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Medical examiner's ruling sparks debate on 9/11-related deaths

http://www.silive.com/newsflash/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-26/118082756655570.xml&storylist=simetro

By AMY WESTFELDT
The Associated Press
6/2/2007, 7:34 p.m. EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — Long before the city medical examiner amended Felicia Dunn-Jones' death certificate, Kenneth Feinberg decided that the 42-year-old attorney caught in the choking, toxic dust of the fallen World Trade Center was dead because of Sept. 11.

"She was a murder victim," Feinberg said of Dunn-Jones, who died of lung disease five months after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Feinberg, who oversaw a federal fund to compensate Sept. 11 victims, paid her family a death benefit of over $2 million in 2004.

His was the first of many decisions since then to officially link a death to post-Sept. 11 exposure, although none was more dramatic than Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch's ruling last week to add Dunn-Jones to the Sept. 11 death toll.

The ruling means Dunn-Jones will be listed on the Sept. 11 memorial, a status several other families said they would seek from the city in the future. And the decision renews debate over who, or what standard, can definitively link a death after Sept. 11 to the toxic dust caused by the towers' collapse.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said after Dunn-Jones was declared a homicide victim that Hirsch would decide, and suggested that he would only rule in cases where the victims were exposed to dust on Sept. 11, instead of in the months afterward.

"We have to decide who died on that day as a result of the plane crashes into the buildings. That is a decision for the medical examiner to make," the mayor said.

Dr. Lorna Thorpe, deputy commissioner for the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said that decision is hard to come by.

"This question won't be resolved by any one medical examiner. There's no definitive test to say, is this a World Trade Center death," Thorpe said. "It's very frustrating."

Hirsch declined to be interviewed about his decision. He said in a statement last week that "accumulated scientific research" indicates that exposure to trade center dust can cause sarcoidosis, an inflammatory, lung-scarring disease that killed Dunn-Jones on Feb. 10, 2002.

He was also a co-author of a draft of autopsy guidelines that the federal government considered issuing across the nation, before ruling last year that the guidelines could be misinterpreted.

The draft said that because people exposed to post-Sept. 11 air live around the country, "consistent standards are a need not only for New York, but for the entire nation." The guidelines, which asked doctors to preserve tissue samples of exposed patients, would help doctors better treat those who are sick, the draft said.

Hirsch's spokeswoman, Ellen Borakove, said the office would review any deaths at the request of families, no matter where or when the victim died. The office could add future names to the official Sept. 11 death toll, she said.

Experts say that though the city's ruling may seem definitive, it is not the first or last word on a Sept. 11-related death.

A New Jersey medical examiner ruled over a year ago that the death of 34-year-old James Zadroga, a city police detective, was "directly related to the 9/11 incident." Zadroga was at ground zero for the collapse of 7 World Trade Center, the third building to collapse on Sept. 11, and spent hundreds of hours working at the site before he became ill. He died of respiratory failure in January 2006.

His death prompted then-Gov. George Pataki to sign a bill offering full death benefits to public employees who became sick and died after toiling in the dusty air that hung over the ruined trade center. A court will ultimately decide whether more than 100 people named in the largest lawsuit to be filed over post-Sept. 11 exposure are dead because of their time breathing the air at ground zero.

And before the victims' compensation fund overseen by Feinberg expired in 2004, Feinberg paid more than $1 billion to 2,000 others besides Dunn-Jones. Those people, he said, showed a "causal connection" between respiratory illnesses and post-Sept. 11 exposure. Feinberg said he doesn't know if any of those patients have died since then.

Doctors and experts warn that it will take many years to be sure of which illnesses and deaths can be directly attributed to Sept. 11. An article published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine predicted that as people exposed to Sept. 11 dust get older, "and develop malignant and nonmalignant respiratory diseases as a result of smoking and other factors, some will undoubtedly attribute these diseases to their exposure at ground zero."

The article by Johns Hopkins University and University of Rochester researchers suggests using a city-based health registry of more than 71,000 people to get more information. "Decades of commitment" are needed to the registry before illnesses and deaths can be definitively linked to exposure, it said.

Thorpe said some deaths have been reported in the registry, but the city needs more time to verify their causes. The state Department of Health is tracking commonalities in post-Sept. 11 deaths as well to try to find a stronger link.

"One study does not make a definitve case," she said, adding that researchers may have a "detection bias" to make connections. "If you're looking for a disease," she said, "you might find it more frequently."

Peppini.com Covers 9/11 First Responder Vito Valenti
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This is a video of Vito Valenti recently made by Sak from www.peppini.com. Because of the fund-raising we've done, and the help we are giving Vito, and the FealGood Foundation, this video is dedicated to the 9/11 Truth Movement.

