A Fallen Hero - Video Inside

(Gold9472: Thanks to Willie Rodriquez for sending this to me.)

Dear Mr. Rodriguez:

With the start of the 110th Congress, I joined Senators Schumer, Kennedy, Lautenberg and Menendez in re-introducing the 9/11 Heroes Health Improvement Act of 2007 that would provide over $1.9 billion in medical and mental health monitoring and treatment grants, available from 2008-2012, to firefighters, police officers, EMTs, paramedics, building and construction trades workers, volunteers, residents, and others whose health was directly impacted at Ground Zero and Fresh Kills as well as those who responded to the Pentagon attack. This funding would be administered through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and would expand access to health monitoring and health care to all of those who served, lived and worked in the se area s in the aftermath of 9/11. Similar legislation was introduced late last year.

Time is passing while brave, selfless people are getting sick and dying. This has to be one of the President's top priorities in his upcoming budget.I contacted the President's Director of the Office of Management and Budget to ask that some additional funds be included in the President's Budget for 2008 when it is sent up to Congress next month; but if the President will not act, then we will .

Late last year , my colleagues and I called on the President to include funds in his upcoming Fiscal Year 2008 Budget, due to be released in February. [See -http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=266329&& ]. In the event that the funding is not included, we will push hard for our own legislation to be enacted. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, of which I am a member and Senator Kennedy is Chairman has jurisdiction over the9/11 Heroes Health Improvement Act of 2007 and has also committed to hearings on 9/11 health effects in the near future.

A five-year study conducted by Mount Sinai Medical Center of Ground Zero first responders found that almost 70 percent of World Trade Center ( WTC ) responders had new or substantially worsened respiratory symptoms following their work at the WTC site. Among the responders who were asymptomatic before 9/11, 61 percent developed respiratory symptoms while working at the WTC site. Studies published by the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) also show that over 90 percent of FDNY rescue workers had new respiratory symptoms follo wing their work at WTC; over percent continue to have respiratory and or mental health symptomatology; the average decrease in pulmonary function in the first year after WTC was 372ml (12 times the annual decline in the five years pre-WTC); 25 percent of those tested who were present during the morning of the attack have objective evidence for airway hyper reactivity consistent with asthma; and nearly 700 (5 percent of exposed workforce) have qualified for respiratory disability pensions.

I have continually cautioned that those who breathed the toxic air around Ground Zero in the days, weeks and months after 9/11 would suffer health effects and now our worst fears are being realized. I am pleased that this is one of the first bills to be introduced in the new Congress and I will continue to fight for this funding because I believe we have a moral obligation as a nation to help those whose health was affected by 9/11. We must relieve their suffering and get them the help they need and deserve.

Sincerely,
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
 
Lawmakers Push 9/11 Responder Aid Bill

http://www.occupationalhazards.com/News/Article/44309/Lawmakers_Push_911_Responder_Aid_Bill.aspx

By Katherine Torres
1/8/2007

New York and New Jersey lawmakers, joined by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., re-submitted a bill that would provide $1.9 billion in medical and mental health monitoring for emergency response workers whose health was directly impacted by the 9/11 aftermath.

The 9/11 Heroes Health Improvement Act of 2007 – re-introduced by Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.; Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.; Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; and Kennedy, D-Mass. – is one of the first bills to be presented to the new Congress.

The money would be paid out from 2008 to 2012 to firefighters, police officers, EMTs and others who were at Ground Zero and Fresh Kills, on Staten Island, in addition to those who responded to the Pentagon attack.

Clinton: "If the President Will Not Act, Then We Will"
Late last year, Clinton, Schumer and Kennedy called on President Bush to include 9/11 responder funds in his upcoming fiscal year 2008 budget, due to be released in February. In the event that the funding is not included, the five senators have said they will push hard for their own legislation to be enacted.

" … Over the past 5 years, I have repeatedly and urgently called for the necessary funding to help 9/11 victims get the medical assistance they need," Schumer said. "Today, as the attacks continue to claim new victims, I hope the president understands that we can't afford to wait any longer."

