroga. His son James, a 13-year NYPD veteran, died of pulmonary fibrosis his family claims was linked to his work at Ground Zero.

"I feel duty-bound to be there because of my son," he said.

"It's emotional to be involved, but it's my main objective. To get health care for these heroes."

Gold9472

02-17-2008, 09:04 AM

Fallen 9/11 hero's dad raises funds

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/02/17/2008-02-17_fallen_911_heros_dad_raises_funds.html

BY ELAINE RAMIREZ and ADAM NICHOLS
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Sunday, February 17th 2008, 4:00 AM

It would have been his son's 36th birthday.

The father of Ground Zero hero James Zadroga honored his son's memory Saturday by raising cash for other 9/11 firstresponders crippled by health problems.

"This is what Jimmy would have wanted," said Joseph Zadroga, who blames a toxic cloud for the lung and brain damage that killed his son.

"He wanted us to get help for other people out there," said the father, who joined other campaigners outside the PATH station at Ground Zero.

Former NYPD Detective James Zadroga spent 450 hours inhaling dust in the aftermath of 9/11 and died in January 2006.

Though a New Jersey medical examiner said his sickness was linked "directly" to his work at the site, city officials dispute the findings.

He left behind a daughter, Tylerann, who is now 6 and lives with her grandparents.

"She asks me how come bad people stay alive, but heroes die?" Joseph Zadroga said as he greeted passersby and commuters.

He encouraged them to donate to the FealGood Foundation, a nonprofit group that supports sick first responders.

"What better way to celebrate an American hero?" said Charles Giles, an EMT on 9/11 who is also sick.

The FealGood Foundation is planning to take three busloads of first responders and their families to Washington on Feb. 26 for a rally demanding better medical care.

Gold9472

02-18-2008, 08:44 AM

Heroes - or victims?
In an exclusive extract from her analysis of 9/11, The Terror Dream, Susan Faludi looks at the role the firefighters really played

http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,2257710,00.html

Monday February 18, 2008
The Guardian

In the end, the character actors who won the 9/11 hero sweepstakes were the New York City firemen. Their uniforms and the direction in which they were heading provided a clear demarcation between them, the heroes, and the office workers, the victims. The secretaries and financial brokers ran down the stairs; the firemen ran up - 343 of them to their deaths. Conveniently for the mythmakers, less than 0.3% of New York's firefighters were women. There would be no need to rewrite the gender roles in this drama. The adulation began at once.

In our "different kind of war", these uniformed men were assigned the role of our new supersoldiers. "These are the men who will fight our wars," President Bush intoned, after posing with the firefighters at the smouldering ruins, as if he were their commanding officer. "These men are fighting the first battle," Mayor Giuliani declared. In fact, he maintained, they had already won it. "Our firefighters helped save more than 25,000 lives that day - the greatest single rescue mission in America's history." That was a claim the surviving firefighters themselves would regard as preposterous. Of the 16,000 to 18,000 occupants of the World Trade Centre that day, 95% of those who died were on the upper floors, beyond reach of rescue, and most of those on the lower floors rescued themselves without uniformed help. The grim truth is that the human toll would have been significantly lower had the firefighters never entered the buildings.

"We were just as much victims as everybody that was in the building," Derek Brogan of Engine Five said in his personal account, one of more than 500 oral histories the fire department amassed. James Murphy put it this way: "We were just victims, too. Basically, the only difference between us and the victims is, we had flashlights."

Flashlights and non-working radios. The firefighters entered the World Trade Centre armed with 15-year-old radios that were well known to malfunction in high-rise buildings. When the South Tower fell, the firefighters in the North Tower had no idea what had happened. When the fire chief radioed a Mayday order to evacuate the North Tower, almost none of the firefighters heard it. In the words of a 2005 National Institute of Standards and Technology study, "the evidence indicates that emergency responders' lives were likely lost [as a result of] lack of timely information and inadequate communication capabilities". Firefighters made the same point in their oral history accounts; they said they were "clueless" and knew "absolutely nothing" of what was going on outside.

These oral histories were repressed for three and a half years; the mayor's office refused to make them public and relented only after an order from the state's highest court. A year before their release, the former mayor, Rudy Giuliani, testifed at a 9/11 commission hearing that plenty of firefighters heard the Mayday order but chose to stay and help civilians. "And the fact that so many of them interpreted it that way, kept a much calmer situation," he started to say, before being cut off by outraged firefighter families in the audience:

Unidentified female: No!

Unidentified female: No!

Unidentified male: Radios!

Giuliani: And these people -

Unidentified male: Talk about the radios!

Giuliani: These people -

Unidentified male: Radios!

Unidentified male: Talk about the radio!

Thomas Kean, 9/11 commission chairman: Would you please ask -

Unidentified female: My son was murdered! Murdered because of incompetence, and the radios didn't work.

The firefighter families' efforts to get at the truth were shunted aside. The myth of effective rescue soon became an unassailable and sacred truth. When Terry Golway, city editor of the New York Observer, published his 368-page homage to the FDNY in 2002, So Others Might Live, he began the prologue with this sentence: "343 members of the Fire Department of New York died on September 11 2001, while taking part in one of the most successful rescue efforts in history."

Gold9472

02-25-2008, 11:02 PM

WTC First Responders To Rally In Washington D.C.

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=78781

February 25, 2008

World Trade Center first responders and their families are heading to D.C. to continue fighting for health care.

Nearly 200 first responders are heading to Capitol Hill to hold a rally Tuesday protesting major cuts to their health care.

They say the government slashed the budget for 9/11 health care from $108 million to $25 million for the next fiscal year. The workers say they deserve better care after exposing themselves to toxic air.

"We're not going to stand for being cut out of the budget by 77 percent,” said John Feal, founder of the Fealgood Foundation. “It's not adequate and it’s an insult.”

“If I got hurt in Afghanistan, my family and I would be covered, but since I got hurt in Manhattan we're not,” said WTC construction worker Thomas Magee.

Many first responders are also pushing congress to pass the James Zadroga bill which would ensure that everyone exposed to toxins at Ground Zero has proper medical care.

Gold9472

02-26-2008, 04:09 PM

Fighting for health care

http://media.www.nyunews.com/media/storage/paper869/news/2008/02/26/Citystate/Fighting.For.Health.Care-3234724.shtml

http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper869/stills/3nen2o6z.jpg

Emma Davis
2/26/2008

With two plastic bags full of medication bottles, a picture of him working at the World Trade Center site just hours after the collapse of the towers and the construction mask that served as his only protection that day, Daniel Moynihan boarded a bus yesterday to go to Washington, D.C.

And today, he hopes to stand in front of Congress and tell them that he - and hundreds of others like him - need help.

"I'm sick and getting sicker," said Moynihan, a first-respondent volunteer firefighter. "Our health care funding needs to be restored."

Six years after the tragedy, many of the first responders at the World Trade Center site on Sept. 11 are now facing respiratory problems and are developing cancers after being exposed to the toxins and rubble at ground zero. So yesterday, dozens of Sept. 11 heroes like Moynihan piled into two buses and traveled from Manhattan to Washington, D.C. to advocate health benefits.

Today they are rallying at Capitol Hill and meeting with congressmen to discuss their health care funding, which Congress cut by 77 percent in the 2009 federal budget proposal.

The trip was co-organized by the FealGood Foundation, established by crippled first respondent John Feal to raise awareness about the health issues faced by the World Trade Center workers. Health advocacy group 9/11 Health Now, based in Babylon, N.Y., also helped plan the lobbying trip.

"It's a crisis," said 9/11 Health Now member Claire Calladine, who helped lead the Manhattan group to Washington, D.C. "We're talking about the decimation of thousands of families that stepped up for their country and are now being ignored."

And the demands are simple: affordable health care.

On board the bus was Minna Barrett, a chief psychologist with the Red Cross 9/11 Workers Project.

"The federal government needs to recognize its responsibility to the health of the respondents," Barrett said. "The anxiety about their long-term health doesn't go away."

But NYU students disagree about whether or not the government should fund the first respondents' care.

"Just because it's been almost seven years doesn't mean their problems have gone away," CAS freshman Christina Ng said. "If anything, an increase is fair for all they did."

However, Stern freshman Sooji Park pointed out that the government cannot fund everything.

"That's what health insurance is for," she said. "It's unfortunate, but the government doesn't have the kind of money to fund so many things."

NYU law professor Martin Guggenheim said the government is not legally bound to continue funding, but he added: "One could make a fair point that the money that would've gone to these victims has instead been given to the war in Iraq."

If all goes well for him today in Washington, D.C., Gabriel Bacino, another first responder, will receive the health care he needs.

"I live day by day," Bacino said. "We're going to try to tell them we need the money to support us, and some to stay alive."

Gold9472

02-26-2008, 04:09 PM

Sick 9/11 first responders on trip to Washington

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/02/26/2008-02-26_sick_911_first_responders_on_trip_to_was.html

BY STEPHANIE GASKELL
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, February 26th 2008, 4:00 AM

On a bus on I-95 - Dozens of sick 9/11 first responders rumbled down to the nation's capital Monday to do what they shouldn't have to: beg lawmakers to fund crucial programs that help pay their growing medical bills.

"I feel like a charity case," said Charles Giles, 40, who worked as an emergency medical technician for 16 years - including five months at Ground Zero. He got sick in 2002 and, after 13 separate hospitalizations, has had to sell his house to pay medical bills.

"[Sept. 11] has destroyed us," said Giles, of Toms River, N.J. "We gave our heart and souls on 9/11. What this government is doing to us now is a shame."

The bus ride was organized by the FealGood Foundation, a group founded by John Feal, a 9/11 volunteer whose foot was crushed by an 8-ton steel beam.

"This is like show and tell," Feal told the Daily News Monday. "For 6 1/2 years we've been neglected, denied and lied to."