There are no words to describe how this made me feel, except to say that it made me cry. A big thank you to peppini.com, John Feal, the FealGood Foundation, and to Vito Valenti.

Editorial: The poisonous legacy of 9/11

http://www.firerescue1.com/mci/articles/288568/

By Andrew Stephen
New Statesman
Copyright 2007 New Statesman Ltd.
All Rights Reserved

NEW YORK — New Yorkers were told their air was safe to breathe after 9/11. It wasn't. As the city's first toxic dust-related death we report on the lies and the cover-up.

I took the train to New York a few days ago - now definitely the only way to go, given the hellishness of travelling by plane in the US - and found Manhattan pulsating with life, as usual. My taxi driver careened through rush-hour traffic at the customary high speed and even managed to hit a man, who, miraculously, was not hurt. Restaurant workers were noisily picketing their workplaces, protesting at management for keeping large portions of the tips meant for them. The ever-widening gap between rich and poor was more evident than ever - 18,000 children aged five or under spend their nights in New York's homeless shelters, while the average yearly salary of a top hedge-fund manager, typically based in this city, has just been calculated at $363m.

Two fascinating facts emerged during my visit. The first was that the insurance companies have settled the last of the claims arising from the 11 September 2001 New York atrocities, clearing the way for thousands of workers to swarm into the 16-acre pit left by the World Trade Center to begin a $9bn rebuilding project.

The second could ultimately make the $4.55bn paid out by the likes of Swiss Re, Allianz Global Risks and Zurich American seem paltry. With a stroke of his pen, New York's chief medical examiner, Dr Charles Hirsch, certified that the death from sarcoidosis (a relatively rare lung condition) of 42-year-old Felicia Dunn-Jones in 2002 was "with certainty beyond a reasonable doubt" connected with dust she had breathed in as she ran from her office a block away from the twin towers on 11 September. Before my visit to New York, the death toll from the twin towers attacks stood at 2,749; when I left, it was 2,750, with the death of Dunn-Jones officially labelled a "homicide".

This was the first such formal classification of what the Bush administration might call "collateral damage" from the 11 September attacks. A New Jersey pathologist ruled that the death last year from pulmonary fibrosis of 34-year-old James Zadroga, a New York City police detective who had spent hundreds of hours combing through the carnage was, "with a reasonable degree of medical certainty . . . directly related to the 9/11 incident", but this finding has not been accepted by the city authorities.

So are we witnessing the first confirmed details emerging of the most serious of all of the 9/11 cover-ups by the Bush administration, which will make the 2,973 overall deaths seem a vast underestimate? Witnesses to 9/11 (who include my friend Conor O'Clery, the legendary Irish foreign correspondent now retired from the Irish Times, who tells me that he breathed in noxious substances for months afterwards) say that a Chernobyl-type cloud of dust and debris blew and settled not just over Manhattan, but as far afield as Brooklyn and even New Jersey, too.

Indeed, 700,000 people have added their names to a registry of those who believe they were exposed to toxic substances; the actual figure could be smaller, or it could run into millions - 10,000 of them so far have filed court claims. A Brooklyn study released last month found that cases of asthma there alone had increased 2.4 times since 11 September 2001. In the year following the attacks, firefighters developed sarcoidosis at five times the rate they had done so before; 26 firefighters who were working at Ground Zero within 72 hours of the attack sub sequently developed the disease, according to the findings of a study published last month in the medical journal Chest Physician.

The American College of Preventive Medicine, meanwhile, has expressed fears that deadly, malignant mesothelioma could develop in those exposed. Scores of rescue workers - 40 per cent of whom have no medical insurance - have already developed rare blood-cell cancers and thousands of firefighters have been treated for serious respiratory problems.

"The 9/11 health crisis is an emergency on a national scale, and it requires a federal response," says Carolyn Maloney, Democratic congresswoman from New York, who adds that citizens from all 50 states in the Union as well as foreigners are affected.

The scandal is that the Bush administration knew almost immediately of the dangers of the toxic New York air, but lied. The public could breathe free, secure in the knowledge that "it is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances", according to Christine Todd Whitman, the former New Jersey governor appointed by Bush to lead the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in January 2001. Speaking seven days after the attacks, she said: "I am glad to reassure the people of New York . . . that their air is safe to breathe." The then mayor, Rudy Giuliani, chimed in to say that air quality was "safe and acceptable". Both Whitman and Giuliani, subsequent investigations suggest, were under pressure from the White House to provide these reassurances in order to keep Wall Street operating.

In the words of O'Clery, "we were systematically misled". Dr Cate Jenkins, a senior EPA scientist who has kept her job despite accusing Whitman and others of lying, says the EPA knew all along that the air hundreds of thousands were breathing was potentially as "caustic and corrosive as Drano", the best-known American drain declogger.

