A Fallen Hero - Video Inside

I decided to write Susan Edelman a thank you letter for all of her coverage regarding the environmental disaster.

Dear Susan,

I have been following the environmental impact of the 9/11 attacks for a long time, and I have seen your name come up quite often. I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to cover our heroes. Recently, I held a fund-raiser for the FealGood Foundation (John Feal), and the GearUpFoundation (Vinnie Forras). We raised over $3200. It was on behalf of the 9/11 Truth Movement, and 911Blogger.com. I asked John Feal about you and he said "sue is my girl." I hold John Feal in the highest regard. What he says means something to me. Thank you Susan for all of your efforts.

Sincerest Regards,

Jon Gold


Her response...

Dear Jon,

Thanks so much for your kind note. I care very much about the WTC workers and hope that those sickened by their contribution get the care and financial help they desperately need.

John Feal has been a great ally.

Keep in touch.

Sue
 
After 9/11, Ailing Residents Find a Place to Turn

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/nyregion/21clinic.html?ref=health

By ANTHONY DePALMA
Published: February 21, 2007

They say they suffer the same rasping cough, shortness of breath and gastrointestinal pains as thousands of rescue and recovery workers who fell ill from the dust and smoke at ground zero. They worry, as the others do, that the future may bring more health problems.

Yet residents, workers and students who returned to Lower Manhattan after the Sept. 11 attack say that their medical problems have largely been overlooked as officials focus increasing attention on the responders who were more exposed to the hazards.

“Not to take anything from them, but everything has been concentrated on the fire, police and E.M.T. guys,” said Agustin Chaves, who lives and works in an apartment building two blocks from the World Trade Center site. “Nobody has been helping regular working people.”

Mr. Chaves, 53, developed asthma and severe acid reflux about a year and a half after Sept. 11, 2001. As his condition worsened, he tried to find out whether it was connected to the dust he had breathed in after the twin towers collapsed. Then last fall he heard that the city was giving millions of dollars to Bellevue Hospital Center to treat people excluded from other programs, like the one that monitors and treats recovery workers at Mount Sinai Medical Center.

Since that announcement in September, the number of people being treated at the W.T.C. Environmental Health Center at Bellevue Hospital has doubled to more than 900. Several hundred more people are on a waiting list, including many low-income residents of Chinatown and the Lower East Side, and immigrant workers without health insurance. And after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg last week encouraged residents who might have been exposed to the dust to be checked by the clinic’s specialists, the number of patients is expected to rise substantially.

Dr. Joan Reibman, a pulmonologist who directs the center, said that most of her patients had not been exposed to the dust as intensively as firefighters and workers who toiled on the debris pile, but that they might have been affected by the contaminated air nonetheless.

Doctors and scientists have not definitively linked the dust to serious illnesses like cancer. But certain symptoms of respiratory and gastrointestinal ailments have been strongly associated with exposure to the dust. Thousands of firefighters developed gastrointestinal problems and what has become known as World Trade Center cough; the seriousness of their symptoms was found to be related to how soon they arrived at ground zero after the towers collapsed. Medical studies have also shown that they suffered substantial losses in lung capacity after working at the site.

Testing done by the Fire Department is considered especially important because all firefighters undergo thorough physical examinations every year, making it possible to track with a degree of medical certainty illnesses that developed after 9/11.

Most other studies about exposure to trade center dust — for example, the World Trade Center Health Registry of 71,000 workers, residents and volunteers — have been based on people’s own reporting of when an ailment began, and thus were less reliable indicators of a link between the dust and disease.

However, in the past year, both the federal and city governments have expanded monitoring and treatment programs for recovery workers and others, based on the premise that there is some association between the dust and those respiratory ailments.

An overwhelming majority of residents in Lower Manhattan have not developed any illnesses because of the dust, Dr. Reibman said. But whether some patients who have come in complaining of symptoms actually were reacting to the dust may be determined by looking at the extent of the dust exposure and the person’s medical history.

While ground zero recovery operations ended in June 2002, dust could have remained in interior spaces and duct work in nearby office and apartment buildings far longer. In many buildings that were never thoroughly cleaned, that dust may still be present.

Dr. Reibman said it was possible that some clinic patients believed that their symptoms were associated with the dust even though there may not be a connection. As a doctor in a public hospital, she said that did not matter to her as long as those who were sick could be cared for.

But she said many of her patients do have “asthma-like symptoms that we’re treating. And a small number have more complex diseases. Where you fall in that spectrum depends on exposure and susceptibility.”

Most patients are treated with medication, though a few who develop more serious illnesses are hospitalized at Bellevue whether or not a specific link to trade center dust can be proved.

The half-dozen examining rooms at the clinic have been serving a constant stream of patients since Mr. Bloomberg pledged $16 million over five years for the clinic to treat anyone who needs it without charge. Dr. Reibman has so far adopted a policy that accepts nearly everyone.

Many people, like Mr. Chaves, arrive at the clinic with worry in their eyes and asthma inhalers in their pockets. He is the resident superintendent of a condominium complex on Greenwich Street. When his building was engulfed by dust on Sept. 11, he was standing guard in the lobby and was covered in a layer of fine particles.

About 18 months later, Mr. Chaves started having trouble breathing and began to think that his symptoms were connected to the trade center dust. His family doctor could not pinpoint what was wrong even as his condition worsened. He was once athletic and agile, he said, a basketball-court terror his sons could not catch.

“Now I can barely run around with the grandchildren,” he said.

All the apartments in his building were professionally cleaned several years ago. But he finds the dust — a toxic mixture of chemicals and concrete that scientists say can be as caustic as drain cleaner — when he has to work in spaces above ceiling tiles.

Most alarming, he said, is finding the fluffy, gray dust when he or his men are called to remove a balky air conditioner from its slot in the building wall.

“We pull it out of the wall,” Mr. Chaves said, “and all the dust is still in there.”

The Bellevue clinic, which he visits every few weeks, has its roots in an asthma clinic that Dr. Reibman started in 1991 to investigate why the city had some of the highest rates of the disease in the country.

In 2002, she collaborated with the State Department of Health on a survey of residents who lived within a mile of ground zero. The study, one of only a few to deal with the effect on residents, found that about 60 percent of the 2,812 residents who responded complained of coughing, wheezing or shortness of breath that began after the terror attack.