He said New York's congressional delegation hasbeen helpful, but "the national delegation needs to see these people."

The group will hold a protest on Capitol Hill today to ask Congress to restore millions of dollars to programs like Healthcare for Heroes. Only $25 million has been earmarked for 2009 - compared with $108 million in 2008.

"If that closes, all of us are going to have to find other doctors and start all over and for some people, that will be too late," said Keith LeBow, a 44-year-old ironworker from Manhattan.

LeBow, who would have to spend about $2,000 a month on his medications alone without help from the government, said he went to Washington even though he has a hard time getting out of bed.

"They don't want to hear it anymore," he complained.

Joe Picurro, 40, an ironworker who is also from Toms River, walks with a cane now and takes about 35 pills a day.

"I'm ashamed that I have to go down to Congress to beg for money," he said.

The News, in a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning editorials, has also fought for proper funding for the city's sick heroes.

Gold9472

02-26-2008, 11:39 PM

9/11 responders demand health care funding

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ny-liwtc0227,0,4756300.story

BY CARL MACGOWAN | carl.macgowan@newsday.com
2/26/2008

WASHINGTON - Gregory Quibell already suffered from pulmonary fibrosis last October when he was diagnosed with leukemia.

He said yesterday he at first didn't think that the cancer was related to his cleanup work at the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. But his doctor said it was, and now Quibell, 53, of North Babylon, wants the federal government to help him.

Quibell, a state correction worker, was one of several dozen 9/11 search and rescue workers who rallied yesterday at the Capitol building, angry that health services meant to help them face what they say are severe budget cuts.

"We stood behind this country," he said. "It's time for the country to stand behind us."

The Bush administration has proposed cutting 9/11-related health care programs by 77 percent in next year's budget, to $25 million from $108 million. The cuts would affect a program at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan designed for 9/11 workers, rally organizers said.

Bush proposed $25 million for the programs last year before Congress increased the spending, and Congress is expected to raise spending again this year, sources said. A spokeswoman for the federal Office of Management and Budget, Christin Baker, said $200 million remains in a fund for 9/11-related health care. The money is expected to last through next year, Baker said.

Amid an intermittent drizzle, 9/11 workers and a few dozen supporters chanted, "$25 million is not enough," and demanded that Congress restore the funding. They received support from four members of Congress, including Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton), who called the proposed cuts "unconscionable."

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan) said 9/11 health care programs need $250 million to adequately serve those in need.

"When are we going to start helping the people who dropped what they were doing and went down to help?" Nadler said.

The rally was organized by the Fealgood Foundation and its founder, John Feal, 41, of Nesconset, who said a piece of steel crushed one of his feet when he was working on a demolition crew at the trade center. He said he faced foreclosure on his home after he was denied workers' compensation and Social Security benefits.

"I am one mad American," Feal told the crowd.

Gold9472

02-26-2008, 11:40 PM

Now Can We Talk About 9/11

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080226/cm_thenation/917290718

Tue Feb 26, 10:50 AM ET

The Nation -- While over its tenure, the Bush administration has increased baseline military spending by 30% to fight a global "war on terror," this month with the release of the President's last budget, Bush delivered a final, parting blow to 9/11 victims of terror at home.

According to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the cost of treating sick ground zero workers has reached $195 million a year, a cost likely to expand. Nevertheless, Bush's proposed budget cuts 2009 funding for 9/11 healthcare to $25 million--a 77% drop from the previous year's appropriations.

Meanwhile this December, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt eliminated plans for the center that would treat the 10,000-plus First Responders suffering health problems as the result of their service after the attacks.

First Responders are rallying today on the West Lawn for Congressional action.

Gold9472

02-26-2008, 11:40 PM

Thanks for the permission.

Gold9472

02-27-2008, 08:08 PM

9/11 First Responders Rally In Washington D.C. - 2/26/2008
www.fealgoodfoundation.com

Part I
Click Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFmaV2FUOSw) (GooTube)

Part II
Click Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDErhZMuJzE) (GooTube)

Part III
Click Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w47fdh5LVN0) (GooTube)

Part IV
Click Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azmnTV7fUgk) (GooTube)

Part V
Click Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQql1trn6h8) (GooTube)

Part VI
Click Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GskVTkXe-E) (GooTube)

Gold9472

03-11-2008, 10:46 AM

The bell tolls for another hero of 9/11
'I'd do it again,' said NYPD sergeant from West Brighton about his work at the pile

http://www.silive.com/columnists/gordon/index.ssf?/base/opinion/120523864121840.xml&coll=1

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- In this town, 9/11 never goes away.

Not for long, anyway.

This weekend's 9/11 story wasn't just that the "Survivors' Staircase" was moved from Ground Zero, to be returned someday as part of the memorial when the new buildings go up.

There was another reminder closer to home.

Staten Island lost NYPD Sgt. Ned Thompson at age 39 on Sunday morning, just hours before one of his favorite events, the St. Patrick's Parade, would step off a couple of blocks from his West Brighton home.

The father of four young girls, a superstar cop in the West Village, lost his battle for life in Manhattan's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

And we lost another Islander who did what he knew to be the right thing in the hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, and who paid a terrible price.

Thompson was a first responder from the Sixth Precinct, just up West Street from the attack site. He worked the bucket brigades in the days following the building collapses, sifting the debris in hopes of finding survivors.

HACKING COUGH
He'd develop a hacking cough later on. Something unusual for a nonsmoker, the doctors said. Then, in December, he was finally diagnosed.

Cancer.

It's a story that has become familiar in this town.

And, after years of fumbling, the city has begun to accept responsibility for such illnesses.

"I'd do it again," Thompson told people of his work at Ground Zero.

And it makes you wonder how New Yorkers got so lucky as to deserve the Ned Thompsons of the world.

Thompson would have never made it as a Hollywood version of what a New York City cop should be. Oh, he looked the part all right. Big and burly, with an open Irish face. But Thompson didn't go in much for blustery attitudes or loud talk.

He was a quiet guy. Funny, in a clever, understated way. With humor befitting an English major out of Villanova University. But never crass.

"It just wasn't his way," said Lt. Mike Casey, Thompson's boss at the Sixth Precinct. "He was always the consummate professional. But if something had to be done, you called Ned. It got done."

He was the go-to guy the higher-ups asked to analyze crime stats. And to plan operations.

"He had a real feel for the work," said Casey. "He was so smart."

Thing was, because he was so cool under stress, Thompson was also the one the bosses would prefer to see leading a squad on the street, and going through the door on a search warrant.

A while back, an NYPD supervisor told a story of being at a meeting at One Police Plaza when Police Commissioner Ray Kelly singled out Thompson for personal recognition after his squad broke a big Manhattan-wide case.

In keeping with his personality, Thompson's family had never heard of his being so honored.

The young sergeant operated the Street Narcotics Enforcement Unit for years in the West Village, supervising thousands of arrests and having a big hand in the latest round of drug clean-up chores at Washington Square Park.

He was very good at that sort of police work, too, it would turn out.

"If we had a few more guys with Ned's intelligence and drive, there wouldn't be any crime," Casey said, only half-jokingly.

A NICE WAY ABOUT HIM
For all his success at gritty police work, Thompson had such a nice way about him, there was just about no one better at personal interaction.

"You're the kind of person people want to emulate and be around," a friend wrote Thompson last week, in his final days. "The sight of you always evokes a smile."

Thompson and his wife, Justine, were at a supermarket checkout counter at the Jersey Shore a few years back when a scruffy guy behind them nudged the off-duty cop 50 miles from home.

"You're Big Nick from Washington Square Park, right?" the person said, using the handle the dealers in the West Village had hung on the cop from West Brighton.

"That's me," Thompson acknowledged.

"You locked me up," the former miscreant said. "But you were a really cool guy about it. Thanks."

Not many cops have the experience of being thanked by the people they put in cuffs. Thompson also had his priorities straight.

As much as he loved his work, he wanted to spend time with Justine and the four little girls. And he did.

Then there were his friends.

Legions of them.

Kids who grew up with Thompson in West Brighton, and shot hoops in his driveway. His college roomies from Villanova, where Thompson was one of the biggest sports fans on the pretty Lancaster Avenue campus.

His pals on the NYPD, the men and women with whom he shared pizzas at John's on Bleecker Street, or knocked down a beer or two at Fiddlesticks after a 4-to-12 tour of chasing the dealers off West Eighth Street.

They've all been revisited once more by 9/11.

"Since Ned's been sick, they've been trying to find someone to take over his job," Casey said yesterday. "The people who know him don't want to do it. They know what it's going to be like trying to fill his shoes."

Gold9472

03-12-2008, 09:28 AM

9-11 Responders Dying of Neglect

http://newsblaze.com/story/20080311145637tsop.np/newsblaze/BOOKPUBL/Book-Publishing.html

3/12/2008

The U.S. government's continued refusal is causing a whole new class of victims to acknowledge illnesses caused by the toxic dusts and wastes at the Ground Zero site-according to a new book.

Steven Centore was one of the many who volunteered or were ordered to assist in the immediate aftermath of the attack on 9/11 and then during the eighteen-month long recovery efforts at Ground Zero.

Since that time, the dangerously toxic and debilitating conditions that these "first responders" toiled under has come to light. As these people become gravely ill and in some cases die their names may be added to the official list of victims of the 9-11 attack.

Mr. Centore has appeared at congressional hearings to fight for the rights of these thousands of first responders. In his new book, One of Them: A First Responder's Story, he details his own personal account.

"This has become a political football in the coming election that the administration has fumbled," said Mr. Centore, a life long Republican who has had a distinguished career in the U.S. Military and clandestine services.

"I've been a life-long republican, and for the first time in my history I'll probably be voting democratic."