Dr Marjorie Clarke - an environmental scientist at the City University of New York - like-wise contradicted the Bush administration when she warned a Senate committee that, far from it being the case that the air in New York was safe to breathe, the attacks had "produced uncontrolled emissions equivalent to dozens of asbestos factories, incinerators and crematoria, as well as a volcano". These "created an unpre cedented quantity and combination of dozens of toxic and carcinogenic substances" and were "dispersed over a large area for several months", including parts of New Jersey. "US Geological Survey aerial maps in late September 2001," she found, "show asbestos contamination in Manhattan miles from the WTC."

The first 34 floors of the twin towers contained asbestos sprayed on to beams, floors and ceilings as fire retardants. More than 2,500 other contaminants were released into the air on 9/11, including fibreglass, mercury, cadmium, lead, dioxin, crystalline silicon and benzene - substances which, when breathed in, can cause not just cancer, but cardiac, kidney, liver and neurological diseases, besides pulmonary disorders such as asthma. The smaller the particles, the more dangerous they become; Clarke says they can be so microscopic that the natural coughing reflex fails to expel them, leaving them to accumulate on the lungs "for decades".

I have always expressed admiration for Giuliani's visible leadership on the streets of New York on 11 September (in contrast with that of Bush, who chose to stay aloft in Air Force One rather than return to DC to take command). But Giuliani's subsequent decisions, which restored his then-ailing mayoralty to the extent that he is now a front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, are more questionable. He adopted the galvanising and macho "we'll show 'em" attitude so much in vogue at the time, which resulted in the debris being cleared in nine months, rather than the 30 predicted - but, in doing so, cut corners in a way that may well have disastrous long-term consequences.

By late October that year, for example - long after hope for survivors had been lost and there was no need for frantic scrambling - his administration failed to enforce its ruling that all workers on the site wear face-mask respirators. Only 29 per cent were doing so.

Then Giuliani himself set a terrible example by visiting Ground Zero and not wearing one, in front of countless workers. The clear-up was so rushed that, still today, body parts are being found on rooftops and elsewhere.

The reclassification of the cause of Felicia Dunn-Jones's death is, therefore, of more than momentous symbolic significance. Politically, the Democratic wolves are already moving in for the kill: least surprisingly, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York is planning to haul Giuliani before a Senate committee to be questioned about his post-11 September decisions. Representative Jerry Nadler (also of New York) and 22 other congressmen and women are asking the Bush administration to divert $282m to be spent on immediate health care for those rescue workers most badly affected. Nadler "absolutely" plans to bring Giuliani before a House committee, too. "Who made decisions, if any, that resulted unnecessarily in a lot of people getting sick?" he asks rhetorically.

Giuliani's successor as mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, is another politician involved in the 9/11 aftermath who is considering a presidential bid. He has been trying to play down the Dunn-Jones ruling. "Think of it as though somebody had gotten - had a beam fall on them and it just took a little while for them to succumb to their injury," he stammered out in a lamentable attempt to explain, instead merely cornering his administration into an even more legally dangerous situation.

How many more?

Now that the insurance wrangles are over (the insurers had insisted that the 11 September attacks comprised one "incident", while the property developer, 75-year-old Larry Silverstein, who took out a $3.21bn, 99-year lease on the WTC site just seven weeks before the attacks, argued that they were two separate events), work will commence with furious haste at Ground Zero. Buildings doomed years ago, such as the Deutsche Bank, have yet to be de molished, but hundreds of workers have been labouring away at a new $2bn railway station and a brand-new 52-storey building, 7 World Trade Center, has been completed.

This means that armies of workers and engineers and architects will once again be converging on the possibly still-contaminated site, this time labouring to put up the flagship Freedom Tower and the other new buildings that will fill the void. Rock anchors (165 of them) have already been grouted 80 feet deep into 120 tonnes of bedrock.

Poor Dunn-Jones, a dynamic civil rights law yer who worked for the US education department, did not live to see these developments, because she literally suddenly stopped breathing in February 2002 after developing a cough. But, in a tacit acknowledgement of what had killed her, the US department of justice's victim compensation fund awarded her family $2.6m in damages. A spokeswoman for the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation says that Dunn-Jones will be officially listed as a victim on the 9/11 memorial when it opens in 2009.

But how many more names will there be by then? And in the following decade, or two, or three? Conor O'Clery, who watched from his apartment two blocks away as people plunged to their deaths from the twin towers, says he still finds it hard sometimes to get the taste of that noxious white and grey-brown dust out of his mouth and nostrils, even though he now lives in the Irish countryside.

Most galling of all for the families of victims, and the survivors, is that the Bush adminis tration – as well as one of the two leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination next year – did not tell the truth about their plight, when it was known all along that the air in New York was not fit to breathe.