The study has limitations. Those who responded to the survey were not given physical examinations, nor were their medical records checked for pre-existing health problems. Their responses were based on their own estimations of when their symptoms began.

In the same 2002 study, in a control group of residents about five miles from ground zero, 20 percent reported similar symptoms, again based solely on their own recollections.

Dr. Reibman’s asthma clinic became part of the city’s overall public health response in the months after 9/11. But it played a relatively small role until Mr. Bloomberg sharply increased funding in response to community pressure and emerging medical issues among recovery workers and others.

This month Manuel S. Bruno, 82, had his first examination at the clinic after reading news articles that said firefighters and police officers were developing serious, and sometimes fatal, illnesses.

Mr. Bruno said that shortly after he and his wife cleaned ground zero dust from their apartment on the Lower East Side, he developed an eye infection and an unusual rash. He said his regular doctors dismissed any possible link to the dust, attributing the symptoms to his age. Now he said he is willing to undergo specialized tests that the clinic’s doctors ordered because, whether they find a link to ground zero dust or not, “at least maybe they can help me.”

Another recent patient, Miguel Lopez, 40, said he had felt awful since he worked several months for a company that cleaned the dust from office buildings in Lower Manhattan. Without health insurance, he struggled for years to find someone to treat his severe rash and muscle ache before he heard about the specialists at the Bellevue clinic in October.

Mr. Lopez said he wanted to return to Ecuador, his native country, but was afraid to do so until he knew more about his medical condition.

“If something happens in 5 to 10 years,” he said, “I don’t want to be in Ecuador.”

Dr. Reibman recently added psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers to the clinic staff because so many of her patients also have stress-related symptoms, stemming in part from their concerns about medical problems that could develop.

She said she was so overwhelmed with new patients that she had not had the time or staff to conduct a follow-up to her 2002 residential survey. And she is likely to get even busier. Mr. Bloomberg, in describing the city’s comprehensive plan for dealing with 9/11 health problems last week, said that the Bellevue clinic might need to care for as many as 12,000 patients.

Dr. Reibman said she did not know the extent of the health problems among Lower Manhattan residents, or how much money would be needed for treatment. But she shares data with the Mount Sinai program and the Fire Department and hopes to reach conclusions about 9/11-related symptoms and treatment.

Meanwhile, officials from the federal Environmental Protection Agency have said that trade center dust poses little continuing danger to residents. Still, in December, the agency offered to test and clean apartments in Lower Manhattan. (To register, residents and building owners can call 1-888-747-7725.)

In 2004, residents, workers and students in Lower Manhattan filed a federal class action lawsuit against the E.P.A., its former administrator, Christie Whitman, and other federal officials, seeking a more thorough cleanup and an aggressive screening and treatment program.

The suit, which does not ask for individual monetary awards, claims that Ms. Whitman deliberately distorted information and put families at risk by encouraging them to return to apartments, schools and places of business before comprehensive tests of the air quality were available.

Last year, Judge Deborah A. Batts of Federal District Court in Manhattan said that Ms. Whitman’s statements that the air downtown was safe to breathe were misleading and “conscience-shocking.” She allowed portions of the suit against Ms. Whitman and the agency to go forward.
 
That's a bad way to treat WTC ills

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/v-pfriendly/story/501724p-423019c.html

BY JORDAN LITE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, March 1st, 2007

WASHINGTON - The White House is considering paying individual doctors to treat patients suffering from 9/11-related illnesses - rather than backing three hospital-based programs, a city official said yesterday.

Dr. David Prezant, the chief FDNY medical officer, said the Bush administration was leaning toward the so-called fee-for-service model after meeting yesterday with city officials.

"There would be no outreach to get people into treatment. There would be fragmented treatment by nonexperts, and there would be no data collection for policy or to inform other physicians how to treat these people," Prezant said.

"This is not where you want to be for people who gave up their health to help America rebuild on those days."

City officials met with Assistant Health Secretary John Agwunobi before a House subcommittee hearing on how the federal government should handle 9/11-related illnesses.

Agwunobi was grilled by congressmen yesterday about why he has yet to complete a report describing how the federal government can best provide care.

In an interview, Agwunobi wouldn't identify the data his task force was considering beyond studies published by various monitoring and treatment programs. He said the report would be ready this month.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan, Queens) said she is concerned that the White House will not fund the monitoring programs established by the FDNY, Mount Sinai Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital for "ideological reasons." Mayor Bloomberg has said the three programs require $150 million a year in federal aid to stay afloat.

The criteria and payment structure of the potential federal-funding program were not clear yesterday. But government sources said it could be an "individual entitlement model" that would pay doctors as responders visited them. Prezant said the federal plan could require patients to lay out hefty co-payments.

Department of Health and Human Services officials didn't respond to requests for comment.
 
9/11 clinic expanding

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/503023p-424275c.html

BY MIKE JACCARINO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
3/6/2007

Bellevue Hospital is drastically expanding its clinic for patients suffering from World Trade Center-related illnesses.

The hospital received $16 million in city money to fund the expansion in September.

"We have doubled capacity," said Alan Aviles, president of the city's Health and Hospitals Corp.

"By the middle of the summer, they will have ramped everything up," Aviles said.

The World Trade Center Environmental Health Center is treating 1,000 people suffering from ailments believed associated with the noxious cloud that engulfed lower Manhattan after the 2001 attacks.

But doctors say they plan to have 6,000 people under care "within the next several years."

There is a waiting list to get treatment at the clinic, which primarily helps downtown residents, office workers and people who assisted in the cleanup efforts at Ground Zero.

Open for 11/2 years, the clinic initially survived mainly on Red Cross donations.

Since receiving city funding, Bellevue has doubled the square footage - 12,000 - allotted to the center and hired additional doctors and support staff.

Despite the expansion, one of the clinic's patients said the city's $16 million is "not enough."

"I don't think it will be an ongoing program if we don't get more," said Esther Regelson, a 47-year-old downtown resident who said the 9/11 attacks aggravated her asthma condition. "These are ailments that aren't cured overnight."
 