Mr. Centore has been appalled at the callous indifference, lack of support, and the meager financial resources provided by the U.S. government.

"The attack didn't end on 9-11," said Mr. Centore. "The attack continues to this day as first responders suffer from the aftereffects. It's almost like radiation poisoning after a nuclear attack: first there are the initial victims and then there are those that are poisoned by the clouds of lethal dust."

"I wanted to tell my story of how I became ill, what the government did and did not do for me, and what happened to me as a result," says Mr. Centore. "I'd like to shed some light on the cover-ups that the government has been perpetrating in the news."

Steven talks with conviction of:

The growing number of people treated for illnesses due to toxic dust at Ground Zero
How the government helped municipal first responders following 9-11, but are in complete denial of anyone else
The deception, lies and cover-ups by the state, federal, and municipal governments.

"Up to 70 percent of first responders are ill as a result of 9/11 contamination," says Steven. "If a similar rate of illness is true for those who lived and worked near the WTC, the number of seriously ill New Yorkers could climb to 300,000 in the near future."

Steven Centore was a member of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). A nuclear physicist, Mr. Centore has also served in the U.S. Navy aboard nuclear attack submarines, and has worked at various nuclear facilities across the country.

Gold9472

03-12-2008, 02:10 PM

Environmental Illnesses Haunt Some Who Covered 9/11
Rescuers and construction workers aren't the only ones sickened by exposure to World Trade Center dust and smoke. Journalists, including photographers, are also reporting health problems.

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/magazine/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003714645

By Daryl Lang
March 03, 2008

New York Times staff photographer Keith Meyers loved to tackle rigorous assignments, like flying in military jets and scuba diving with astronauts in training.

"He was almost hyper in terms of his energy level," says friend and fellow Times photographer Fred Conrad. "He could run circles around people."

On September 11, 2001, Meyers cut short a vacation and raced to New York to help with coverage at Ground Zero. Four days later, Meyers climbed aboard a Coast Guard helicopter to shoot a series of historic pictures, the first aerial news photos of the still-burning World Trade Center site.

As he leaned out of the helicopter, Meyers could feel the rising smoke.

"It was like breathing fire, and I could feel my skin tingling and burning," he says. A doctor later told him he probably had been exposed to chemicals as caustic as Drano.

Over the next two years, Meyers's health deteriorated. While covering the New York City blackout in 2003, he suffered several asthma attacks. His energy level diminished, and twice he nodded off behind the wheel while waiting at tollbooths.

Now 59, Meyers suffers from serious breathing problems. Treatment keeps many of his symptoms in check, but he can no longer do his job. He went on indefinite medical leave from The Times last year.

His diagnoses are like a catalogue of the illnesses that afflict 9/11 workers: asthma, rhinitis, sinusitis, gastroesophageal reflux disorder, paradoxical voice box disorder. On top of all that is a feeling of lost identity now that he has given up photojournalism.

"Not working is harder than being sick," he says. "And that's the battle I've got to fight, because I've got to be sure not to do anything to make myself sicker."

Meyers is not alone. Five other journalists have told PDN they suffer persistent health effects after working at the World Trade Center site, and a sixth has died of cancer. Two of them were unwilling to be named in this article, one for privacy reasons and another because of an ongoing lawsuit.

David Handschuh, a photographer for the New York Daily News, has been working with The New York Press Photographers Association (NYPPA) to make sure these journalists aren't forgotten.

Handschuh, 48, broke his leg covering the World Trade Center attack and was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. "It's not a New York problem. It's a nationwide problem," Handschuh says when discussing 9/11 health concerns, emphasizing that many out-of-town journalists were part of the coverage.

First responders and construction workers who toiled in the toxic aftermath of 9/11 have been the subject of news reports, political speeches and prize-winning newspaper editorials. But little has been said about the journalists who were exposed to the same conditions.

Handschuh and the NYPPA are advocating for legislation in New York State to extend the deadline for journalists to file 9/11-related workers compensation claims. Last year state lawmakers extended the filing deadline for rescue and recovery workers to August 14, but there is no similar extension for journalists.

For environmental illnesses like asthma and cancer, proving a direct link between cause and effect is difficult. Certain cancers might not appear for decades.

But right now, some journalists are convinced their health problems are the result of their work at Ground Zero.

Keith Silverman, 49, a freelance camera operator who arrived at the World Trade Center the morning of September 11 and spent the next two weeks there for ABC, says he can no longer work in TV. He suffers from chronic sinus issues and is in remission from Hodgkin's lymphoma, problems he believes come from exposure to dust and smoke at Ground Zero. "They don't know what we breathed in because there were so many carcinogens in the air," he says.

Philippe Gassot, 52, a Washington, D.C.-based correspondent for French TV and radio; Jim Purcell, 42, publisher of a weekly newspaper in Middletown, New Jersey; and another photo- journalist all say they suffer from worsening breathing problems after covering Ground Zero.

A producer for a Canadian TV network spent a week at Ground Zero after 9/11. He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in June 2002 and died of lung failure in 2004. His wife (who requested that his name not be published) says she believes the World Trade Center dust acted as a trigger for this rare form of cancer.

It is likely that there are more. Between 2002 and 2004, The World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program surveyed 9,442 workers, including 81 who worked for news agencies. The survey found that this group was five times as likely as the general population to suffer from reduced breathing capacity.

The NYPPA has been encouraging 9/11 journalists to fill out an anonymous online survey. By early February, the survey had logged 161 responses. Respondents reported a variety of breathing problems like asthma and persistent coughing, and symptoms of depression and PTSD. Thirty-six of them said post-9/11 health problems have affected their careers.

When the Twin Towers collapsed, they kicked up a cloud of pulverized cement, glass, lead, asbestos, PCBs, pesticides and other chemicals. Some of the journalists now suffering from health problems feel angry that the government did little to warn people about these dangers. They now scoff at the early assurances that the air was safe.

In a Sept. 13, 2001 press release, Christie Whitman, then head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said, "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."

On Sept. 18, even as the EPA cautioned rescue workers to wash their dust-laden clothes separately from other laundry, Whitman asserted, "The public in these areas is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances."

The EPA did not have enough information to make such judgments, but they were pressured by the Bush administration to sound reassuring, according to a 2003 EPA Inspector General report. The White House Council on Environmental Quality "convinced the EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones," according to the report.

Even knowing what they know now, journalists say they would have covered the story anyway. "The adrenaline was running, it was an important news story, I charged in and did it, I'd probably do it again," Meyers says. "But if I did it again I would be a hell of a lot more careful."

In a sad bit of irony, the helicopter ride that exposed Meyers to the smoke also earned him a share of a Pulitzer Prize, awarded to the photo staff of The Times in 2002 for its 9/11 portfolio.

"I'm just a guy who did his job and got sick. And I'm in great shape compared to a lot of other people," he says. "I am scared to death that a lot of our colleagues who were there are going to get sick soon or in five or ten years."

Gold9472

03-26-2008, 02:01 PM

Court Allows 9/11 Cleanup Crew Lawsuits To Proceed

http://www.wcsh6.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=83482

Web Editor: John Blunda, Associate Producer

Created: 3/26/2008 1:19:26 PM

NEW YORK (AP) -- A federal appeals court says lawsuits can proceed on behalf of thousands of Sept. 11 workers who claim they were not properly protected as they cleaned up the World Trade Center site.

Lawyers for New York City and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to give them immunity from nearly 8,000 workers' claims.

The appeals court said it is too early to decide whether immunity protected the defendants from these sorts of lawsuits.

The ruling means the city and the Port Authority must continue to defend the workers' claims of respiratory and other personal injuries.

Lawyers have said the lawsuits would not be ready for trial for several years.

Gold9472

03-26-2008, 02:01 PM

Court Clears Way for 9/11 Illness Lawsuit

http://www.nysun.com/news/new-york/court-clears-way-911-illness-lawsuit

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN, STAFF REPORTER OF THE SUN | March 26, 2008

A federal appeals court has refused to give New York City immunity from the lawsuits of thousands of city workers and construction laborers who say they now suffer from respiratory illnesses after they helped clean up ground zero in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The lawsuits claim that the city failed to ensure that ground zero was a safe work place. High among the claims is the assertion that the city failed to enforce rules requiring workers to wear respirators while working amid the toxins and rubble.

Citing the unprecedented nature of the disaster, New York City and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, both defendants in the suits, have argued that they are entitled to immunity from the claims. The defendants say they cannot be required to pay out to the workers what could amount to billions of dollars in damages.

The first significant ruling in the case came in 2006, when a federal district judge in Manhattan, Alvin Hellerstein, found that the city was only entitled to immunity for its conduct in the days immediately after the terrorist attacks. The lawsuits could go forward against the city's wishes, Judge Hellerstein ruled, to give workers the chance to prove their claims that ground zero remained an unsafe work environment even weeks and months after September 11, 2001.

The city and port authority appealed. In a victory for the ailing workers, today?s decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that appeal and largely affirmed Judge Hellerstein?s decision.

The appeal was decided by Judges Jon Newman, Sonia Sotomayor, and Richard Wesley.

Lawyers for either side could not be reached for comment.

Gold9472

03-28-2008, 03:48 PM

Second Circuit Rejects City And Contractors’ Immunity Arguments In World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation

http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=62036

WEBWIRE – Wednesday, March 26, 2008

New York, New York, March 26, 2008: The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today released its 58-page decision holding that the City of New York and its contractors are not immune from suit in the World Trade Center Disaster Site litigation. In the decision, In re: World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation, Second Circuit Docket Number 06-5324, the Second Circuit dismissed the defendants’ immunity claims arising from New York State Law, holding that it had no jurisdiction over these state-law issues, and held that insofar as the City contended it should not be forced to take part in the litigation at all, those claims of immunity from suit were meritless. The Second Circuit thus affirmed the District Court’s denial of the defendants’ motions for summary judgment on immunity grounds.