9/11 workers claim benefits denied

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=9_11&id=5367470

(New York - WABC, June 6, 2007) - A couple of first responders suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome from ground zero say they're routinely being denied benefits they deserve. It's an Eyewitness News exclusive.
Eyewitness News reporter Nina Pineda has the story.

Just like Vietnam and Gulf War veterans, it sometimes takes decades for the trauma of these problems surface. And those that responded on September 11th have taken up to six years to recognize their lives were falling apart from what they experienced.

"I feel very depressed, I get agitated very easily ... I've had a couple of very serious bouts with anger," said Glen Klein.

NYPD officer Glen Klein spent eight months at ground zero digging through the debris pile. He lost 14 close colleagues from his ESU unit alone.

"Nothing has ever affected me the way this has," he said.

Klein has bravery and courage awards from 16 years on the job, but like many officers it was hard for them to admit to themselves they were suffering mentally from Post Traumatic Stress disorder, or PTSD.

"I was waking up in cold sweats and taking it out on the family," Alan Forcier said.

Unable to work, both Glen and Alan Forcier applied for disability benefits through the WTC disaster bill. Both were denied compensation.

In a letter from the New York City Medical Review Board, "... the board found no significant psychological findings precluding the detective from performing the full duties of his job." Therefore, his application was denied.

"Review Board wake up. Don't deny these guys because they waited for four years to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That's a usual symptom and they need help and can't work," attorney Sean Riordan said.

The New York City Pension Review Board cites it is helping those suffering psychologically from 9/11. Out of 105 applications, the board approved benefits for 26 PTSD sufferers, and also 15 first responders also were compensated under for anxiety and depression.

Mayor Bloomberg appoints two members of the three member board.

"The two cases you're talking about are before a board which is made up of city representatives, union representatives and professionals in the medical field. And they're the ones that should make those kinds of decisions," Bloomberg said.

Yet to be one of those denied by those experts has felt like a slap in the face twice.

"We spent hundreds of hours down there at ground zero. We're not scamming, we're not trying to get anything we don't deserve," Klein said.

And dozens of those who responded here are appealing in a lawsuit to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, there is a very important deadline coming up -- June 14th. It is the cutoff for any city worker who responded here and did rescue and cleanup. You can find the information on the right hand side of the page.

Maloney, Fossella applaud $50 million for 9/11 health in House Appropriations Bill

http://www.empirestatenews.net/News/20070708-4.html

6/8/2007

Washington – Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Congressman Vito Fossella (R-NY), co-chairs of the Congressional 9/11 Health Caucus, applauded the inclusion of $50 million for 9/11 health care and medical monitoring in the House Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill for FY 2008. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-WI) and a bipartisan group of Appropriations Committee members from New York -including Nita Lowey, James Walsh, José Serrano, Maurice Hinchey and Steve Israel- helped move the much-needed funding forward.

The funding announced today would supplement the $50 million for 9/11 health included in an emergency spending bill approved by Congress last month. The "Labor HHS" appropriations measure is expected to be considered by the full House in the next two weeks.

Maloney and Fossella are the co-authors of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which would extend long-term medical monitoring to everyone exposed to Ground Zero toxins and federally-funded health care to anyone who is sick as a result. Additionally, the bill would reopen the federal Victim Compensation Fund for sick and injured 9/11 responders and lower Manhattan residents, workers and schoolchildren. Maloney's and Fossella's legislation has been co-sponsored by a group of 21 bipartisan Members of Congress and is supported by the New York State AFL-CIO, District Council 37-AFSCME, the Sergeants Benevolent Association and the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, among others.

In other words, "We will watch you die, and never concede that we owe you anything because that would open up lawsuits that can hurt our rich friends."

9/11 health czar named
Mayoral appointee vows 'to get answers for people'

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/06/11/2007-06-11_911_health_czar_named.html

By JORDAN LITE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, June 11th 2007, 4:00 AM

Mayor Bloomberg has tapped veteran publicist Jeffrey Hon as his pointman on World Trade Center illnesses - "the go-to person in city government for people who have issues related to health care," Hon confirmed to the Daily News yesterday.

"I want to do a lot of listening. I want to take a lot of concerns back to the city," said Hon, 53, a former spokesman for the American Red Cross September 11 Recovery Program. "I want to get answers for people."

Hon said he will try to smooth out inconsistencies in pension benefits among city agencies whose employees responded to the terrorist attacks.

"We want to make sure that everybody who worked for the city who was affected by 9/11 gets treated in the same way," Hon said.

The appointment comes four months after Bloomberg's advisers recommended that someone be named to coordinate city policy as it related to Ground Zero illnesses.

But even as he tries to speak for ailing workers, Hon will work for City Hall.