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, of which Clinton is a member and Kennedy is chairman, has jurisdiction over the re-introduced bill and also has committed to hearings on 9/11 health effects in the near future, Clinton said.

"Time is passing while brave, selfless people are getting sick and dying," Clinton said. "…If the president will not act, then we will."

Studies: Many WTC Responders Showing Health Effects
A 5-year study conducted by Mount Sinai Medical Center of Ground Zero first responders found that almost 70 percent of World Trade Center (WTC) responders had new or substantially worsened respiratory symptoms following their work at the WTC site. Among the responders who did not show symptoms of ill health before 9/11, 61 percent developed respiratory symptoms while working at the WTC site, according to the study.

Studies published by the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) show that more than 90 percent of FDNY rescue workers had new respiratory symptoms following their work at WTC and that more than 30 percent continue to have respiratory and/or mental health symptoms.
 
9/11 hero's fatal sickness
49-year-old responder dies of esophageal cancer tied to the toxic dust

http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/1168433174102810.xml&coll=1

Wednesday, January 10, 2007
By TEVAH PLATT
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 may have claimed still another Staten Island victim.

Frederick J. Stuck III, 49, a retired deputy sheriff and a first responder on Sept. 11, died yesterday at his Port Richmond home. His wife, Lou Ann, said the cause was esophageal cancer, which she believes resulted from exposure to the toxic dust clouds that have made thousands of New Yorkers sick.

When asked yesterday about her husband's experiences on Sept. 11, Mrs. Stuck's voice became strained. "I can't talk about this," she said. "This was the cause of the whole thing."

The couple's son, Frederick IV, said his father had responded immediately following the attacks and was part of a search for survivors at the former World Trade Center PATH station. For at least six weeks, he worked long hours in the rubble. He returned only briefly to Port Richmond during that time, coming home covered in the dust that smothered Lower Manhattan -- only to sleep and shower and return to Ground Zero.

"He was proud to be a part of the rescue," Mrs. Stuck said. "He was a very proud American. He wanted to be there to help everybody."

Stuck developed asthma shortly after Sept. 11, his wife said, and had to use an inhaler. He developed an ache in his chest, then swallowing became difficult. When he was diagnosed with fourth-stage cancer in April, there was little that could be done.

A report issued this September by Mount Sinai Medical Center found that nearly 70 percent of Ground Zero workers suffered lung problems as a result of their exposure to toxins in the dust-cloud. Manhattan trial lawyers David Worby and Paul Napoli have filed about 8,000 lawsuits claiming the city failed to protect workers from these dangers.

But the city has maintained it is nearly impossible to determine a causal link between the recovery work at Ground Zero and illnesses that arise on an individual basis, and Stuck is a case in point. Whether his selfless acts were fatal has not been medically determined; his doctors pointed to his smoking as a young man (a habit he kicked almost 20 years ago) as a potential cause, Mrs. Stuck said.

What his family knows for sure is that Stuck was, until recently, relatively healthy. The Army veteran and retired deputy sheriff, an outdoorsman who idolized John Wayne, had been, according to his wife, exceptionally "youthful."

HIS BIRTHDAY
Today would have been his 50th birthday.

The native of Garfield, N.J., moved to Port Richmond in 1991, following his marriage to the former Lou Ann Ferone in 1988.

He moved to the Island to work for the New York City Sheriff's Office, which he did for 19 years, in all five boroughs. Stuck, who liked to share stories about his job, was injured while making an arrest in 2003. He retired last year.

"There are many Fred Stuck stories," a co-worker said yesterday. "Those of us who had the opportunity to work side by side with Fred knew that they could not ask for a better partner to depend on in any situation."

The Vietnam War-era veteran who served in the U.S. Army from 1974 to 1977 was a member of the Cichon Post, American Legion, in Port Richmond. He enjoyed hunting and fishing in the Catskills -- a passion he shared with his children and many friends. Stuck would pull out his guitar at barbecues and family gatherings and sing Irish and folk songs. He had a large collection of tools and was known in the neighborhood for his handiness, as well as his small talk and his smile, family said. He also collected John Wayne movies, action figures and memorabilia.