In its decision, the Court said that “what Defendants seek is an unprecedented extension of derivative discretionary immunity as a matter of law – an extension that, as a policy matter, would not only insulate them from liability but also bar Plaintiffs from seeking compensation for injuries they received while working at the World Trade Center disaster site and at the Fresh Kills Landfill.” Responding to the Contractors’ arguments that a finding in favor of the plaintiffs would make contractors less likely in the event of future disasters, to respond to the government’s needs, the Court wrote: “we observe that private contractors, unlike volunteers or conscripts, are paid for their services and able to pass along the cost of liability protection to the government, either by including the cost of liability insurance in their contract or by seeking indemnification from the government.” The Court cited with approval the District Court’s finding that “we must strike a ‘delicate balance’ between the needs of Defendants, who insist that immunity is necessary to encourage companies to volunteer their efforts, and Plaintiffs, who were ‘the very individuals who, without thought of self, rushed to the aid of the City and their fallen comrades.’”

Asked about today’s decision, Plaintiffs’ Co-Liaison Counsel Paul Napoli said: “Obviously, we are elated about today’s decision that soundly upholds the District Court’s denial of the defendants’ claims of immunity from suit. We hope that this strong message from the Court of Appeals will convince the City of New York and its Contractors that the time for foot-dragging and excuses has ended and the time to step up to the plate and offer these heroic Ground Zero workers some relief has begun.” Continuing, Mr. Napoli said “we hope that the defendants will forego further attempts to avoid their obligations and will swiftly move forward with us to a fair and equitable resolution of these claims.”

Thousands of men and women who worked in the clean up and recovery efforts at the site of the World Trade Center in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks have become seriously ill, and many have died of those illnesses, as a result of their exposure to toxic smoke, dust, particulate matter and chemicals at the worksite. Plaintiffs contend that the City and the Contractors failed to provide adequate protective equipment in the form of respirators and hazardous material coveralls, as well as failed to provide adequate safety training and supervision at and around the work site. Initial reports of a so-called “World Trade Center cough” and other respiratory problems have given way to life-threatening illnesses such as pulmonary fibrosis, severe asthma, leukemia and other cancers in a large percentage of the people who worked at and around the site.

Gold9472

03-30-2008, 07:13 PM

OUR THOUGHTS ON IMPOSTERS DOING 9/11 FUND-RAISING

March 30, 2008. Today, we are disappointed, but realistically with the tens of thousands that have been adversely affected by 9/11, there are bound to be one or a few of those that are not providing accurate and genuine reports of that day.

However, over the past few years, we have become accustomed to disappointments as we have been made to sit idly by and watch those we care about pass away anonymously. While events like this make our struggle that much more difficult, we will not lose our resolve or purpose. - FGF (http://www.fealgoodfoundation.com)

Ground Zero 'hero' arrested at fund-raiser actually a fraud, officials say

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/03/30/2008-03-30_ground_zero_hero_arrested_at_fundraiser_.html

BY MICHAEL DALY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, March 30th 2008, 4:00 AM

Fred Parisi at a rally for 9/11 first responders on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol on February 26.

A self-styled 9/11 hero who brags he helped "rescue thousands" as a New York City cop is a fraud who never set foot near the World Trade Center that day and quit the force before graduating from the academy, law enforcement sources told the Daily News.

The allegation came after Fred Parisi was arrested in Carlstadt, N.J., last night while entering a fund-raiser for the 9/11 Rescue Workers Foundation that he founded.

The actual theft charges against the 40-year-old father of three from Jefferson Township, N.J., are unrelated to Sept. 11. Local cops said he looted at least $235,000 from Berkshire Valley Custom Wood Designs, a woodworking company that he also founded.

Just last month, he joined a delegation of legitimate 9/11 rescue workers at the Capitol in Washington to lobby for better health care. He appeared in news photos holding an American flag and standing next to an FDNY deputy chief who lost a son at the World Trade Center.

Parisi touts himself as director and founder of the 9/11 Rescue Workers Foundation. His phone number is (866) WTC-HERO.

A foundation press release states, "Fred was there as the second plane hit. But what haunts him is the memory of what the firefighters said on the way up: 'Stay here, Fred. We'll be right back.' "

A flyer to raise money to send his 10-year-old son to a baseball program in Holland adds that Parisi "was a New York City Police Officer and staged dramatic rescues to save thousands of New Yorkers."

Parisi had said he suffers from a "rare lung disease attributed to the rescue and recovery efforts from Ground Zero on Sept. 11."

But law enforcement sources said Parisi and the rest of Police Academy Company 01-16 were on Floyd Bennett Field for driving training during the terrorist attacks and never got close to the Trade Center.

Sources added that on Sept. 12 and 13, 2001, Parisi was assigned to traffic duty at E. 34th St. and Madison Ave., far away from Ground Zero.

Records show he joined the NYPD on July 1, 2001, and quit on Nov. 1, 2001, without graduating from the academy.

Parisi lied on his application, failing to list disciplinary problems in the military and resignations from two other police departments, as well as an arrest for impersonating an officer, sources said.

His impersonation of a 9/11 hero persuaded a public relations executive and a Web site designer to donate their services to assist his foundation.

The public relations executive, Lori Widmer, said she eventually began to suspect that Parisi was not the hero he made himself out to be and asked him if he was trying to cheat people.

He responded with a "veiled threat," she said.

Cops have not determined if Parisi pocketed any of the money raised for his foundation or for his son's baseball trip.

Last night, Parisi arrived at the Waterfront Café dressed for his fund-raiser in a green button-down shirt and khakis. He seemed stunned by his arrest, and in an emotional outburst threatened to kill the investigator who developed the case, Jefferson Township Police Detective Joseph Kratzel.

"Surprised is not even the word," Kratzel said of Parisi. "Dumbfounded."

Parisi was held on $107,500 bail on charges he looted the woodworking company he started up with a woodworker he originally hired and then presented with a "business opportunity" rather than pay him, police said.

Cops said that the uncommonly talented woodworker, Roy Jensen, did all the work and Parisi took all the money, including cash for materials that were never purchased.

mdaly@nydailynews.com

Gold9472

04-02-2008, 08:27 AM

Some 9/11 victims weren't compensated

http://www.northjersey.com/news/nationalpolitics/17212877.html

BY HERB JACKSON
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
Wednesday, April 2, 2008

More than 100 people who developed serious illnesses from exposure to Ground Zero overflowed a Capitol Hill hearing room Tuesday and two House subcommittees debated whether the government should compensate them.

The victims, including police, firefighters, construction workers and even former bus driver Gil Gonzalez of Jersey City, likely would have qualified for federal payments from a fund created in 2001, only their symptoms showed up too late.

The 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund paid out more than $7 billion in taxpayer funds to nearly 5,600 survivors and victims, but was required by law to stop accepting claims in December 2003.

Gonzalez used to drive NJ Transit's No. 80 bus route in Jersey City, but after 9/11 spent a couple weeks taking Port Authority police officers from Journal Square through the Holland Tunnel, which was closed to other traffic, to Ground Zero.

"I was approximately 50 to 75 feet away from the pile," Gonzalez said, referring to the burning rubble of the collapsed twin towers. "We would also provide transportation to firefighters already there from one part of Ground Zero to another part of Ground Zero. We weren't supposed to have done that, but we did anyway."

About three months later, he started having trouble breathing, but doctors X-rayed him and found no problems. It wasn't until later that he was diagnosed with asthma and after that, blood clots, an aneurysm and then a stroke forced him to retire on disability.

Gonzalez watched the hearing of two House Judiciary subcommittees from an overflow room, as did Antonio Hernandez of Succasunna. Hernandez developed lymphoma after going to work in lower Manhattan 17 days after 9/11 to lay fiber-optic cables that helped rebuild the communications network the stock markets needed to reopen.

"I was supposed to have a radiation treatment today, but I postponed it to be here," Hernandez said.

Congress members on both sides of the political aisle praised the victims, but there was a split when it came to what should be done for them.

"They need our help, not more salutes," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., head of one of two subcommittees. "The pain and suffering of the living victims of 9/11 is real and cannot be ignored. I think it's clear that we, as a nation, must do more."

Nadler said that while terrorists were responsible for the attack, many of the subsequent injuries would have been avoided if the federal government did a better job warning about dangerous air quality and requiring protective equipment at the collapsed twin towers.

The administrator of the 9/11 compensation fund, Kenneth R. Feinberg, said there are about 11,000 people who have filed lawsuits seeking compensation for injuries that would have been covered if the symptoms had shown up before December 2003. Many have lung ailments from breathing air that tests have shown contained asbestos, glass fibers and lead, among other things.

"The only reason they weren't paid is they didn't manifest any injury from their exposure at the World Trade Center site until after the fund was dissolved," Feinberg said. He said that over the next five to 10 years, there have been estimates that another 25,000 to 30,000 victims could come forward.

Republicans at the hearing said construction companies that responded to New York City's call for help also needed protection from the lawsuits they are facing today from former employees.

"They stepped up as corporate good Samaritans, without having to protect themselves with contracts and insurance," Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said of the construction companies. "They worked 24/7 and did so without a profit motive. These corporate heroes should not be forgotten by their government."

King also said that if Congress creates a new compensation fund, it needs to ensure that it does not "hand the keys of the Treasury to trial lawyers."

More than 100 people who developed serious illnesses from exposure to Ground Zero overflowed a Capitol Hill hearing room Tuesday and two House subcommittees debated whether the government should compensate them.

The victims, including police, firefighters, construction workers and even former bus driver Gil Gonzalez of Jersey City, likely would have qualified for federal payments from a fund created in 2001, only their symptoms showed up too late.