The city faces a raft of lawsuits alleging negligence at the World Trade Center site and numerous complaints about its rejection of pension and workers' compensation claims for people who toiled there.

"Is he going to be able to implement change?" asked Marianne Pizzitola, the pension and benefits coordinator for Uniformed EMS Officers Union Local 3621.

"It sounds extremely positive that he wants to jump in to this and find out what our problems are and how they should be remedied," she said. "But if they're not going to be remedied, we still have a big fight ahead of us."

A Bloomberg spokesman declined to comment.

Hon said he will create a "one-stop shopping" Web site about the science behind 9/11 illnesses.

In addition to aiding New Yorkers, the site will help volunteers from around the country whose doctors may be unfamiliar with treatment guidelines developed by the city, he said.

"It's going to be an extremely complicated, challenging position," Hon said.

"It's called a coordinator position. I see it sort of as a wrangler position, that the city is a really complex operation, and we just need to make sure that everybody is on the same page," Hon said.

"I was in New York on 9/11," he said. "I really believe that this is a position that can make some real difference, and I plan to give it my very, very best shot."

WHITMAN TO FACE 9/11 FIRE

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06122007/news/nationalnews/whitman_to_face_9_11_fire_nationalnews_geoff_earle.htm

By GEOFF EARLE

June 12, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - Former New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman will be grilled on the government's environmental response to 9/11 at a congressional hearing June 25.

A House judiciary subcommittee headed by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan) will investigate violations of "substantive due-process rights" of people living and working near Ground Zero, with Whitman as the star witness.

Whitman, who was running the Environmental Protection Agency on Sept. 11, balked at testifying last month, when the panel first tried to call her.

But she has since agreed to face lawmakers and TV cameras in the first major congressional probe into Sept. 11 illnesses focusing on the EPA's response.

9/11 Study Participants Dropping Out

http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/80461

by Fred Mogul

WNYC NEWSROOM June 12, 2007 —People who may have been exposed to 9/11 dust and debris have been dropping out of a long-term study to monitor health problems. WNYC’s Fred Mogul has more.

The Health Department initially hoped to enlist hundreds of thousands of people in the World Trade Center Health Registry. The idea is to track them for 20 years or more, if funding lasts, to see whether health problems arise. The Registry got about 70,000 respondents in its 1st round, in 2003.

Last June, health officials launched a follow-up round of surveys, but a year later, less than half of the original group has participated. Advocates have criticized the registry, because its purpose is to detect broad patterns rather than help individuals, but officials say it performs a crucial role. Yesterday, the city announced the appointment of a new World Trade Center Health Coordinator and a professional working group to follow research, screening and treatment programs.

For WNYC, I’m Fred Mogul.

Michael Moore takes healthcare issue to voters

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Michael_Moore_takes_healthcare_issue_to_0612.html

Published: Tuesday June 12, 2007

Filmmaker Michael Moore appeared for an interview on the June 12th episode of ABC's Good Morning America to defend the premise and arguments made in his latest film, Sicko, which documents the state of America's health care system.

In the interview, Moore asserts that the health care in America is a system that "essentially is run by greed." Moore also went on to defend his tactics in the film, including taking ailing 9/11 workers to Guantanamo Bay and Cuba for treatment.

"I'm using satire to make a larger point politically and socially," said Moore. "And you want to call that a stunt, it's certainly no different than what you would do on 'Good Morning America' on any given day except you wouldn't actually confront the government in the way I would do it."

Video At Source

FDNY'S 9/11-TOLL SHOCKER
5,000 GET MED CARE

http://www.nypost.com/seven/0617200...ngela_montefinise_______and_susan_edelman.htm

By ANGELA MONTEFINISE and SUSAN EDELMAN

June 17, 2007 -- About 5,000 active and retired FDNY employees are receiving medical treatment for injuries and illnesses connected to the World Trade Center attacks, according to a Fire Department document.

"That is an absolutely staggering number, and it's a number that speaks volumes," said Andrew Carboy, a lawyer who represents more than 200 firefighters in a negligence suit against the city. "That's half of what the force was on 9/11."

The FDNY had about 11,000 members on Sept. 11, 2001.

About 3,000 firefighters and EMS workers are receiving counseling for emotional problems. Another 1,500 are suffering respiratory ailments.

There are also between 600 and 1,000 FDNY members - most of whom retired after 9/11 - currently receiving prescription medication for a variety of illnesses, from asthma and gastrointestinal disease to depression and anxiety.

The shocking numbers were revealed in a June 8 FDNY "request for proposals," launched in search of a vendor to manage the department's prescription-drug program for five years.

The department announced in February that it will use millions of dollars in federal funds to help subsidize medication for workers suffering from 9/11-related injuries, allowing them to obtain free prescription drugs.