CBS 2 Exclusive: 9/11 Claims Another Hero
City Transit Worker Dies From Rare Blood Cancer

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_066231113.html

Lou Young
3/7/2007

(CBS) NEW YORK There are new worries about the health of workers at ground zero following the death of a city transportation worker assigned to the site.

Patricia Rooney says toxic dust killed her husband, Phillip. She is still coming to grips with what she lost.

She buried her husband of 12 years on Monday, a city transportation worker who was 35 when assigned to work at ground zero, 38 when the blood cancer started to waste him and 41 when he died. She has no doubt it was the toxic dust and smoke of 9/11 that took Phillip before his time.

"He was fine until he went down there, a totally healthy man," Patricia said. "Prior to 9/11 he didn't have a job where he was associated with these high risks that are associated with leukemia like the benzene and all the toxins. His job was not like that. He had no job like that. There was nothing in his life to indicate for him to get cancer or the type of leukemia he got."

There's no way to be certain what caused the cancer, but in a man Philip's age we're told it is rare, perhaps 1 in 150,000. Among the ground zero responders, however, the disease seems to be much more common.

"We just did a fundraiser for a man dying of the same leukemia," first responder advocate John Teal said. "Unless you are a fan of mass murder or genocide, you gotta stop the bleeding now. These guys need help. They need help now."

Phillip left behind three children, a son and 2 daughters. Patricia said they deserve the same benefits police officers and firefighters received in similar circumstances.

"My husband was a city employee and they are denying him a three-quarter pension and we deserve it. He deserved it and now he's gone and his three children deserve it."

The city's position is because Phillips never had the kind of pre-employment health screening that police officers and firefighters have there's no way to prove he wasn't already sick when they sent to him to ground zero. The Bush Administration has pledged $25 million for health care for ground zero workers, but that comes a little late for Phillip Rooney.
 
N.Y. lawmakers press the feds on aid for 9/11 first responders

http://www.jems.com/news/280476/

By Sally Goldenberg
Staten Island Advance (NY)
3/8/2007

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Health care for first responders sickened by their work at Ground Zero is an issue that has inflamed New Yorkers, and lawmakers are once again demanding answers from the federal government.

They want to know how much money will be forthcoming for the medical monitoring and treatment programs run by FDNY and Manhattan-based Mount Sinai, and when those programs will get more federal dollars.

In an argument that has evolved into a New York City-vs.-Washington, D.C., battle, members of the New York congressional delegation said yesterday that a federal Department of Health and Human Services' task force missed its self-imposed deadline of releasing its latest report by the end of February.

The department said there was no such deadline.

"We need a plan of action to monitor and treat all those who are sick or injured as a result of the terror attacks. We need a plan of action to ensure that those who need medical monitoring and care have access to it," said Rep. Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn).

At least 2,383 Staten Islanders have enrolled in the FDNY monitoring and treatment program and 2,079 have requested screening and monitoring through the Mount Sinai program.

Fossella signed onto a letter yesterday to Dr. John Agwunobi, who coordinates Sept. 11 health response for the federal department. Dr. Agwunobi appeared last week before a House Budget Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee but failed to deliver the specifics many lawmakers were seeking.

The letter from a host of politicians demands more funds, more information from the health department and a "comprehensive plan to medically monitor all those exposed to the toxins of Ground Zero and treat those who became sick as a result."

A spokesman Health and Human Services, Holly Babin, said the task force will present Dr. Agwunobi by month's end with "an analysis of data to help him shape federal policy related to World Trade Center-associated health conditions."

The lawmakers also took issue with news that emerged during the subcommittee hearing that the task force's recommendations will not be made public.

To date, the federal government has provided at least $252 million in four infusions for first responders who are suffering from lung, gastrointestinal and mental illnesses, which many blame on their work at Ground Zero immediately after the terror attacks.
 
Important deadline for 9/11 1st responders

http://www.courierlife.net/site/news.cfm?newsid=18091374&BRD=2384&PAG=461&dept_id=551981&rfi=6

03/16/2007

State Senator Martin J. Golden is reminding all those who aided in the rescue, recovery or cleanup efforts of the World Trade Center ruins to register by August 14 with the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. By registering, 9/11 responder will preserve the right to file a workers’ compensation claim in case of sickness in the future.

Without a second thought, tens of thousands of people rushed to help after the terrorist attacks. Thousands of others worked at the site in the year after 9/11, and now, five years later, many of those responders are becoming sick and some are dying. Under New York State’s Workers’ Compensation Law, most workers would be barred from filing a claim, two years after an injury.

However, New York State legislators, including Golden, adopted legislation to extend the deadline for filing a claim before August 14.

Golden stated, “Extending the deadline for filing claims for those brave men and women, for the heroes of New York and for America, who responded to Ground Zero and who helped New York City rise to its feet again, was the right thing to do. We must insure that for all of those people who have, or may become, ill due to the rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero, are allowed the opportunity to file their claim. I encourage all to take the necessary steps to file this claim by August 14, 2007 and not miss this opportunity to obtain benefits.”

Golden is encouraging claims to be filed by anyone who worked or volunteered:

· Anywhere in Manhattan south of Canal or Pike Streets;

· On the barge operation between Lower Manhattan & Staten Island;

· At the Staten Island landfill, or

· At the New York City morgue

Information on this important program and the necessary forms are available at www.nycosh.org.

Residents can call the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health hotline at 1-866-WTC-2556 to find out about the new law and eligibility requirements.
 
Speaker discusses efforts to treat 9/11 workers

http://www.newstimeslive.com/news/story.php?id=1034517

By Robert Miller
THE NEWS-TIMES
3/17/2007

When the Twin Towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, the air went black as a cloud of toxic dust and smoke mushroomed out and enveloped lower Manhattan.

Instead of running away, firefighters, police officers and emergency workers ran into it, toward the center of the devastation.

On that day, and for weeks after, thousands of people labored in "the Pit" -- the site where the towers stood. The fires beneath the rubble burned for weeks.

Because wearing a mask-like respirator meant losing some peripheral vision, many workers simply chose to do without one.

Today the lungs of those workers are paying the price.

"Our feeling was that air you can see, air that turns day into night, probably isn't healthy to breathe," said Dr. Robin Herbert, an assistant professor of community and preventive medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and director of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring program at the hospital.

Chosen as Woman of the Year at the 2006 Women's World Awards for her work with 9/11 workers, Herbert spoke Thursday at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury at a lecture to honor Women's Month. The university's School of Arts and Sciences sponsored her talk in collaboration with its Science at Night Program.


Herbert spoke Thursday of seeing rescue workers whose nasal passages were bright red -- "as if they'd suffered chemical burns, which in fact they had."

She also spoke of how 20,000 people have enrolled in the program, with more showing up every year. And she talked about the need for health officials to study others touched by the attack, including families who lived in apartments near the trade center.

"They may have never had their carpets cleaned properly and they've had children crawling around on those carpets," she said. "The issue of the effects on children has been greatly overlooked."

Herbert said there is no good count of how many people worked in the Pit -- whether for one day or six months -- just as there isn't an accurate estimate of how many people were actually in Manhattan on the morning of 9/11.

But Herbert said the number of people exposed to the Pit's fumes probably number 150,000 to 200,000.

Herbert said the rescue and recovery workers were a diverse group: firefighters, New York City police officers, ironworkers, electricians, transit workers, sanitation workers, custodial and maintenance workers.

Astonishingly, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared the air at the World Trade Center site safe to breathe a week after the attack.

"Many of us found that hard to believe," Herbert said. Unfortunately, she said, others did believe it and began walking around the site without protecting their lungs.


"I can't run. I really can't do any heavy work,'' said Brian Shea, a retired New York City firefighter who now lives in New Milford. His asthma went from hardly noticeable to severe after his long hours of rescue work.

"I don't know what my asthma would be like without medication. I have to take medication every day," he said.

Within two days of the attack, doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City began to draw up plans to offer health screening to workers involved in the rescue and recovery work at the World Trade Center.

At WestConn, Herbert cataloged the different things people breathed at the site: about 26,400 gallons of burning jet fuel, a million tons of pulverized building materials, tons of glass dust and thousands of crushed computers.

The gypsum dust from the powdered concrete was like breathing Drano, she said. There were asbestos, PCBs, dioxins, heavy metals and many other chemicals in the mix.

Herbert said when she first started examining patients, she was shocked at how inflamed their nasal passages were.

"I started asking my colleagues if that was what they were seeing and they all said, 'Yes!'" Herbert said. "You could go into a waiting room and immediately tell which people had been at the World Trade Center site. They all had this dry cough."

Herbert said it's now clear that some of the short-term damage caused by breathing 9/11 air isn't going away. About 70 percent of the people examined at Mount Sinai complained of chronic health problems -- inflamed sinuses, asthma, autoimmune disorders and acid reflux.

They suffer from anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Some suffered physical injuries to their limbs and backs that left them in constant pain.

Herbert said the Mount Sinai study is now looking at an increase in cancers. Some -- like leukemia and lymphoma -- can develop quickly after a environmental jolt. Others, like lung cancer, develop more slowly.

Shea of New Milford -- who suffers from debilitating asthma, acid reflux and anxiety -- is enrolled in a similar study run by the Fire Department of New York, in conjunction with the work at Mount Sinai.

"What I'd like to see now is for everyone in the study to get a complete body CAT scan, just to establish a baseline," Shea said. "Then do another five years from now and see if there are any changes."

Herbert said there is a definite need to continue and extend these studies. There is also a moral obligation to do so.

"These people were heroes," she said. "They rushed in without regard to their own health. As a nation, we owe it to them to give them medical care for the rest of their lives.

"After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the civilian personnel on the base who helped after the attack got the same care as the combat forces. We should do the same now."
 
MIKE KILLS 'SENSITIVE' 9/11 PROBE

http://www.nypost.com/seven/0318200...ive_9_11_probe_regionalnews_susan_edelman.htm

By SUSAN EDELMAN

March 18, 2007 -- Mayor Bloomberg killed a study on the city's response to the 9/11 attacks after his lawyers said they did not want a report that cited any missteps or dealt with "environmental" or "respirator issues," says a former city official.

City lawyers raised fears that the proposed "after-action report" - which the U.S. Department of Justice had offered to fund - could lead to criticism and fuel lawsuits, David Longshore, former director of special programs for the city's Office of Emergency Management, told The Post.

"The Bloomberg administration acted to sweep any potential problems under the rug," said Longshore, who was trapped in a loading dock outside the WTC while both towers collapsed. He later developed sinusitis and throat polyps and sued the city.

Longshore, who left his city job last year, showed The Post his work notes on internal OEM discussions with city lawyers in February 2003. His notes say the Law Department "doesn't want a critical report" and "does not want a report that says we did anything wrong."
 
Mayor Lobbies Congress To Help Treat 9/11 Illnesses

http://www.nysun.com/article/50784

By Staff Reporter of the Sun
March 20, 2007

Mayor Bloomberg circulated a report among Congress yesterday calling for lawmakers to fund treatment for World Trade Center-related illnesses and to open a victim compensation fund.

The report, which the mayor's administration released last month, was delivered to members of Congress two days before he is scheduled to testify in Washington before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Mr. Bloomberg was invited by Senator Clinton to make the appearance.

The mayor's 83-page report calls on the federal government to defray $150 million in medical programs annually and to create a $1 billion compensation fund.

"Thousands of Americans sacrificed so much to help our City through its darkest hour, and to help America recover from the deadliest attack on American soil," Mr. Bloomberg wrote in a letter that accompanied the report. "We owe these Americans a commitment."

Mr. Bloomberg's scheduled appearance tomorrow comes about three weeks after two of his two aides testified before a House committee on the same issue.
 
Line-of-Duty Death Benefits for Officer’s Work After 9/11

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/nyregion/21borjas.html?ref=nyregion

By SEWELL CHAN
Published: March 21, 2007

The New York City Police Pension Fund has approved line-of-duty death benefits for the family of Cesar A. Borja, the police officer whose death in January became a symbol of the plight of those who worked in Lower Manhattan after 9/11.

The fund’s board unanimously approved the benefits on March 14. The decision, which was expected, did not resolve the question of what caused the chronic lung ailment that killed Officer Borja and what role his work in Lower Manhattan might have had in the development of the disease.

Under a state law signed by Gov. George E. Pataki in June 2005, public employees who took part in the World Trade Center rescue, recovery or cleanup efforts are presumed, if they became permanently disabled because of certain medical conditions, to have gotten sick in connection with the disaster.

The law applies to those who worked at least 40 hours between Sept. 11, 2001, and Sept. 12, 2002, at the World Trade Center site, the city morgue, the Fresh Kills landfill or on the barges that ran between Manhattan and the landfill. The conditions covered include respiratory, gastroesophageal, psychological and skin illnesses, as well as late-onset diseases like cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and musculoskeletal disorders.

In August 2006, Mr. Pataki signed a second law that extended line-of-duty death benefits to the survivors of public workers who were covered under the first law and later died from their diseases.

Both laws were approved by the State Legislature and signed by Mr. Pataki over the objections of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who argued that Albany was saddling the city with obligations without providing money to meet them. The city estimates that the first bill will cost the city $53 million a year, and the second bill $10 million a year.

Mr. Bloomberg has lately become more supportive of efforts to provide more aid for workers and residents who say they have become ill from exposure to the dust at ground zero. Today, the mayor is scheduled to testify in Washington before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions about the long-term health effects of the 9/11 attack.

On Feb. 13, a panel appointed by the mayor urged the federal government to sharply increase 9/11 health spending and recommended the creation of a special fund to compensate those who became sick.

Nonetheless, the report stated that the two state laws “do not rely on medical research.” The report said that in some cases, the Police Department’s medical staff and the Police Pension Fund may reach opposing conclusions about whether an injury occurred in the line of duty.

Officer Borja’s case embodies some of the continuing controversy over 9/11 health issues.

It was widely reported that Officer Borja, who died at age 52, rushed to ground zero after the twin towers fell. On the evening he died, Jan. 23, his son, Ceasar, attended the State of the Union address to draw attention to the plight of 9/11 workers.

In an article last month, The New York Times reported that Officer Borja, who was assigned to a tow pound in Queens, did not rush to the disaster site and in fact did not work a formal shift in the area until December 2001, after much of the site had been cleared and the fire in the remaining pile had been declared extinguished.

Officer Borja’s memo book showed him working in Lower Manhattan for 17 days over several months after 9/11. But experts say that depending on factors like genetics, his illness, diagnosed as pulmonary fibrosis, can conceivably be caused by modest exposure to certain toxic substances.

According to city records, Officer Borja retired in June 2003 after 20 years of service to the city. Before his death, he received a regular retirement pension of about $34,000 a year, or roughly half his final salary.

After becoming sick, Officer Borja applied in April 2006 for an accidental disability pension under the 2005 law. The application had not yet been acted on when he died.

The Police Pension Fund has yet to calculate the precise amount of the death benefits, but it will most likely be $69,000 to $74,000 a year, officials said.

A woman who answered the telephone at the Borja residence yesterday declined to comment on the pension decision.
 
New Yorkers get special 9/11 clinic

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6474449.stm

By Matt Wells
BBC News, New York

More than five years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, thousands of New York's downtown residents are convinced that toxic residues still lurking inside their homes are damaging their health.

And it seems that the city's politicians and health authorities are taking their concerns seriously.

A new health clinic to diagnose and treat those people who live and work around Ground Zero has just opened with more than $17m funding from the city and from private charities.

Native Welshman-turned-New Yorker Craig Hall is president of the World Trade Center Residents' Coalition. "Things will get worse as the years go on - that's our worry," he says, while handing out health-survey leaflets in the lobby of one downtown residential block.

Many of the "first-responders" to the 9/11 attacks - firefighters, medics and police, together with volunteers who sorted through the debris - have suffered from well-publicised respiratory problems. Their medical treatment and assessment has been on-going for several years now.

But Mr Hall believes that ordinary citizens are still at risk and that the legacy of the destruction of the towers is far more active and pernicious than previously thought.

Dust reservoirs
"We lived and worked down here, and the buildings have still not been cleaned properly... We believe there are still dust reservoirs inside the air-conditioning units," Mr Hall says.

"There's all the pulverised glass-fibre, the concrete dust, and when all this stuff's mixed in with the PCBs, the heavy-metals, the mercury, the lead - it's a really toxic soup."

Mr Hall has been diagnosed with lung damage, and he maintains that there are too many others who share common symptoms - such as so-called "World Trade Center cough", shortness of breath, and chronic digestion problems - for it to be put down to stress or psychosomatic factors.

Downtown residents' groups are still hoping for millions more in federal funding from Washington, but New York and its mayor, Michael Bloomberg, have already responded to their concerns.

The state-of-the-art WTC Environmental Health Center has just opened on the second floor of the vast Bellevue Hospital, just above the downtown area, on First Avenue.

Symptoms 'real'
The small team of medical specialists grew out of an asthma clinic, and it now includes a number of psychologists. The unit is headed by Dr Joan Reibman, who is convinced that the symptoms are real and medically related.

"We've not seen abuse of this programme," she said, answering the question of whether some residents were just using the free services of the clinic to treat issues that had nothing to do with 11 September.

In fact, she believes that there has been reluctance on the part of many, to come forward and accept that 9/11 may be making them ill.

"Because people have been so appreciative of the work of the responders - people were embarrassed to say that we honour these people but we also have some symptoms as well," she said.

Risk 'exaggerated'
But not all New Yorkers are convinced that funding potentially limitless health care for those living near Ground Zero, is a fair strategy. There are some limited-government advocates who believe tougher questions need to be asked.

"Just as the media and politicians should take care not to heighten terrorism's impact by exaggerating the risk it poses to the public, so, too, should we be cautious about making an already-nervous population think they have been 'poisoned'," writes Todd Seavey, on the subject of a workers' health study published last September.

But at the new clinic treating the residents, Dr Reibman is diplomatic on the question of the continuing threat posed by potential toxic residue.

"Unfortunately, there was no real, consistent clean-up of Lower-Manhattan, and we don't really know what was in the buildings... and what remains in the buildings. Certainly, it remains an issue with other agencies."
 
Hillary plots 9/11 attack on Rudy

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1596828.ece

Tony Allen-Mills, New York
3/31/2007

The first face-to-face confrontation of the 2008 presidential race is looming over a US Senate inquiry into health problems suffered by workers at New York’s ground zero after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

As the chairwoman of a Senate subcommittee investigating complaints that workers were misled about air quality after the collapse of the twin towers, Senator Hillary Clinton, the Democrat front-runner for the presidential nomination, confirmed last week that she is considering calling Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and the leading Republican contender, to testify at a public hearing.

The health committee’s inquiry has presented Clinton with an intriguing political choice with potentially volatile repercussions for the presidential race. By calling Giuliani as a witness, she could place him in the awkward position of having to submit to her senatorial authority and face a grilling that might dent the heroic image he acquired for his response to the 9/11 attacks.

At the same time Democratic aides have acknowledged that Clinton might risk being accused of playing politics with a tragedy. Giuliani said last week that he was happy to testify “to anybody who has a fair mind about it” and is “approaching it from a nonpolitical point of view”.
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Clinton said last week she was still “looking at all the people available to testify”. But other prominent New York Democrats have demanded Giuliani should answer questions about whether he could have done more as mayor to protect the workers who spent weeks digging in dust and dirt that is now considered to have been dangerously toxic.

“Who made decisions, if any, that resulted unnecessarily in a lot of people getting sick?” asked Congressman Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes the World Trade Center site.

The Senate inquiry follows claims by at least 9,000 New Yorkers that they are suffering from lung and stomach ailments they blame on the toxic rubble at ground zero. Their cause attracted national attention in January when Clinton invited the son of Cesar Borja, a stricken New York policeman, to attend President George W Bush’s state of the union address as her guest. Borja was waiting for a lung transplant but died of respiratory failure a few hours before Bush spoke.

Despite subsequent revelations that Borja may not have spent long periods working at ground zero, the health inquiry has become a potential embarrassment for Giuliani, who is increasingly being forced to defend the actions that made him a national icon. He was dubbed “America’s mayor” by Oprah Winfrey, the talk show host.

Last month Giuliani was fiercely criticised by a firemen’s union that has never forgiven him for halting the search for bodies. The mayor was anxious at the time that clean-up operations should begin, but more than five years later body parts are still being found around ground zero.

He has also been criticised for failing to provide the New York Fire Department with more modern communications equipment, which was requested after the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

Sally Regenhard, whose son was one of the 343 firefighters killed in the attacks, said last week she had no problem if Giuliani ran for president on his record of reducing New York crime, “but when he runs on 9/11, I want the American people to know he was part of the problem”.

Clinton has been swift to exploit her rival’s difficulties. She earned three standing ovations at a firemen’s convention in Washington this month and promised that, as president, she would “take care of the people who have taken care of us”.

Yet she has also been careful to avoid direct criticism of Giuliani, and several analysts have warned that a face-to-face challenge on his 9/11 record would be risky. “It’s not smart strategy. It’s too early,” Douglas Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College, told the New York Sun. Instead she should “take the high road”.

Behind the fencing over health issues lies mounting pressure on both Clinton and Giuliani camps to maintain the healthy opinion poll leads that each has staked out in the race for their respective party nominations. In a Gallup poll published last week by USA Today, Giuliani’s lead over Senator John McCain of Arizona had shrunk from 24 points at the beginning of March to nine points three weeks later.

The former mayor also faces a possible challenge from former senator Fred Thompson, a Hollywood actor turned conservative politician who shot from nil to 12 points in the same poll, simply by announcing that he was considering entering the race.

In the Gallup poll, Clinton’s lead over Senator Barack Obama, who is seeking to become the first African-American president, narrowed slightly from 14 points to 13 points.

On Thursday a new Time magazine poll gave Clinton only an eight point lead over Obama, with former senator John Edwards apparently benefiting from a major sympathy boost after the announcement that his wife’s cancer has become incurable. Edwards jumped nine points to 26 points, only four behind Obama.

If Clinton decides to call Giuliani as a witness, her health inquiry may turn into an intriguing preview of next year’s presidential debates. But the ex-mayor warned the senator last week that he expected any testimony about health issues at ground zero to be “above politics”, and he also reminded her he was a possible victim himself.

“I was probably there as often as anybody, as you know,” he said. “So any exposure to anything bad that anyone else has, I personally had.”
 
New Maloney Bill To Help 9/11 Responders

http://www.qgazette.com/news/2007/0404/features/032.html

BY JOHN TOSCANO
4/4/2007

The first legislation that provides both health care and compensation to individuals who were sick or injured as a result of the 9/11 attacks was introduced last week by Congressmembers Carolyn Maloney and Vito Fossella, who have been in the forefront of the effort to take care of Ground Zero first responders.

At the same time, Mayor Michael Bloomberg appealed to a U.S. Senate committee to reopen the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund for ailing Ground Zero responders and to provide the $150 million needed annually to continue to treat them.

The mayor urged panel members to support a bill introduced by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D- New York) that would provide grants for 9/11-related health care.

Bloomberg stated: "Congress cannot turn its back on those who responded with courage and suffered through this terrible catastrophe."

The Maloney- Fossella bipartisan bill would extend long-term medical monitoring to everyone exposed to Ground Zero toxins and provide federally funded health care to anyone who has become sick as a result.

Additionally, the legislation would reopen the federal victim Compensation Fund. (VCF), for which the mayor appealed at the Senate committee hearing.

Maloney said the VCF would take care of the sick 9/11 responders and Lower Manhattan residents.

Original co-sponsors of the Maloney- Fossella bill included Congressmember Joseph Crowley (D- Queens/The Bronx). The measure is named after James Zadroga, a New York Police Department homicide detective and 9/11 responder who died as a result of exposures to toxins at Ground Zero.

Maloney declared that the Zadroga Act would "provide both medical care and compensation for sick and injured responders, residents, workers and students".

The legislation, she said, also "ensures long-term, direct funding for the highly successful Centers of Excellence at Mt. Sinai Hospital, Bellevue Hospital and the FDNY".

"Thousands of Americans are suffering as a direct result of 9/11," Maloney added. "Our bill provides medical monitoring for everyone exposed to Ground Zero toxins, treatment for anyone who's sick, and compensation for anyone who sustained economic losses due to illness or injury."

Fossella said, "This bill goes further by directing the National Institutes of Health to conduct research so that doctors can more effectively diagnose and treat the unique health issues related to 9/11."
 
9/11 responders urged to register for health funds
N.Y. has set a deadline of Aug. 14 for workers to file for compensation.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/loca...nders_urged_to_register_for_health_funds.html

By Jane M. Von Bergen
Inquirer Staff Writer
4/8/2007

For three days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Matt Quigley, driven by patriotism and an intense desire to help, stood in a bucket line on the hot remains of the World Trade Center, frantically removing debris, hoping to find someone alive.

The Gloucester County construction laborer had no respirator - despite the presence of dust and fumes that turned the noon sky black and blanketed everything in a pale-gray, asbestos-laden powder.

Quigley, now 43, would do it again, even though, he said this week, "I feel like my chest is always heavy. I've got a hard time breathing. My lungs are always filled. My doctor tells me I have the lungs of a 70-year-old man."

As public-health workers, labor activists, and lawyers in New York learn more about the health problems of workers who responded Sept. 11, 2001, they are frantically trying to reach beyond Manhattan's borders to people such as Quigley, who lives in Clayton.

More than 20,000 people, by some estimates, rushed toward Lower Manhattan after the attack to help, many coming from nearby states.

The New York State Workers' Compensation Board, which has funds to help cover health-care costs, has set a deadline of Aug. 14 for Sept. 11 workers to register.

That marks their place so they can file a claim for benefits - either now if they are already sick, or later if they develop an illness. Eligible workers include volunteers and out-of-state residents.

Separately, public-health specialists from the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program want to examine as many Sept. 11 workers as possible for health problems, including respiratory ailments such as asthma and severe sinusitis, as well as acid reflux and lingering psychological issues. Besides providing care, the program's aim is to gain understanding of medical trends and treatment needs over time.

On Thursday, PhilaPOSH, the labor-funded Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health, brought in experts on World Trade Center health problems for sparsely attended informational meetings at the Iron Workers Local 401 union hall in Northeast Philadelphia.

PhilaPOSH's sister organization, the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), has been coordinating the major outreach effort in New York.

Among the speakers was former Northeast High School graduate Stephen Levin, medical director of the Mount Sinai Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine in New York, which has examined 16,000 Sept. 11 responders. Half of them have been diagnosed with illnesses.

Levin used photographs of the World Trade Center to illustrate the dust and fumes that workers breathed - images Quigley recalls vividly.

"We came across hands, legs, people buried under steel, and there was no color, no blood. If you found a hand, there would be no blood because the dust absorbed it all," said Quigley, who started as a Sept. 11 volunteer and later became a paid worker.

Levin said doctors often treated workers' respiratory problems as infections when, as it turned out, many were the result of chemical burns in their lungs.

When the towers collapsed, "it reduced everything to a finer size than is usually found in a demolition site," he said. The powder and glass fibers are what is now causing problems.

Some who helped after Sept. 11 were trained rescue workers. Construction companies such as J.S. Cornell & Son in Philadelphia dispatched ironworkers and riggers because they were experienced in moving heavy beams in precarious situations.

"I got a lot more shortness of breath" after working there, said Craig Collins, 47, of Gilbertsville, an ironworker sent by Cornell two days after the attack. He stayed to volunteer. "I just attributed it to getting older."

Ironworker James Weisser, 47, of Perkiomenville, also went up for Cornell, first as a worker, then as a volunteer. "Last year, I had a heart attack, and I have a little trouble breathing," he said.

Both men filled out claim forms at Thursday's event.

So did a Philadelphia firefighter who responded to Manhattan on Sept. 11. Now he has breathing problems and still feels traumatized. But he's afraid to admit to being sick, because he's worried about losing his job.

9/11 Health-Related Claims

What's the deadline to register? It is Aug. 14, under the New York State Workers' Compensation Law.

Who should register? Anyone who did rescue, recovery and cleanup work in Lower Manhattan, at the Staten Island landfill, on the landfill barges, and at the morgue from Sept. 11, 2001, to Sept. 12, 2002.

Can volunteers or undocumented workers file? Yes.

Do you have to be a resident of New York State? No.

What's the procedure? Call 1-866-WTC-2556 for a claim form for workers' compensation benefits.

What if you are healthy? Registering protects you if you develop a 9/11-related illness later.

For more information:

The New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health at 212-227-6440 or www.nycosh.org.

The World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program at 1-888-702-0630 or www.wtcexams.org. The closest facility is at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Piscataway at 732-445-0123. A Philadelphia-area clinic is expected to open this year.

Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health at 215-386-7000 or www.philaposh.org.

SOURCE: New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health
 
$4.7 Million Raised to Treat Those Who Fell Ill After 9/11

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/nyregion/09fund.html

Published: April 9, 2007

The 9/11 Neediest Medical Campaign to help those who developed serious illnesses after the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center has collected $300,000 since February for a total of nearly $4.7 million, fund officials announced.

Recent contributions or pledges to the campaign include $104,000 from the Star-Ledger Disaster Relief Fund of the Community Foundation of New Jersey; $100,000 from the Carnegie Corporation; and $112,000 from 205 individual donors.

The funds will be divided between Mount Sinai Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital Center for uninsured patients. A $100,000 grant will go to St. Vincent’s World Trade Center Healing Services for treatment of patients suffering major mental illnesses arising from 9/11.

In February, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, the New York Community Trust, the Ford Foundation, and the Open Society Institute each contributed $1 million to a charity organized by the Neediest Cases Fund. The Altman Foundation also gave $250,000, the United Way of New York City $75,000, and Trinity Church $25,000.

The board of the Community Trust voted on Friday to divide its grant of $1 million between Bellevue and Beyond Ground Zero, a community service organization that works with Bellevue to help people affected by the 9/11 disaster.

Last year, the federal government provided $26 million to treat some, but not all, who fell ill after the attack. The money from the Neediest Medical Campaign will be available to doctors whose patients are not eligible for federal aid.

The city’s World Trade Center Health Panel in February estimated that screening and treatment of ailments associated with ground zero costs the nation $393 million annually.
 
9/11 IS STILL TAKING COPS' BREATH AWAY

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04162007/news/regionalnews/9_11_is_still_taking_cops_breath_away_regionalnews_carl_campanile.htm

By CARL CAMPANILE

April 16, 2007 -- The environmental disaster caused by 9/11 hit New York's Finest especially hard, a shocking new health study shows.

The number of police responders who suffered from respiratory illnesses more than doubled a year and half after initial post-9/11 medical checkups, the survey said.

"Most of the lower-respiratory symptoms increased between one month and 19 months after 9/11," said the analysis of 471 officers, conducted by Penn State/Monmouth University medical researchers.

Some 44 percent reported shortness of breath 19 months later, up from 19 percent a month after the disaster.

Cops who reported coughing up phlegm shot up to 31 percent from 14 percent and those wheezing doubled to 26 percent from 13 percent by mid-2003, according to the study published in the Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

About 43 percent of officers screened in October 2001 had what is called World Trade Center cough - and the same percentage reported hacking symptoms in 2003.

"We were surprised by the results. The delayed onset was unexpected. We were looking to see improvement over time," co-author Dr. Mark Tulchinsky told The Post.

Among the findings is that one-third of cops who didn't have WTC cough still reported shortness of breath.

It's the first study that solely tracked the health of police officers involved in Ground Zero efforts.

The findings mirror prior 9/11 health studies and show that many cops were sickened as severely as firefighters.

A medical analysis of firefighters last year found that FDNY rescuers who sucked in toxic air at Ground Zero lost the equivalent of 12 years of lung function. And a Mount Sinai study found 70 percent of rescue and cleanup workers reported worsening respiratory conditions between 2002 and 2004.

The study grouped police officers in three categories: heavy exposure for those who worked at Ground Zero during the massive cloud plume from the collapse of the buildings; moderate for those who worked downtown on Sept. 12 and thereafter; and light risk for those on duty in other boroughs on and after 9/11.

"Heavy exposure conferred a higher likelihood of developing all four early-onset respiratory symptoms compared with light exposure," the researchers said.

For instance, about half of cops in the heavy-exposure group had chronic cough, compared to 31 percent among the lightly exposed group by 2003.

And 46 percent of those in the high-exposure group suffered shortness of breath, compared to 32 percent in the low-risk group.

Meanwhile 29 percent of the heavy exposed cops were wheezing compared to just to 14 percent in the low-risk group.

But even in the light-risk group, the number with wheezing quadrupled over 19 months.

The reason why some cops got sick sooner and others later - and others not at all - remains a mystery and could be chalked up to the physical condition of each person as well as the severity of exposure, the report said.

"Even a slight exposure in a susceptible individual can produce significant symptoms, while a higher exposure may produce no symptoms in someone who is less susceptible," the study said.

The findings support the need for continuing monitoring and treatment of all WTC rescue and cleanup workers - not just those with early respiratory symptoms - researchers concluded.
 
9/11 KID'S BENEFITS

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04122007/news/regionalnews/9_11_kids_benefits_regionalnews_carl_campanile.htm

By CARL CAMPANILE

April 12, 2007 -- The city yesterday awarded full benefits to the daughter of Detective James Zadroga - whose death from lung disease contracted at Ground Zero led to a new law providing more generous benefits to families of responders struck by 9/11- related illness.

The police pension board voted unanimously to give 5-year-old Tyler Ann a 100 percent line of duty benefit until she's an adult. She also will receive health insurance.

Prior to the decision, she was receiving a 75 percent benefit and no health insurance.

A New Jersey coroner had concluded Zadroga's death was caused by breathing toxic dust from the collapsed World Trade Center towers in the first such medical finding for a Ground Zero responder.

Tyler Ann's mom has died from an unrelated illness and her grandparents now care for her.

The pension board acted after the Detectives Endowment Association helped convince the state Legislature to pass the "Zadroga Law" increasing survivor benefits.

Meanwhile, another victim of the attack has been identified, officials said yesterday.

She's Carol LaPlante, who was last seen on a security camera leaving a church before heading to her office at the Trade Center.

LaPlante, 59, worked for Marsh & McLennan - which occupied floors 93 through 100 of the north tower.

The Medical Examiner's Office has identified 1,607 of 2,749 victims from 9/11 so far and continues to retest remains as advances in DNA technology become available.
 
Court Backs EPA Chief in 9/11 Toxins Case

http://www.nysun.com/article/52903

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
April 20, 2007

A federal appellate court has decided that it was not "conscience-shocking" for the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to have reassured New Yorkers that the air near ground zero was safe following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, even if the air was toxic.

Yesterday's decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals throws out a lawsuit against a former leader of the EPA, Christine Whitman.

The panel of three judges reasoned that the government's interest in returning New York to normalcy following the attacks should protect it from lawsuits alleging that the government made false statements about air quality. The court did not make any factual finding as to the quality of the air, or as to whether the EPA had intentionally misled the public, which Ms. Whitman has denied doing.

"When great harm is likely to befall someone no matter what a government official does, the allocation of risk may be a burden on the conscience of the one who must make such decisions, but does not shock the contemporary conscience," the circuit's chief judge, Dennis Jacobs, wrote. "These principles apply notwithstanding the great service rendered by those who repaired New York, the heroism of those who entered the site when it was unstable and on fire, and the serious health consequences that are plausibly alleged."

Whether a government official's actions are "conscience-shocking" is a legal standard that decides whether an official is liable, in certain types of lawsuits.

"I always thought that if you accepted they were lies — lies to get these people working down there — that those lies were inherently conscience-shocking," the lawyer who brought the case, Stephen Riegel of Weitz and Luxemberg P.C., said.

The lawsuit was a class action on behalf of those who searched for survivors and cleaned up ground zero following the attacks. The men now suffer respiratory ailments, Mr. Riegel said.

A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment.

The court's holding in this case suggests that it will also dismiss a similar suit brought on behalf of residents near to the World Trade Center. The ruling yesterday is unlikely to have a result on another class action on behalf of workers at ground zero, which was brought under a different legal theory, Mr. Riegel said.

The panel also included judges Reena Raggi and Robert Sack.
 
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