The 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund paid out more than $7 billion in taxpayer funds to nearly 5,600 survivors and victims, but was required by law to stop accepting claims in December 2003.

Gonzalez used to drive NJ Transit's No. 80 bus route in Jersey City, but after 9/11 spent a couple weeks taking Port Authority police officers from Journal Square through the Holland Tunnel, which was closed to other traffic, to Ground Zero.

"I was approximately 50 to 75 feet away from the pile," Gonzalez said, referring to the burning rubble of the collapsed twin towers. "We would also provide transportation to firefighters already there from one part of Ground Zero to another part of Ground Zero. We weren't supposed to have done that, but we did anyway."

About three months later, he started having trouble breathing, but doctors X-rayed him and found no problems. It wasn't until later that he was diagnosed with asthma and after that, blood clots, an aneurysm and then a stroke forced him to retire on disability.

Gonzalez watched the hearing of two House Judiciary subcommittees from an overflow room, as did Antonio Hernandez of Succasunna. Hernandez developed lymphoma after going to work in lower Manhattan 17 days after 9/11 to lay fiber-optic cables that helped rebuild the communications network the stock markets needed to reopen.

"I was supposed to have a radiation treatment today, but I postponed it to be here," Hernandez said.

Congress members on both sides of the political aisle praised the victims, but there was a split when it came to what should be done for them.

"They need our help, not more salutes," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., head of one of two subcommittees. "The pain and suffering of the living victims of 9/11 is real and cannot be ignored. I think it's clear that we, as a nation, must do more."

Nadler said that while terrorists were responsible for the attack, many of the subsequent injuries would have been avoided if the federal government did a better job warning about dangerous air quality and requiring protective equipment at the collapsed twin towers.

The administrator of the 9/11 compensation fund, Kenneth R. Feinberg, said there are about 11,000 people who have filed lawsuits seeking compensation for injuries that would have been covered if the symptoms had shown up before December 2003. Many have lung ailments from breathing air that tests have shown contained asbestos, glass fibers and lead, among other things.

"The only reason they weren't paid is they didn't manifest any injury from their exposure at the World Trade Center site until after the fund was dissolved," Feinberg said. He said that over the next five to 10 years, there have been estimates that another 25,000 to 30,000 victims could come forward.

Republicans at the hearing said construction companies that responded to New York City's call for help also needed protection from the lawsuits they are facing today from former employees.

"They stepped up as corporate good Samaritans, without having to protect themselves with contracts and insurance," Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said of the construction companies. "They worked 24/7 and did so without a profit motive. These corporate heroes should not be forgotten by their government."

King also said that if Congress creates a new compensation fund, it needs to ensure that it does not "hand the keys of the Treasury to trial lawyers."

Gold9472

04-02-2008, 08:28 AM

'ZERO' FOR HEROES, SAYS NY-BASH POL

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04022008/news/nationalnews/zero_for_heroes__says_ny_bash_pol_104639.htm

By DAPHNE RETTER, Post Correspondent

April 2, 2008 -- WASHINGTON - A California congressman drew the fury of New York lawmakers yesterday - after he said the feds shouldn't pay another dime to help the 9/11 emergency responders who became ill after working at Ground Zero.

"I have to ask why . . . the firefighters who went there and everyone in the City of New York needs to come to the federal government," Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican, said during a House subcommittee hearing.

"How much money has the federal government put out post-9/11, including the buckets of $10 and $20 billion we just threw at the State and the City of New York versus how much has been paid out by the City and the State of New York?" Issa asked.

"It's very simple: I can't vote for additional money for New York if I can't see why it would be appropriate to do this every single time a similar situation happens, which quite frankly includes any urban terrorist. It doesn't have to be somebody from al Qaeda. It can be someone who decides that they don't like animal testing at one of our pharmaceutical facilities."

Just minutes after a retired New York City police officer, Michael Valentin, had labored through an emotional description of the serious health problems he has endured since rushing to Ground Zero, Issa downplayed the severity of the attack.

Issa said the destruction of the World Trade Center did not involve a dirty bomb or a chemical weapon designed to make people sick.

"It simply was an aircraft, residue of the aircraft and residue of the materials used to build this building," Issa said.

Sitting nearby, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens) was visibly enraged at Issa's remarks.

"The notion that this is the City of New York asking for more money because we were the point of attack on this country is absurd and insulting," Weiner fumed.

Weiner said after the hearing that Issa's comments were some of the worst "New York-bashing" he has heard on the Hill.

"I've never heard anyone speak with such contempt about our heroes as Mr. Issa did today. There was a good reason that he made his remarks and then slithered out of the committee room," Weiner said.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan), who chaired the hearing, also defended the emergency responders.

"They gave up their health for the balance of their years because this country was attacked," Nadler said.

New York City Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo, who testified at the hearing, blasted Issa's statement that New York was trying to get the federal government to pick up the tab for something that should be a state and city responsibility.

"Congressman, this was I believe an attack on the United States of America. It was located at Ground Zero, but it was an attack on America," Cardozo said.

Issa spokesman Frederick Hill said his boss opposes any federal effort to continue funding the now-expired victims' fund, because the case has not been made for "which unique factors make this different" from wildfires in California or the Oklahoma City bombing in 1996, which killed 167 people.

Gold9472

04-02-2008, 08:28 AM

NY courts forced to hear 9/11 lawsuits

http://media.www.nyunews.com/media/storage/paper869/news/2008/04/02/University/Ny.Courts.Forced.To.Hear.911.Lawsuits-3297059.shtml

4/2/2008

When the World Trade Center collapsed on Sept. 11, John Feal, a city demolition supervisor, was one of thousands of responders first dispatched to clean up the rubble. But after a steel beam crushed Feal's left foot, he became permanently disabled and was forced to retire.

Like many other responders, Feal said his workman's compensation claims were repeatedly denied by the city after the emergency.

But that may change.

Feal, who founded the FealGood Foundation, a group that advocates for Sept. 11 responders, is one of nearly 10,000 workers suing the city for injuries and health problems caused by unsafe conditions at ground zero during cleanup. And thanks to a recent federal court decision, they may be one step closer to seeing a settlement.

The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that New York City is not immune to WTC workers' claims. In the decision, the appellate court stated, "private contractors are paid for their services and able to pass along the cost of liability protection to the government."

The Second Circuit decision does not necessarily mean that the 10,000 responders will receive compensation. However, the decision indicates that these lawsuits can move closer to trial or settlement.

Many of the responders have severe respiratory illnesses and other ailments they attribute to improper protection by the city from the dust at the World Trade Center site.

The city argued, however, that it had immunity from the lawsuits because it was responding to an emergency situation, which required an "extraordinary response," according to a statement. When a Manhattan district court said there was not enough evidence for immunity, the city appealed to the Second Circuit Court, which upheld the district court's decision.

The City Law Department's Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo said in a statement that although disappointed with the decision, the law department is "confident that the city and contractors will be found to be immune from the lawsuits" in future litigations.

David E. Worby, the attorney who is representing most of the responders, told The New York Times that if the case goes to trial, the city may wind up paying billions of dollars in compensation.

Though the recent ruling is good news for Feal and his fellow responders, he wasn't completely content with the decision. Feal said in a phone interview that the decision was "a step in the right direction, but it was four to five years late." However, he added that he was "optimistic that by the end of the year, people will start getting compensated."

It is unclear what the next step in the legal battle will be. Cardozo said in the statement that the law department has not yet decided whether to appeal last week's decision to the Supreme Court.

Gold9472

04-02-2008, 08:31 AM

Former Head Of 9/11 Fund Wants To Compensate Sick WTC Workers

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=80041

April 01, 2008

The former head of a fund to compensate September 11 victims supports reopening it for sick workers.

Ken Feinberg testified at a congressional hearing Tuesday that the fund should help thousands of people sickened by the dust cloud from the collapse of the World Trade Center.

He said it would be better for everyone than costly lawsuits.

Feinberg said there could be problems with re-opening the fund, since nothing similar was set up after the Oklahoma City bombing or Hurricane Katrina.

The September 11 Victim Compensation Fund was created by Congress after the 2001 attacks and distributed about $7 billion in total before expiring at the end of 2003.

Gold9472

04-02-2008, 06:24 PM

Reps. Nadler, Lofgren Investigate Status of Compensation for 9/11 Illnesses
Hearing Marks First Congressional Inquiry into Economic Losses of Individuals

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ny08_nadler/911_Compensation_Investigation_040108.html

4/1/2008

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (CA-16), Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law today held a joint oversight hearing titled, “Paying With Their Lives: The Status of Compensation for 9/11 Health Effects.”

“I am outraged that more than six years after 9/11, the heroes of that day are still waiting for the help they deserve,” said Rep. Nadler. “The federal government not only failed to protect those who died on 9/11, but it also bears responsibility for not preventing the injuries of thousands more. Obviously, none of this would have occurred were it not for the terrorists, but many of the injuries we are seeing today could have been avoided. Therefore, the federal government has a moral and legal obligation to compensate the living victims of 9/11, to provide for their health, and to attempt to make them whole for their subsequent financial losses. I am confident that, through this investigation, we can find the best way to do so, and I believe it will highlight the necessity for the House to act on the Maloney-Nadler-Fossella 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.”

“Congress has an obligation to ensure that the programs it created to assist the victims of 9/11 function efficiently and effectively,” noted Rep. Zoe Lofgren. “These programs were created to compensate victims, not to force them into torturous litigation. Since its creation, the Captive Insurance Fund has managed to only pay five claims. At the same time the fund has spent millions in litigation expenses fighting countless other claims. This hearing is an important first step in guaranteeing that the victims receive the compensation they are entitled to under the law.”