Although all 5,000 workers suffering from ailments - who were all screened by the FDNY - are eligible for the program, many are using workers' compensation or other forms of insurance to obtain medication.

There are 207 drugs approved in the program, including antidepressants Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil; anti-anxiety medication Xanax; narcotic painkiller OxyContin; and antipsychotics Haldol and Zyprexa, which are used to combat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

"When 5,000 members of the FDNY qualify for these kinds of medications, it's clear this problem isn't going to go away anytime soon," said Stephen Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association.

"People tend to forget, or maybe it's just human nature, to put that event behind you," he said. "But firefighters, many of whom lost many, many friends that day, besides the physical injuries, still suffer severe emotional pain."

Senate To Hold Hearing On 9/11 Dust

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=70903

June 20, 2007

Federal and city officials are expected to face tough questions today over the government's response to the September 11th attacks.

Senator Hillary Clinton will lead a hearing on federal efforts to deal with environmental problems caused by the attacks.

Of specific interest is whether the government has done enough to protect those who were exposed to toxic air at the World Trade Center site. The panel will also try to determine if the federal government is prepared for a similar situation in the future.

EPA officials and members of the President's Council on Environmental Quality are among those expected to testify.

NY1 political reporter Michael Scotto will be in Washington for the hearing and will have reports later today.

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

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

6/20/2007

It has been a cruel year for 5-year-old Tylerann Zadroga, and last week proved especially difficult. At her suburban New Jersey day care center, Tylerann could only watch as the other children made Father's Day cards.

"She's been upset the last few days," said her grandfather, Joseph Zadroga. "She's really been missing him."

Tylerann's dad, James Zadroga died last year at the age of 34. A decorated NYPD detective, the 9/11 rescue worker's death was the first to be directly linked to exposure to the toxic air at ground zero. (Zadroga's wife died of a heart ailment in 2005, leaving the job of raising Tylerann to her grandparents.)

Seventeen months after James Zadroga died of a respiratory disease triggered by World Trade Center toxins, doctors and politicians have gradually awakened to the ballooning health crisis stemming from the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. The debilitating — and increasingly deadly — illnesses plaguing recovery workers are now well documented.

Of the 70,000 people taking part in Mount Sinai Medical Center's World Trade Center health study, 85 percent are suffering some kind of respiratory problem. Medical experts now say the toxic cloud sparked at ground zero has not only caused severe breathing problems in the short term but also will likely spawn diseases like cancer in the years to come. The mounting medical evidence has put pressure on lawmakers to fund monitoring and treatment for sick responders.

Still, resentment and desperation lingers among the ailing workers and the families of 9/11's delayed health casualties. They say not enough is being done to treat, support and honor the terrorist attack's forgotten victims.

"If Bush can send $15 billion to Africa over five years for AIDS treatment, I'm sure he could find $1 billion a year to help these people," Joseph Zadroga said.

For the workers besieged by ground zero-related illnesses, the pain has been increasingly unbearable. Bonnie Giebfried was buried alive in the debris of the Trade Center's south tower. The former EMT suffers from numerous ailments, including asthma, nerve damage and sciatica. But Giebfried says the emotional fallout has been equally as draining for sick responders. Surviving 9/11 responders are falling into dark clouds of depression, drugs and even suicide, she says, and with disabled parents unable to work, family dynamics are crumbling.

The struggles are also financial. Because Giebfried was employed by a private hospital on Sept. 11, 2001, she was not considered a "uniformed" city worker and thus did not qualify for three-quarter salary benefits afforded to sick responders who worked for the city. She lost her chance at getting a disability pension at work because she fell six months shy of qualifying. Her union cancelled her medical and prescription drug benefits. Red tape and unbalanced assistance programs aren't just hurting Giebfried: In February, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office released a report showing that 40 percent of sick ground zero workers have no insurance or inadequate coverage.

"People don't know how we're existing every day, trying to pay bills, keep family structure and keep our heads above water," said Giebfried, who has lost all her savings to medical bills. "The government left us buried at ground zero."

Earlier this month, Mayor Bloomberg appointed a new World Trade Center health czar for New York. Jeffrey Hon, a former spokesman for the Red Cross Sept. 11 Recovery Program, has the task of ironing out inconsistencies in the city's health benefits as well as working with programs tracking ground zero workers' health. That effort may be hampered by a statistic released just last week: Only half of roughly 70,000 members in the registry tracking post-9/11 illnesses have responded to follow-up surveys. The dwindling numbers are making the city's already-complex task of gauging the long-term health effects more difficult.

Despite the monitoring challenges, the evidence already collected is indisputable. According to a major Mount Sinai study released last September, 70 percent of the roughly 10,000 ground zero workers tested said they experienced new or substantially deteriorated respiratory problems. More than one in four nonsmokers reported breathing problems — double the rate of nonsmokers in the general population. Also, the head of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program said last month that several workers had developed rare blood cell cancers.

The sick are slowly dying. Though the toll is undoubtedly higher, the deaths of at least four police officers (including Zadroga), a communications worker, an attorney and a nun have been directly linked to ground zero exposure. A class-action lawsuit claims dozens more have died from inhaling toxic debris from the Trade Center. Giebfried says she personally knows more than 20 colleagues who have lost their lives since becoming ill.

Dr. Michael Baden, chief forensic pathologist for the New York State Police and the former chief medical examiner of New York City, has reviewed several ground zero-related autopsies, including Zadroga's. He says the growing list of victims should make cities rethink their disaster-management plans in the future. "Three thousand people may have died, but 100,000 others may have been exposed," he said.

Baden cautions that it could take two decades to gauge the long-term effects of the ground zero cocktail of asbestos, mercury, lead and other contaminants. Identifying and analyzing the plethora of potentially carcinogenic chemicals that wafted over the World Trade Center is a painstaking process, so festering diseases such as lung cancer can only be conclusively linked to the 9/11 down the road.

But medical experts are already sounding alarms. Last month, the co-director of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program warned that cancer would likely become the "third wave" of illnesses plaguing ground zero workers. Dr. Robin Herbert said the first wave refers to coughing and respiratory problems developed immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, and the second wave includes severe chronic lung diseases. One such disease, sarcoidosis, claimed the life of New York attorney Felicia Dunn-Jones in 2002. Last month, the city medical examiner added her death to the official list of 9/11 victims — the first such casualty added to the city's tally.

That acknowledgment has prodded the government to provide more assistance. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, co-chair of the Congressional 9/11 Health Caucus, said there are many more victims that the city has not documented. Earlier this month, she and other New York delegates helped get $50 million for 9/11 health care and medical monitoring included in a new appropriations bill. Though Maloney is encouraged by the political progress on Capitol Hill, she expressed frustration with the administration's sluggish response to calls for a comprehensive long-term plan to monitor and treat sick workers.

"Everyone who breathed deadly toxic fumes deserves to be monitored and examined and everyone who is sick deserves to be treated," Maloney said. "We've been promised a plan for well over a year, but we have yet to see it."

Maloney and Rep. Vito Fossella recently re-introduced the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. The bill would extend and improve the federal government's long-term medical monitoring, treatment and compensation for those afflicted by ground zero toxins. So far, however, the measure has languished in Congress.

Maloney has also urged New York's medical examiner to reconsider James Zadroga's death as a homicide. (New York still has not recognized his death as 9/11-related, despite a New Jersey medical examiner's ruling that it was.) Only an acknowledgment by the city would include Zadroga in the "official" tally of 9/11 victims. Only then would his name be added to the Sept. 11 memorial.

"That's an honor he deserves," Joseph Zadroga said.

Nearly six years after 9/11, the death toll from the terrorist attack continues to grow. NYPD Det. Robert Williamson died last month of pancreatic cancer his family says was caused by his recovery work at ground zero. The 20-year police veteran toiled for more than 100 hours on the World Trade Center's pile of toxic debris before retiring in 2002 and ultimately falling ill.

Williamson, 46, left behind a wife, Maureen, and three children. He was finally awarded a disability pension last September — just days before the fifth anniversary of Sept, 11, 2001. Maureen Williamson says her husband was never angry about his condition even though he predicted the impending crisis while he was working among the ground zero toxins.

"He said within weeks, 'A lot of people are gonna be very, very sick.' It was that obvious, he just knew it," she recalls.

Maureen Williamson says doctors and lawmakers are finally confronting the magnitude of the problem. She credits the New Jersey medical examiner who conclusively linked Zadroga's death last year to ground zero exposure as a "monumental" turning point. Still, she says, the wake-up call may be too late for some.

"We're coming around to admitting it and fessing up to it. It's taken this long to say people are dying from exposure down there," she said. "They're getting sick and they're so young. They've lived half their life, and they're getting robbed of other half."

Bush aide defends handling of 9/11 air woes

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

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

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

"In all instances, federal agencies acted with the best available data at the time, and updated their communications and actions as new information was obtained," James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in prepared testimony to a Senate panel led by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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

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

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

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

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

Click Here (realplayer)

"In all instances, federal agencies acted with the best available data at the time, and updated their communications and actions as new information was obtained," James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in prepared testimony to a Senate panel led by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Oh really James?

"two devastating memos, written by the U.S. and local governments, show they knew. They knew the toxic soup created at Ground Zero was a deadly health hazard. Yet they sent workers into the pit and people back into their homes."

LIAR!

Clinton condemns response to 9/11 dust

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

BY MARTIN C. EVANS
June 21, 2007

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday chastised the Bush administration for failing to warn New Yorkers about toxic dust after the terror attack on the World Trade Center, but withheld criticism of the city's response under then-mayor and fellow presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani.

"Nearly six years after 9/11, we still don't have the whole truth about the toxic cloud of poison that filled the air after the towers fell," Clinton said yesterday at a hearing of the Senate subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health, which she chairs.

"We don't have an explanation for the misrepresentations that put countless people at risk of exposure to chemicals that we know are causing illness and death."

The chief of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, James Connaughton, defended the administration's handling of the toxic cleanup, saying its response was "conveyed real-time in fast-moving circumstances."

"In all instances, federal agencies acted with the best available data at the time, and updated their communications and actions as new information was obtained," he said.

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

An estimated 20,000 people live within a half-mile of the collapsed towers, including nearly 3,000 children. A study of more than 20,000 people released in September by Mount Sinai Medical Center said as many as 70 percent of Ground Zero responders developed a new or worsened respiratory illness.

Giuliani has been faulted for failing to enforce regulations that would have required responders to wear respirators.

A separate medical study released last month found that rescue workers and firefighters contracted sarcoidosis, a serious lung-scarring disease, at a rate more than five times higher than the years before the attacks.

Clinton and other New York lawmakers have sought to pressure the agency to do more to clean apartment buildings in lower Manhattan.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes Ground Zero, will hold a hearing next week to question former EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman.

This story was supplemented with Associated Press reports.

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

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

Video
Click Here (realplayer)

6/21/2007

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

Almost six years after the attacks, there has been no congressional funding devoted to the environmental health impact of the collapse on Lower Manhattan residents. On Wednesday Senator Clinton announced a subcommittee proposal requesting $55 million for precisely such a program that would screen and treat all individuals exposed to Ground Zero dust. For the thousands of ailing 9/11 responders who have been getting sicker and sicker while waiting for treatment and benefits, does this hold any promise? To find out, we are joined today by two 9/11 responders.

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

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

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

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes. A new congressional study has revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency misled Lower Manhattan residents about levels of indoor air contamination after 9/11. The report lambasted the EPA for giving residents “a false sense of security.”

The Government Accountability Office report was released during a Senate hearing Wednesday on the EPA’s response after the collapse of the World Trade Center. Senators repeatedly questioned James Connaughton, the chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality at the time, about whether the Bush administration manipulated public information about the health dangers following the collapse.

Senators Hillary Clinton and Frank Lautenberg both questioned Connaughton about a 2003 EPA Inspector General report, which claimed that he personally -- or his staff -- edited EPA press releases.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: So, let me ask, did you convince EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones?

JAMES CONNAUGHTON: I think those characterizations by the Inspector General were incompletely formed and inaccurate.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: But let me show you. The EPA IG report contains several specific examples of these type of changes, and one of them is reproduced on a chart that I’ve brought today. And let me see if -- it’s impossible to read, but as the chart shows, a draft September 13, 2001 press release stated that -- and I quote -- "preliminary results of EPA sampling activities” -- the thousands of samples that Ms. Bodine referred to -- “indicated no or very low levels of asbestos. However, even low levels, EPA considers asbestos hazardous and will continue to monitor and sample for elevated levels of asbestos and work with appropriate officials to ensure awareness and proper handling, transportation and disposal of potentially contaminated debris or materials.” That was the original draft. The final release stated that -- and I quote -- “EPA is greatly relieved to have learned that there appears to be no significant levels of asbestos dust in the air in New York City.”

SEN. FRANK LAUTENBERG: Why does the White House seem -- why do they seem so focused on preventing the raw truth to the public? Why did you feel it necessary in CEQ to review press statements and change things that were in there that might have been of more concern, but more candid?

JAMES CONNAUGHTON: We don’t.

SEN. FRANK LAUTENBERG: Well, you did then, according to the reports that we see, that there were modifications of words and statements, that you were the final decision-maker in terms of what was allowable, what could go to the press. There are lots of things that stress the fact that no releases were to go out without the approval of the administration, and that would have been you.

JAMES CONNAUGHTON: I disagree with your conclusion, Senator.

JUAN GONZALEZ: That was James Connaughton. Prior to his confirmation as the chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Connaughton worked the mining, chemical, utilities and asbestos industry. Almost six years after the attack, there has been no congressional funding devoted to the environmental health impact of the collapse on Lower Manhattan residents.

On Wednesday, Senator Clinton announced a subcommittee proposal requesting $55 million for precisely such a program that would screen and treat all individuals exposed to Ground Zero dust. Of the thousands of ailing 9/11 responders who have been getting sicker and sicker while waiting for treatment and benefits, does this hold any promise?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christie blasts Rudy on WTC air

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9/11 workers from Moore film fear political attack

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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