HIS KEEPSAKES
Stuck also maintained a solemn collection he kept private -- an album of photographs and keepsakes from the recovery effort. He had swapped badges with fellow officers from around the country, with whom he had forged a bond, and he kept these, along with the American flag bandanna he wore every day at the site.

"He was a true officer and a gentleman, a proud and devoted American," Mrs. Stuck said. She also described her husband, a parishioner of St. Roch's R.C. Church, Port Richmond, as a faithful man who prayed daily, and a devoted father of four.

Friends had encouraged the Stuck family to look into benefits available to ailing recovery workers, but Stuck had said he was receiving health care and just wanted to focus on getting better. He never pursued litigation, though he did alert his co-workers, encouraging them to seek medical tests in hopes they might detect Sept. 11-related health problems early.

"He apologized to me for being sick," Mrs. Stuck said. "He said he was going to fight this. He said, 'Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere.' ... But first you pray to God to keep him, then you pray to God to take him. He was suffering."

HIS SPIRIT
But the young widow also said she had been inspired by her husband, who remained positive throughout his illness.

"I know he's in heaven now, that he's looking down on me and he'll give me the strength to get through this," she said.

According to Advance records, Stuck is the second Staten Islander to die from an illness potentially tied to the recovery effort.

"It's going to continue to be a problem," said Dennis McKeon, executive director of the Bloomfield-based Where-To-Turn, a non-profit group that advocates for families who suffered after Sept. 11.

The American Red Cross operates a Sept. 11 Recovery Program with services for those experiencing health problems. Those seeking information may call 212-812-4348.

Tevah Platt is a news reporter for the Advance. She may be reached at [email protected].
 
Is this the longest thread on this board?

Yet another 9/11 toxic dust story swept under the rug.
 
It may be. There are a few scattered environmental disaster related threads on the board, but once I created this one after James Zadroga died, it's become the environmental disaster thread.
 
Press EPA to expand 9/11 tests

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/487929p-410867c.html

BY FRANK LOMBARDI
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU
1/11/2007

Federal officials were prodded yesterday to follow the plume of the 9/11 attacks beyond lower Manhattan when they launch a final testing phase for contaminants.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will conduct a $7 million testing and cleanup program this spring in a limited area of lower Manhattan for any lingering contaminants from the 9/11 attacks more than five years ago.

The program will focus on the same Manhattan area included in a $30 million testing and cleanup effort in 2002 and 2003, south of Canal St. and west of Allen and Pike Sts.

But numerous elected officials, community representatives, civic and environmental activists, and others are pushing the EPA to expand the program into downtown Brooklyn and areas north of Canal St.

That prodding intensified yesterday at a City Council hearing held by the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Committee, which drew testimony from Alan Steinberg, the regional EPA administrator.

Steinberg took heat for the limited geographic scope of the new testing from City Council members, particularly Alan Gerson (D-Manhattan), who heads the committee, and David Yassky (D-Brooklyn), whose district includes downtown Brooklyn.

In his questioning, Gerson repeatedly faulted the inadequacy of the testing procedures and limited budget. Only property owners requesting to have their apartments or commercial premises tested - and cleaned up, if necessary - will be eligible for the voluntary program,

Steinberg repeatedly defended the decision to limit the program to the area that sustained the greatest impact from the 9/11 fallout. Previous testing in that area found that national safety levels for environmental contaminants were "less than 1%" above the norm.

He cited a statement in August by city Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden that the potential health risks from any remaining 9/11 dust in that area were "extremely low or nonexistent."

Steinberg contended the risks would be even lower in Brooklyn and areas farther from Ground Zero.

Gerson asked if the testing was "a political program," prompting Steinberg to fire back, "When you're being responsive to concerns of the community, I don't consider that political. I consider that good government."

Yassky scolded Steinberg's agency for never testing Brooklyn buildings that had "inch-thick" layers of dust and debris from 9/11.