Previous Congressional investigations have focused on how the federal government should provide health care services for individuals whose health was adversely impacted by the effects of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Today’s hearing is the first time that Congress focused specifically on the economic losses of those individuals. Many people incurred such losses when they became too sick to work and lost their jobs, while others have inadequate health insurance, and are struggling with exorbitant medical bills.

The hearing examined different compensation approaches used thus far to address 9/11-related economic losses, such as the World Trade Center Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) and the World Trade Center Captive Insurance Company. Reps. Nadler and Lofgren noted that the Captive Insurance Company, created by Congress with a $1 billion appropriation, has spent millions of dollars in administrative and legal costs to contest, rather than to pay, claims.

Lawmakers also examined the specific problems arising for first responders, workers, local residents, students and other individuals whose illnesses did not become apparent for months or years after September 11, as well as individuals who may become sick in the future. The hearing also provided a venue to consider possible solutions to provide the necessary relief to affected individuals who have and will continue to experience losses, but have thus far seen little or no compensation.

Also, last week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that New York City and its contractors are not immune from lawsuits that have been filed by first responders, residents, area workers, students, and others who were exposed to the environmental toxins and other hazards during the clean-up at the World Trade Center site.

Rep. Nadler’s opening statement, as prepared, follows:

“First, let me thank Congresswoman Lofgren for agreeing to hold this oversight hearing. Thank you.

“This joint hearing of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law will investigate the status of compensation for the tens of thousands of people who are suffering because of the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11. While other Congressional investigations have focused on the ongoing health crisis, and this committee has previously investigated the disastrous response to the environmental catastrophe, no previous inquiry has focused on compensation for the victims.

“I want to welcome our witnesses and thank them for participating. We are fortunate to have an expert panel with us today to discuss the past successes, current challenges, and proposed solutions in the ongoing struggle to provide proper compensation to the victims of 9/11.

“I would also like to recognize those individuals who have traveled to Washington today to attend this hearing, and thank you for coming. Many of are the very people who have been denied proper compensation thus far, and I hope that we can learn today about why the system has failed so many of you.

“After the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11, tens of thousands of first responders, residents, area workers, and students were exposed to a cocktail of toxic substances said to be worse than the Kuwaiti oil fires. They are now coming down with diseases like sarcoidosis, lymphoma, and rare blood cancers. Last June, Senator Clinton and I held companion hearings on the actions of the Environmental Protection Administration and other federal agencies that allowed workers to work in a toxic environment without proper protection and gave them false assurances as to their safety.

“At the House hearing, we heard the callous voice of former EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman try to explain why she told New Yorkers that the “air was safe to breathe” when, in fact, she had evidence to the contrary. We reviewed the EPA Inspector General’s report which found that her statements “were falsely reassuring, lacked a scientific basis, and were politically motivated.” We heard about how the White House changed EPA press releases, ‘to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones.’

“Obviously, none of the injuries we are talking about would have occurred were it not for the terrorists, who are ultimately to blame, but many or most would have been avoided if the Federal Government had acted in a responsible manner. The federal government, therefore, has a moral and legal obligation to compensate the victims of 9/11 and to provide for their health.

“Many hearings have examined the health issues and we have heard from many who are too sick to work. And we must assume that many more will become sick in the future. In a September 2006 peer-reviewed study conducted by the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program, of 9,500 WTC responders, almost 70 percent of them had a new or worsened respiratory symptom that developed during or after their time working at Ground Zero. Furthermore, another study documented that, on average, a New York City firefighter who responded to the World Trade Center has experienced a loss of 12 years of lung capacity.

“Which brings us to today’s hearing. We have with us the former Special Master of the federal Victim Compensation Program who was responsible for providing approximately $7.1 billion in compensation to the families of those who lost their lives and to those injured in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. He paid claims of about 2900 families of the deceased and 2500 people with physical injuries including respiratory illnesses. The funds he distributed were tax free and every award took into account the recoveries from collateral sources, such as private insurance, pensions, and workers compensation. Claims payments were halted because of a statutory expiration date.

“We will also hear from Mike Valentin a police officer and 9/11 first responder who can no longer work, and who long ago exhausted his prescription drug coverage and is now fighting to keep his family financially afloat. Unfortunately, his case is all too typical.

“New York City Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo will discuss the World Trade Center Captive Insurance Company, which established with a $1 billion Congressional appropriation, has spent millions of dollars in administrative and legal costs to contest, rather than to pay, claims filed by first responders and other individuals whom Congress intended to assist. Only a handful of claims have been paid, and none of those have been related to the respiratory problems that so many suffer. I look forward to hearing from him how many claims have been paid out and what he sees as the challenges to compensating 9/11 victims.

“I am sure he will discuss last week’s Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision, denying New York City and its contractors immunity from World Trade Center-related lawsuits. Some 8,000 victims have filed suit, claiming that they “suffered respiratory injuries due to the failure of the City and the Port Authority to monitor those conditions and to provide them with adequate safety equipment, and/or warn them of the hazards.”

“Finally, I look forward to the testimony of Dr. Jim Melius who is an expert on the proposed legislative solutions to reopen the victim compensation program and to provide for the long term health needs of those affected by the attacks of 9/11.
“I would like to note that my colleagues, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and Congressman Vito Fossella, and I have introduced the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which would provide comprehensive medical treatment to any person whose health was affected, and reopen the Victim Compensation Fund so that people can be compensated for their economic losses.

“The pain and suffering of the living victims of 9/11 is real and cannot be ignored. I think it is clear that we, as a nation, must do more. During the final months of the Civil War, President Lincoln, in his Second Inaugural Address, noted that the nation had to beyond mourning the dead and needed to look towards what could be done to help the nation recover and reconstruct. Nearly seven years after 9/11, and we are in the same position. We must, as Lincoln remarked, “bind up the nation’s wounds [and] care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”

“I hope that as we continue to bring the truth to light through these hearings, we can do a better job of repaying a debt that can never fully be repaid to the victims and heroes of 9/11.”

Gold9472

04-03-2008, 08:35 AM

GOP Rep. Darrell Issa under fire from everywhere after 9/11 comments

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/04/03/2008-04-03_gop_rep_darrell_issa_under_fire_from_eve.html

BY RICHARD SISK and MICHAEL McCAULIFF
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Thursday, April 3rd 2008, 4:00 AM

WASHINGTON - The California congressman who called the Sept. 11 attacks "simply" a plane crash ran for cover Wednesday under a barrage of ridicule from fellow Republicans, first responders and victims' families.

San Diego GOP Rep. Darrell Issa was under siege for suggesting the federal government had already done enough to help New York cope with "a fire" that "simply was an aircraft" hitting the World Trade Center.

"That is a pretty distorted view of things," said Frank Fraone, a Menlo Park, Calif., fire chief who led a 67-man crew at Ground Zero. "Whether they're a couple of planes or a couple of missiles, they still did the same damage."

"New York was attacked by Al Qaeda. It doesn't have to be attacked by Congress," added Long Island Rep. Pete King, a Republican.

"I'm really surprised by Darrell Issa," King added. "It showed such a cavalier dismissal of what happened to New York. It's wrong and inexcusable."

Lorie Van Auken, who lost her husband, Kenneth, in the attacks, slammed Issa's "cruel and heartless" comments.

"It's really discouraging. People stepped up and did the right thing. They sacrificed themselves and now a lot of people are getting really horrible illnesses," she added.

Under pressure from all sides, the Golden State pol - who got rich selling car alarms after getting busted for car theft as a teen - pulled a partial U-turn. He issued a statement but cowered from the press.

"I continue to support federal assistance for the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks," he said.

But he didn't retract his wacked-out rhetoric claiming the feds "just threw" buckets of cash at New York for an attack "that had no dirty bomb in it, it had no chemical munitions in it."

He went on: "I have to ask ... why the firefighters who went there and everybody in the city of New York needs to come to the federal government for the dollars versus this being primarily a state consideration."

In his statement yesterday, Issa insisted he only "asked tough questions about the expenditures" during a hearing Tuesday on an aid bill for sick New Yorkers.

"He realized he stepped in it," said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-Manhattan), who was leading the hearing when Issa popped off.

"The sound I'm hearing is him slamming the brakes and going in reverse," crowed Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn-Queens). Issa also belatedly admitted 9/11 was "an attack on America" in his statement.

It shouldn't have been that hard.

He took to the floor of Congress on Sept. 11, 2001, to argue passionately that America - not just New York - had been attacked, but conveniently forgot that during his Tuesday diatribe.

"It seems that with the passage of time, something happened along the way where the scope of the problem and the real extent of the problem has not drifted out to California," fumed Staten Island GOP Rep. Vito Fossella.

Health officials estimate it could cost $1 billion to care properly for the ailments that may emerge in the people who lived through the horror of Sept. 11 or breathed that toxic dust.

New York lawmakers now want Democratic leaders to bring the 9/11 care bill to the floor soon - before more members of Congress start spouting off like Issa.

Gold9472

04-03-2008, 08:53 AM

GOP Rep. opposes sick Sept. 11 worker fund

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/04/02/gop_rep_opposes_sick_sept_11_worker_fund/9377/

Published: April 2, 2008 at 9:08 PM

WASHINGTON, April 2 (UPI) -- A California congressman said Wednesday he has reservations about a proposed new fund for rescuers sickened by the 2001 terror attacks, not supporting victims.

At a hearing in Washington Tuesday, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., balked at the idea of a new compensation fund for emergency responders who fell ill after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, the New York Daily News reported.

Issa insisted the airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York were not weapons. He suggested the cause of illness for the responders was simply debris from the collapse of the towers.

"It simply was an aircraft, residue of two aircraft and residue from the materials used to build this building," Issa said.

Issa issued a statement Wednesday clarifying his position.

"During (Tuesday's) hearing, I asked tough questions. ... I continue to have reservations about the specific bill (Tuesday's) hearing focused on and I have questions about the appropriate way to determine federal and local responsibility to victims," Issa said. "I want to make clear that I strongly support help for victims who suffered physical injury as a result of an attack on America, including support from Congress and the federal government."

Gold9472

04-04-2008, 09:21 AM

Lawmaker Criticized for 9/11 Comments

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j-7v1hEkqd4GAf2kvups02v7wLtwD8VQOSQ80

By ERICA WERNER – 11 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — A conservative Republican congressman says he supports helping victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks but did not offer an apology for remarks he made while questioning the need for federal compensation.

Following criticism from fellow lawmakers and others, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., issued a statement Wednesday insisting he would "continue to support federal assistance for the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks," although he did not specify how that should be done. He opposed reopening a victims compensation fund that expired in 2003 after distributing about $7 billion.

On Thursday, after more negative reaction to his remarks, Issa's spokesman Frederick Hill said, "The congressman recognizes he could have chosen his words better at the hearing."

During a joint hearing on Tuesday by two House Judiciary subcommittees considering legislation to extend benefits, Issa described the Sept. 11 attacks as "a fire that had no dirty bomb in it" and added: "It had no chemical munitions in it. It simply was an aircraft, residue of two aircraft and residue of the material used to build this building."

He questioned "why the firefighters who went there and everyone in the city of New York needs to come to the federal government for the dollars versus, quite frankly, this being primarily a state consideration."

Issa went on to say that he couldn't vote for additional money for New York "if I can't see why it would be appropriate to do this every single time a similar situation happens which, quite frankly, includes any urban terrorist. It doesn't have to be somebody from al-Qaida. It can be somebody who decides they don't like animal testing at one of our pharmaceutical facilities."

In opposing the legislation, Issa cited concerns about extending compensation to people who weren't physically injured and didn't work at Ground Zero. The bill would allow people who lived, worked or volunteered in the area to be compensated for psychological as well as physical problems.

His remarks immediately drew indignant responses from New York lawmakers at the hearing as well as from the witness he was questioning, Michael Cardozo, New York City's top lawyer.

"Congressman, this was I believe an attack on the United States of America. It was located at Ground Zero, but it was an attack on America," Cardozo retorted.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who chaired the hearing, said in an interview Thursday that Issa's statements were "extremely rude, extremely stupid, extremely insensitive, extremely unpatriotic — to put it mildly."

Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., said in a statement: "New York was attacked by al-Qaida. It doesn't have to be attacked by Congress. I'm really surprised by Darrell Issa. It showed such a cavalier dismissal of what happened to New York. It's wrong and inexcusable."

Gold9472

04-08-2008, 06:24 AM

Justice for Ground Zero worker

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2008/04/08/2008-04-08_justice_for_ground_zero_worker.html

BY RACHEL MONAHAN
Tuesday, April 8th 2008, 4:00 AM

Demetrius "Bo" Samadjopoulos has been a part of history. In the 1980s, he worked on restoring the Statue of Liberty.

For six weeks after 9/11, he pulled 12-hour shifts at Ground Zero.

"I'm not a hero. I went down to do a job," said Samadjopoulos, 49, of Park Slope, who worked for 15 years as a carpenter for the city's Transportation Department.

But Samadjopoulos was denied a pension, even though a World Trade Center medical expert and his own doctor found his work injuries from 9/11, along with the wear and tear of a demanding job, had disabled him.

"I'm not looking for free money. I'm looking for my measly $20,000 a year and medical coverage for my daughter," said Samadjopoulos.

In October 2006, a city medical board report found "the documentary and clinical evidence failed to substantiate that (Samadjopoulos) is disabled from performing the duties of carpenter."

Last week, however, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub annulled the medical board's decision, noting it "lacks a rational basis," after Samadjopoulos claimed his medical exam only lasted 15 minutes and did not "include any tests" of his respiratory ailments.

Samadjopoulos' lawyer, Gary Stone, hailed the judge's decision.

"It's quite a remarkable indictment of the medical board," said Stone, pension-unit director of South Brooklyn Legal Services. "It was a disturbing finding, if we think about how many people's cases get decided by the medical board."

Law Department spokeswoman Laura Postiglione said city lawyers would review the decision when they had received "a formal copy."

Samadjopoulos' doctor, Jacqueline Moline, director of the World Trade Center Monitoring and Treatment Program at Mount Sinai Medical Center, had supported his case for a pension.

"It is absolutely clear to me ... that Mr. Samadjopoulos is disabled as a result of his work at the World Trade Center site," she wrote.

Samadjopoulos said he left the private sector and went to work for the city for the security of a pension.

"It's a travesty," said Samadjopoulos. "Every time I hear Bloomberg ... saying all the things they're doing for people, I feel like puking."

Gold9472

04-08-2008, 06:24 AM

The FealGood Foundation And WeAreChange Help Kevin O'Connor

Video
Click Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCmRTiUA0Wk) (GooTube)

Gold9472

04-08-2008, 06:39 AM

9/11 Truth Tuesdays First Donation To The FealGood Foundation

As we have said from the very beginning, ALL proceeds from "9/11 Truth Tuesdays" are going to the FealGood Foundation to help the 9/11 First Responders we both love and respect because of the heroes that they are, and because they aren't getting the help that they need. We recently received a check from the Anthony Wayne Movie Theater for the first series that took place in January and February. There were a total of nine shows, including the special event that took place on 1/29 (http://www.911blogger.com/node/13622). Everyone that attended during those nine shows should be proud of the fact that you helped to donate a total of $1746.00 to help the sick and dying 9/11 First Responders.

Betsy and I would especially like to thank Philly 9/11 Truth (http://philly911truth.org/) for raising a total of $315.00 on the night of 1/29.

I have said often that victories in 9/11 Truth are very few and far between. Each and every dollar that we contribute to help the ailing 9/11 First Responders is the equivalent of a 100 victories.

Thank you to everyone. I look forward to seeing you at the Anthony Wayne Movie Theater every Tuesday in April, and the first two Tuesdays in May at 7pm. The more people that come to these shows, the better our next donation will be. I hope to see A LOT of you there. :)

Gold9472

04-13-2008, 06:53 AM

Sept. 11 charity investigated

http://www.njherald.com/secure_story/319534184007874.php

By TOM HOWELL JR.
thowell@njherald.com
Sunday, April 13, 2008

JEFFERSON — Bergen County Harley-Davidson employee Rich Croland was lucky, in a sense, to miss a benefit concert in Carlstadt last month that promoted its upcoming Freedom Ride to Ground Zero.

The company's charity partner, Fred Parisi, was led out of the March 29 event by police officers on charges he stole $235,000 from a business colleague in Jefferson.

"I got a call, saying, 'Hey, did you see the front of the (New York) Daily News today?'" Croland said.

As a result, the arrest cast skepticism on Parisi's 9/11 Rescue Workers Foundation, the charity he was in Carlstadt to raise funds for in conjunction with the Freedom Ride promotion.

For years, Parisi, 40, of Jefferson, has claimed he was called in from a police recruiting field in Brooklyn to assist rescue efforts at the World Trade Center in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001.

In September 2007, he set up his foundation to assist people who suffered medical problems related to the recovery site.

But according to an affidavit, Parisi was a police recruit assigned to Floyd Bennett Field for driving training on Sept. 11, 2001.

He did not respond to the World Trade Center catastrophe; he was assigned to a traffic post at 34th St. and Madison Avenue on the following two days, NYPD roster sheets said.

"This gives legitimate foundations a black eye," said John Feal, whose FealGood Foundation replaced Parisi's as a charity partner for the motorcycle run.

"As a foundation founder, I'm not surprised," he said. "As a 9/11 responder, I was irate."

The episode illustrated an all-too-common problem, observers said: Charities that cannot support their claims or spend more funds on their operations than the people they are supposed to help.

"You can legally give just about nothing to charity, and be so-called legitimate," said Daniel Borochoff, president and founder of the American Institute of Philanthropy.

Scams related to 9/11 were more common in the earlier part of the decade, when people were "emotionally moved and throwing money at whoever would collect it," Borochoff said.

Now, "if you really are clever about ripping people off, you'd know regulators will be watching (9/11 scams) more closely," Borochoff said.

In May 2004, a pair of Sussex County men pleaded guilty to bilking a Franklin woman out of $300,000 in a phony 9/11 investment plan, claiming she would receive $1 million in return.

One of the men, of Hampton, claimed he had shot a would-be terrorist who was planning attacks.

Parisi was arrested at the benefit concert on March 29 after a 15-month investigation alleging he stole $235,000 from his business partner, Roy Jensen, at Berkshire Valley Custom Wood Designs, police said.

His arrest prompted multiple agencies to investigate Parisi's 9/11 foundation and previous fund-raising, including an effort to send his son to a baseball tournament in Europe, Jefferson Police Detective Joseph Kratzel said.

Whether Parisi's 9/11 foundation provided real help to anyone is unclear. It is registered with the New Jersey Division of Consumers Affairs, and "there are no actions that we have taken against charities that are connected to 9-11," DCA spokesman Jeff Lamm said.

The charity's phone line has been disconnected, and Parisi is lodged in the Morris County jail on bail, pending an appearance before Superior Court Judge Salem V. Ahto on April 15.

The 9/11 Rescue Workers Foundation did not take in or spend any money in its most recent report posted online with the DCA.

"It's too easy to set up a charity in New Jersey that may pass the legal muster but is far from what it should be," said John Hulse said, a Byram police officer and Sussex County delegate to the New Jersey Police Benevolent Association.

The Police Benevolent Association outlawed telemarketing after it realized too many supposed police-based foundations used pressure tactics to spend more on operations than charity, Hulse said.

"Everybody used to do telemarketing and it wasn't that bad of a thing," he said.