"That's Al Qaeda's fault, but it is our fault and it is your fault, the federal government's fault, that nothing was done to get rid of it," Yassky said.
 
Residents want EPA to rework dust plan
Brooklyn, Chinatown left out of voluntary 9/11 clean up program

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Residents_want_EPA_to_rework_dust_plan/335.html

by amy zimmer / metro new york
DEC 13, 2005

FINANCIAL DISTRICT — Despite objections from downtown residents and workers — and members of its own panel of experts — the Environmental Protection Agency disbanded the panel yesterday and pressed ahead with a plan many feel is inadequate to test for toxic dust created by the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Many people who live and work in Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn believe asthma, bronchitis and other ailments are linked to the toxic plume of smoke that covered the area after the Twin Towers collapsed. They believe the remnants of that smoke are still coating their carpets and ventilation systems.

They hoped their concerns would be addressed by the panel of scientists and doctors — the World Trade Center Expert Technical Review Panel — convened nearly two years ago by the EPA to advise on a testing and cleanup plan. The panel suggested a comprehensive plan targeting not only residences, but also workplaces and areas such as Chinatown, the Lower East Side and parts of Brooklyn. But when the EPA released their final plan last month, the program included only residences below Canal Street that volunteered for testing.

“I don’t think anything we say will be taken into consideration by the EPA,” said Micki Siegal de Hernandez, the labor liaison on the panel yesterday at its last public hearing. The final plan, she said, was crafted by the EPA behind closed doors.

The EPA is a “bunch of brainiacs and bookworms who just look at numbers but don’t look at people’s pain,” said John Feal, a construction worker who lost half a foot in an accident while working in “the pit” at Ground Zero. “The people [downtown] and in Brooklyn pay taxes and deserve to know their tax money is going to protect their health.”

The EPA could not identify a “signature” set of contaminants clearly linked to WTC dust to “differentiate it from contaminants from 200 years of living in New York.” So it decided to “concentrate its resources” — $7 million in remaining 9/11 FEMA money — to the area “clearly contaminated,” said E. Timothy Oppelt, the panel’s interim chair and EPA’s director of the National Homeland Security Research Center.

“We think this is a scientifically responsible program, notwithstanding comments from some members of the panel,” he said.

Many of the panelists thought a signature could still be determined. “Perhaps we gave up on the signature too soon and the EPA got it wrong,” Oppelt conceded.

“If you’re going to clean up apartment A or B, but not C, and not the ventilation system, then apartment C could re-contaminate the others,” said Dave Newman, an industrial hygienist with the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. “This plan will be used to close the door on the existence of contamination from 9/11 and will just give false assurances.”
 
New lung or WTC cop dies
Officer stricken after months at Ground Zero

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/489050p-411862c.html

By ADAM LISBERG
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Eva Borja cannot talk to her husband because he is heavily sedated.

Eva and their children (from l.), Ceasar, 21, Nhia, 12, and Evan, 16, are hoping for a miracle.

His family says Cesar Borja did not wear a respirator at Ground Zero because feds said the air was safe to breathe.

Under a jumble of gray wires and clear plastic tubes, Cesar Borja lies unconscious. A nurse checks the monitor at his bedside. The skin on his neck twitches.

Borja is in critical condition with pulmonary fibrosis, kept under sedation, unable to speak even if a breathing tube weren't in his mouth. His eyes are closed.

Beneath the medical hardware that keeps him alive, Borja, 52, still has a handsome, rugged face, topped with the short, spiky hair of a former soldier who never missed a day of work in his 20 years as a city cop.

But everything changed when the World Trade Center fell on Sept. 11, 2001. Borja, a father of three from Bayside, Queens, volunteered to work months of 16-hour shifts in the rubble, breathing in clouds of toxic dust.

He filed his retirement papers two years later, about the time he started coughing. A fast-acting disease was crawling through his chest, squeezing his every breath, filling his lungs with scar tissue.

Unless he gets a lung transplant, Borja will die.

"When I see him, I just want him back home," said his daughter Nhia, 12. "My dad is so caring for everyone, and it's just so hard to see him like this, because he doesn't deserve this at all."

At least four other Ground Zero workers have died of pulmonary fibrosis, in which the lungs react to foreign particles by covering them over with scar tissue.

Borja's family is convinced he caught the disease in the line of duty. And although doctors say they can't definitively blame his illness on the air at Ground Zero, scientists are probing for a connection.

"He says, 'I know I got it from there, because a lot of people are dying from it,'" his wife, Eva, 47, said as she waited near his bed in Mount Sinai Medical Center's intensive care unit.

"No doubt for me," she said. "Reading about all these people who have been dying, it has to be a delayed reaction."

Borja was working at an NYPD auto pound in Queens when the twin towers fell. He rushed to Ground Zero and started working long days there - even volunteering to work extra shifts.

Borja is a quiet and reserved man, who rarely talked with his wife and three children about what he saw in his five months at Ground Zero.

But like thousands of other workers, his family said, Borja never wore a respirator - because he believed the Environmental Protection Agency's assurances that the air at Ground Zero was safe to breathe.

"He said, 'No, I never thought of it. They said in the news that the air was good, so I believed it,'" his wife said. "He's not a complainer. He will do his duty."

An estimated 12,000 of the 40,000 workers who labored in the toxic cloud of Ground Zero to help rescue and rebuild are afflicted with breathing problems.

Soon after Borja retired in 2003, he developed a cough that wouldn't go away. He had smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for years, but his family said he stopped at least five years ago.

He blamed the cough on allergies. He popped endless cough drops. Finally, his family persuaded him to go see a doctor - who diagnosed him with asthma.

But Borja's health got worse, with his breathing so shallow that he could barely walk.

The Daily News exposed the plight of thousands of World Trade Center workers with similar problems last summer - and pushed for new laws that will give help to those who desperately need it.

Borja avidly read stories about the victims and the laws, his wife said, and learned that Mount Sinai runs a health screening program for World Trade Center workers. Last fall, he made an appointment there.

Soon, Mount Sinai doctors diagnosed him with pulmonary fibrosis - an unexplained illness in which scar tissue builds up in the lungs, crowding out healthy cells and slowly choking its victims.

Mount Sinai transplant doctor Maria Padilla said she has seen several pulmonary fibrosis patients who worked at the Trade Center site.

"Fibrosis is a reaction [by] the lung to any form of injury," Padilla said. "There's no question that there are a number of patients ... with this disease who had Ground Zero exposure. Whether one has led to the other, I don't know if we can say."

Borja is fighting pneumonia and a bacterial infection that he caught after taking drugs that weakened his immune system. If the infections clear up, he can get on the lung transplant waiting list.

"His chances of survival without the lung transplant are very slight," Padilla said.

Eva Borja will soon file paperwork to seek an increased pension for her husband, based on his disability. But they blame no one for his fate.

"We are not the type who want to blame," Eva Borja said. "People make mistakes."
 
EPA opens program for 9/11 air testing in lower Manhattan

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/w...an16,0,5037214.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

January 16, 2007, 11:04 AM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Federal authorities began collecting names Tuesday from lower Manhattan residents who want their offices and apartments tested or retested for toxic 9/11 dust.

The Environmental Protection Agency will register commercial and residential spaces in lower Manhattan until March 30. After the registration period closes, the actual testing will begin.

The $7 million effort, billed as the final air testing program from the 2001 attacks, has been criticized by some New York lawmakers for not going far enough to ensure public health.

The EPA will specifically test the air and dust in buildings near the World Trade Center site for four contaminants linked to the towers' debris: asbestos, lead, man-made fibers and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, chemicals formed during fires.

The EPA number to register for testing is 1-888-747-7725.

During a previous round of testing and cleaning done in 2002 and 2003, the EPA visited more than 4,000 units in the area.

Two of the leading critics of the EPA's testing program, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, say the agency hasn't tested nearly far enough, to parts of Manhattan north of Canal Street as well as Brooklyn.

The lawmakers' fight with the administration over 9/11 health issues began after the EPA asserted within days of the terrorist attack that the dust from 1.8 million tons of World Trade Center debris posed no public health threat.

In the five years since the attacks, doctors have found thousands of ground zero workers suffered a variety of ailments, primarily lung and gastrointestinal disorders.
 
FUND-RAISER FOR 9/11 HERO

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01182007/news/regionalnews/fund_raiser_for_9_11_hero_regionalnews_larry_celona.htm

By LARRY CELONA

January 18, 2007 -- Cops are holding a fund-raiser in memory of a brave 9/11 responder whose wife is suing the city for denying the family a disability pension because he could not sign the paperwork on his deathbed.

The event for NYPD officer Ronnie Weintraub, who was assigned to Midtown South, will be held at Connolly's Pub and Restaurant, at 14 E. 47th St., from 5 to 10 p.m. tomorrow. There will be a $25 charge at the door.

Weintraub, who died of liver-related bile duct cancer on Nov. 16, toiled at Ground Zero for more than 100 hours in the days after the terrorist attacks.

But because he had a Patrolmen's Benevolent Association rep sign the paperwork for him, the city denied Weintraub's widow a disability pension that other first responders are presumptively granted under law, his wife Elaine alleged in the lawsuit.
 
Family Holds Vigil For 9/11 First Responder

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=66013

January 18, 2007

Family, friends, and supporters held a vigil outside Mount Sinai hospital Thursday for a veteran police officer who is fighting for his life.

Ceasar Borja, 52, is suffering from pulmonary fibrosis and needs a lung transplant.

His family believes the 20-year veteran contracted the condition from his work at the World Trade Center site after 9/11. But doctors say they cannot confirm his condition was definitely caused by the air at the site.

At the vigil supporters called on the federal government to treat anyone who worked there after the attacks and got sick afterwards.

"To me it's outrageous that they would still say that, in this day and age with the evidence that they have now, that they don't know if it's from the World Trade Center," said Joseph Zadroga, who attended the vigil.

"It's all politics,” added Borja’s son, Cesar Borja Jr. “People are told what to say and what not to say. I know the truth. I know that it's because of 9/11. My father knows it's the truth. My parents know it's the truth. Everyone does. It's just up to the officials to finally admit it."

At least four other New York City police officers who worked at the WTC site have died of pulmonary fibrosis -- and as many as 14,000 people who worked there after the attacks have reported breathing problems.
 
'Wake up and do something' about our health, 9/11 workers demand

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/489911p-412633c.html

BY ADAM LISBERG
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
1/19/2007

As a retired cop struggled for breath in an intensive-care unit yesterday, other Ground Zero veterans rallied outside the hospital to show their support - and demand more help for those who are suffering.

"The government needs to wake up and do something. More and more guys are getting sick every day," said Donna Nolan of Yonkers, whose husband Jimmy, 41, has developed breathing problems. "These guys need help."

The small group gathered at Mount Sinai Medical Center on the upper East Side, where former NYPD Officer Cesar Borja, 52, is in critical condition with pulmonary fibrosis. "It really means a lot to me and my family," said the officer's son Ceasar Borja, 21. "He's doing a little better. He's fighting."

Borja's family believes he contracted the disease working 16-hour shifts at Ground Zero. He needs a lung transplant to survive.

Cops, firefighters, construction workers and other volunteers who worked at Ground Zero after 9/11 say toxic air there scarred their lungs, put them at risk of cancer and robbed them of robust health.

At least four Ground Zero workers have died of pulmonary fibrosis, including NYPD Detective James Zadroga, whose father, Joseph Zadroga, attended the rally.

But doctors say they can't draw a direct link between the workers' service and their ailments - trapping many in a fruitless search for help and compensation, others said. The physicians urge anyone who worked at the World Trade Center site to get a full checkup.

Retired cop Allison Palmer, 38, who blames her cancer on World Trade Center dust, carried a sign with color pictures of her medical scans that said, "The air was not clean. Shame on you!"

"I never smoked a cigarette in my life. I don't drink alcohol. I don't use drugs. It's not a hereditary type of cancer," Palmer said. "There's no doubt in my mind it's from Ground Zero."

Vito Valenti, 43, stood on the cold sidewalk pulling an oxygen tank. A judge last month ordered that he get workers' compensation benefits for pulmonary fibrosis after volunteering at Ground Zero.

"I want to show my support, because that's what I have," Valenti said.
 
Hil shines spotlight on 9/11 ills
She's honoring desperately sick rescuer by inviting son to State of Union speech

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/490305p-412994c.html

(Gold9472: She also just threw her hat into the 2008 election.)

BY KENNETH R. BAZINET in Washington
and ADAM LISBERG and LEO STANDORA in New York
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

The son of a retired cop battling a life-threatening illness he caught at Ground Zero is going to Washington with Sen. Hillary Clinton for the State of the Union message, Clinton's office announced yesterday.

Clinton invited Ceasar Borja, 21, to be her guest at the Capitol Tuesday in a bid to raise awareness and funds for Ground Zero veterans stricken with illnesses.

Clinton spokesman Phillipe Reines said the senator got the idea after reading about 52-year-old Cesar Borja in the Daily News.

Borja is in stable but critical condition at Mount Sinai Medical Center with pulmonary fibrosis, a disease his family believes he contracted working 16-hour shifts at Ground Zero.

Doctors say he will die without a lung transplant.

His eldest son said he felt "happy and proud" about Clinton's invitation.

"She wants me there to represent all the other workers who are still suffering," Ceasar said.

"911 is not over. It didn't end in 2001. It's still happening in 2007. This will bring my father's story to the attention of a nationwide audience."

Clinton at first had sought Borja's wife, Eva, 42, to be her guest. The invitation came through doctors at Mount Sinai Medical Center while she was visiting her husband at the hospital with Ceasar, son Evan, 16, and daughter Nhia, 12.

"But I said I can't leave New York because I have my two young children to take care of, and I don't want to leave my husband," Eva said.

"I told them we were very honored and very thankful." She suggested that Ceasar take her place. Clinton's staffers said that would be fine.

"They want more funds for World Trade Center people like my husband, and Sen. Clinton will talk about that," the wife said. "Hopefully this will get more funding for people who need it."

Eva Borja said after it was agreed that Ceasar would be Clinton's guest, the family went into Borja's room and told him the news.

He didn't respond, his wife said quietly, but she believes with all her heart that he hears and understands what's going on.

She said her husband's fever spiked a bit yesterday but was brought down with antibiotics. He is fighting an infection, and until it's gone, he won't be eligible to be put on the list for a lifesaving lung transplant.

Reines said Clinton, along with Reps. Carolyn Maloney, Vito Fossella and Jerrold Nadler, will be at Ground Zero Monday to renew their call for President Bush to provide more funds for any worker or resident whose health is suffering because of the environmental fallout of 9/11.

Cops, firefighters, construction workers and other volunteers who worked at Ground Zero say toxic air scarred their lungs, put them at risk of cancer and robbed them of robust health.

At least four Ground Zero workers already have died from pulmonary fibrosis.
 
Official link to post-9/11 illness debated while death toll rises

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/w...an21,0,3333270.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

By AMY WESTFELDT
Associated Press Writer
January 21, 2007, 12:30 PM EST

NEW YORK -- Deborah Reeve got a cold, a cough and a fever that wouldn't go away. It was more than two years after she had left ground zero.

A month later, the nonsmoker was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an asbestos-related cancer. By last spring, the 41-year-old mother of two was dead.

"My wife got killed on Sept. 11 and she didn't die until March 15, 2006," said her husband, David, a paramedic like his wife who also spent months breathing in toxic dust at the World Trade Center site after the 2001 attacks. "She got killed and didn't know it."

After five years, doctors have definitively established a link between work at ground zero and chronic respiratory illness; a study published last fall by the largest monitoring program for post-9/11 workers found nearly 70 percent were likely to have lifelong breathing problems.

But experts have been slower to officially link deaths to the exposure, saying it is easy to misinterpret some diseases, like cancer, as being connected to ground zero when other factors may be at play.

However, an unofficial, anecdotal death toll of post-Sept. 11 workers is rising rapidly. In 2006, the number of deaths tracked by a lawyer suing the city and contractors overseeing the cleanup of ground zero more than quadrupled to 90 people, up from about 20, said attorney David Worby.

The plaintiffs, who all worked at ground zero in one form or another, died of diseases now familiar to the thousands who are sick: sarcoidosis, mesothelioma, and pulmonary disease. They include Reeve, who spent four months working at the site and at the city morgue; and a nun, Sister Cynthia Mahoney, 54, who served as a chaplain for six months at the site, often blessing the remains of the dead pulled from the rubble.

Many experts studying post-Sept. 11 illness say research hasn't proven yet that all the deaths are connected _ particularly cancer, a leading cause of death in the nation, could be falsely linked to trade center exposure, they say.

Doctors at Mount Sinai Medical Center, which has screened 19,000 of the believed 40,000 ground zero workers, say they still need to rule out cases of people whose exposure simply triggered an illness they were already predisposed to contract. The doctors, said program spokeswoman Leslie Schwartz, don't know what the workers "went working into ground zero with."

Last fall, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health also scrapped autopsy guidelines for the nation's medical examiners weeks after drafting them. The institute made the decision after experts said the guidelines could lead to misinterpretation and false links to ground zero deaths.

Experts also say they are focused on treating the sick, rather than classifying the dead. Lawmakers planned a news conference at ground zero on Monday to push for more federal funding for treatment and monitoring of workers.

So far, two deaths have been firmly connected to exposure to the toxic cloud that enveloped lower Manhattan after the twin towers collapsed. The family of Felicia Dunn-Jones, who died of sarcoidosis _ an inflammation of the lungs _ a year after escaping the twin towers _ was paid a $2.6 million death benefit by Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw the compensation fund for Sept. 11 victims. And last April, a New Jersey medical examiner concluded that the January 2006 death of retired police Detective James Zadroga was "directly related" to his work at ground zero.

Feinberg, who issued more than 2,000 payments to people sickened after the attacks, said he rejected many claims of cancer. "We were not satisfied that based on the medical documentation submitted, that the cancers would have represented itself so soon after 9/11," he said.

There are some efforts under way to identify the death rate of those who worked at ground zero. The city health department, which maintains a registry of more than 71,000 people who worked or lived near the site of the attacks, plans this year to study whether the death rate in its registry is above normal. The health department has not disclosed any deaths in its registry, which is seeking voluntary follow-up information from its population.

David Reeve says it may take decades to prove what should be obvious right now. His wife's primary doctor, Reynaldo Alonso, wrote a letter nine months before his wife died stating that Reeve's only exposure to asbestos and other carcinogens came from her work at the trade center site. "It is reasonable to state that her exposure at ground zero was the cause of her cancer," Alonso wrote.

"Why do you have such a disproportionate number of people developing cancer at an earlier age?" he asked. "The only thing these people have in common is that they were in southern Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. Now argue that."
 
Citing Future Concerns, Bloomberg Asks Court To Limit 9/11 Medical Lawsuits

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=66074

January 21, 2007

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is asking the courts to reverse a decision that would make the city pay medical bills for 9/11 first responders.

City lawyers are appealing a federal judge's order that the city compensate World Trade Center responders who've suffered health problems.

The city argues they should be immune from lawsuits under a state disaster act, so that emergency response isn't compromised by threats of future litigation.

The judge in the case has said he wants to pressure the city to move forward, and has demanded the city turn over data on all cleanup workers as well as the safety gear they were given.
 
What a shameful fucking outrage this is. Bloomburgh is the same brand of cock that is at the root of this very problem. Something needs to be done to help these guys, and based on current performance, that fundraiser aint gonna cut it (no offense).
 
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