But things went "haywire" in the early 1990s, when "you started hearing all these horror stories," he said.

Telemarketers took in most of the proceeds, including one group that fled to Florida, he said.

"That wasn't the exception; it started to become the rule," Hulse said. "We said enough is enough."

The PBA testified before the state Legislature in hopes of banning all telemarketing related to law enforcement charities, but it was rebuffed due to First Amendment concerns, according to Hulse.

"It's our reputation," Hulse said.

"We go to great lengths to protect the name of law enforcement."

Borochoff said potential givers should fully understand where their money is going and look for a charity directors they can trust to maximize the positive effects of their donation.

Feal said he wanted to protect 9/11 workers after his left foot was crushed by steel at the Ground Zero site. He noted that his foundation has an eight-member board, two lawyers and a well-maintained Web site with media links.

Croland called him a day before the FealGood Foundation planned to reach out to the Bergen County Harley-Davidson, the parties said.

"We made lemonade out of bad lemons," Feal said.

Gold9472

04-13-2008, 08:48 AM

The Greatest Moment Of My Life

Video
Click Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKZonP-4EGs) (GooTube)

I received this award because of these fund-raisers for the 9/11 First Responders that I held...

http://www.911blogger.com/node/4895
http://www.911blogger.com/node/8919
http://www.911blogger.com/node/11928

I also recommend my archives concerning this issue.

http://www.911blogger.com/node/2279

Thanks to John Feal, and everyone at the FealGood Foundation.

www.fealgoodfoundation.com

Gold9472

04-14-2008, 11:19 AM

Complaints Over 9/11 Health Continue
Emotions ran high at a 9/11 Community Health Forum held downtown yesterday. A number of attendees spoke of their chronic health problems and the lack of federal health funds.

http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/96815

by Arun Venugopal

NEW YORK, NY April 14, 2008 —REPORTER: Joseph Zadroga, father of the late first-responder James Zadroga, said the government should've been aware of the dangers at the World Trade Center site.

ZADROGA: This was just like Chernobyl, in Russia, where they had the Russians take wheelbarrows and dump it down into the nuclear reactor to stop the fire.

But, Doctor Joan Reibman of the World Trade Center Environmental Health Center said it's hard to determine which ailments are related to 9/11.

She said medical professionals have to look at when someone was working or living near the site and when their symptoms first occurred.

REIBMAN: And also, look at that in the context of what we're seeing in the other programs - in the Fire Department, in the responders, as well as in our program - to try to understand when certain symptoms are related. But there's an awful lot we still don't know.

REPORTER: Speakers also called for comprehensive healthcare services...and better research into 9/11-related illnesses.

Gold9472

04-14-2008, 11:45 AM

$$ WAR WITH 9/11 CONTRACTORS

http://m.nypost.com/ms/p/nyp/nyp/view.m?pid=23907&storyid=106312

By SUSAN EDELMAN
4/14/2008

The city and its Ground Zero contractors have become embroiled in an explosive rift over who's responsible to pay 9/11 workers sickened during the World Trade Center cleanup, The Post has learned.

Splitting with Mayor Bloomberg for the first time, the contractors are now contending the city has no financial cap on its liability for claims from the cleanup.

The contractors have filed bombshell court papers saying they could be left holding the bag for "potentially enormous" costs if the burden of compensating sick 9/11 responders shifts to them.

They cite the Congressional Record, which shows Congress gave the city $1 billion for insurance to cover the debris-removal after the WTC collapse, with no apparent cap on those claims. The city sharply differs.

"The statute, legislative history and prior court decisions make clear that the cap applies to debris-removal cases," Connie Pankratz, a spokeswoman for the city Law Department, said Friday.

Immediately after 9/11, the Air Transportation Safety and Stabilization Act - which also protected the airlines - capped the city's liability for the "terrorist-related aircraft crashes" at $350 million or the city's insurance, whichever is greater.

The contractors say settlement with ill workers will be impossible until the court decides which side is right.

Lawyers for the suing firefighters, cops and other workers filed papers last week agreeing with the contractors - and urging US Judge Alvin Hellerstein to resolve the issue quickly.

Gold9472

04-22-2008, 12:17 PM

NY appeals court: Whitman not liable in Sept. 11 air case
NY appeals court finds former EPA chief Whitman cannot be held liable for 9/11 air comments

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/NY_appeals_court_Whitman_not_liable_04222008.html

LARRY NEUMEISTER
Apr 22, 2008 09:31 EST

Former EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman cannot be held liable for telling residents near the World Trade Center site that the air was safe to breathe after the 2001 terrorist attacks, a federal appeals court said Tuesday.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Whitman apparently made comments reassuring people about the safety around the site based on conflicting information and reassurances by the White House.

The appeals court said legal remedies are not always available for every instance of arguably deficient governmental performance.

A Department of Justice lawyer had argued late last year that holding the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency liable would set a dangerous precedent in future disasters because public officials would fear making public statements.

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit by residents, students and workers in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn who said they were exposed to hazardous dust and debris from the fallen twin towers after Sept. 11.

They said Whitman, who also is a former New Jersey governor, should be forced to pay damages to properly clean homes, schools and businesses.

A lower court judge had earlier refused to dismiss Whitman as a defendant, saying her actions were "conscience-shocking."

Gold9472

04-23-2008, 04:18 PM

Ex-EPA chief Christie Todd Whitman can't be held liable in 9/11 air case

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/04/22/2008-04-22_exepa_chief_christie_todd_whitman_cant_b.html

BY TRACY CONNOR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, April 23rd 2008, 1:54 AM

Christie Whitman, at least, can breathe easy.

An appeals court ruled Tuesday that the former EPA chief can't be punished for falsely telling New Yorkers the air near Ground Zero was safe after 9/11.

Even though thousands were sickened by toxic dust, the federal judges decided Whitman isn't personally liable for inaccurate reassurances she gave to the public.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals cited her "inadequate management" and the Environmental Protection Agency's "flawed" handling of the crisis.

But the 28-page ruling said there was no evidence Whitman knew she was dispensing lies and her decision to go along with a White House whitewash didn't "shock the conscience."

Whitman applauded the appellate court's order to dismiss the class-action suit after a district judge ruled it should go forward.

"9/11 confronted all of us with decisions that were unprecedented in our history," said Whitman, who stepped down from the EPA in 2003.

"I am pleased that the court today confirmed what I have said - that we at the EPA acted reasonably and made every effort to protect the people of New York."

The collapse of the twin towers released a cloud of hazardous dust, including lead and asbestos, across lower Manhattan.

But a week after the terrorist attacks, while the fires at Ground Zero were still burning, Whitman told New Yorkers "their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink."

Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez showed that was untrue by unearthing the EPA's own air quality studies - and last year he shamed Whitman into testifying about the mess before Congress.

Yesterday's ruling was blasted by the plaintiffs and others who support first responders, recovery workers and local residents who became ill after the fall of the towers.

"One argument after another appalls me with its illogic," said Jenna Orkin, whose son was a student at Stuyvesant High School near the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

She was particularly incensed by the court's reasoning that Whitman isn't liable because she was following orders from the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

"What has jumped out at me so far is the way the buck is being passed," Orkin said. "This is sleight of hand."

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan) was concerned by the ruling that even if Whitman knew she was giving false information, she would have immunity unless she intended to harm the victims.

"This interpretation means that government officials in the future can deceive the public and harm thousands of people with impunity," said Nadler, who grilled Whitman at a congressional hearing last year.

"That should shock everyone's conscience."

Activist John Feal said there's only one punishment for Whitman that fits the crime. "She should go to jail for manslaughter," he said.

Gold9472

04-23-2008, 04:42 PM

Rep. Nadler: Decision In 9/11 Lawsuit Highlights Need For Federal Action

CONGRESSMAN JERROLD NADLER
8th Congressional District of New York

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, April 22, 2008

CONTACT: Shin Inouye, 202-225-5635

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), chair of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties today issued the following statement regarding the Second Circuit Court of Appeal's decision that former Environmental Protect Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman is immune from liability for false statements she made about air quality and public safety after the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001:

"I am deeply disappointed with the Second Circuit's decision. There is a mountain of evidence demonstrating that Ms. Whitman and the Bush administration mislead the public about air quality in the aftermath of the collapse of the World Trade Center. By falsely assuring the public that the air was safe to breathe - when all the evidence indicated that it was in fact extremely hazardous - she caused thousands of residents, workers, and first responders to suffer injury and, in some cases, death due to unnecessary exposure to toxins released by the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. Much of this evidence has been made public in hearings held last year by Senator Clinton and me.

"Perhaps most upsetting is the court's apparent justification of Ms. Whitman's lies as a 'realistic choice' among 'competing governmental considerations' due to her attempt to 'reassure the public,' even though by doing so she put the public's health in jeopardy. The decision also noted that even if Ms. Whitman knowingly made these false statements, she would still enjoy immunity unless it could be proven that she also intended to harm the victims. If permitted to stand, this interpretation means that government officials in the future can deceive the public and harm thousands of people with impunity. That should shock everyone's conscience.

"Regardless of whether the plaintiffs choose to appeal this ruling, one thing is clear - the federal government needs to act. While these legal cases have been ongoing, the living victims of 9/11 continue to suffer. Congress must pass the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, authored by myself, Congresswoman Maloney and Congressman Fossella, to provide medical care and compensation to thousands of Americans whose health has been compromised. The decision also makes clear that Congress needs to demand a proper test and clean up of the affected areas.

"When the judiciary and the executive fail to provide justice to the living victims of 9/11, it is the moral imperative of Congress to do right. Nearly seven years after 9/11, and the federal government still has not met its obligations. We can, and must, do more."

###

Jerrold Nadler has served in Congress since 1992. He represents New York's 8th Congressional District, which includes parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn.