Fighting for Health: Eight Years Later, 9/11 is Every Day for Responders

They “never forget.”

When Americans recall the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on the anniversary of Sept. 11, often the grief and anger about what happened eight years ago over-shadows the fall-out currently endured by the thousands of firefighters, cops, construction workers, paramedics and sanitation workers who are suffering from upper respiratory illnesses—some of them fatal—that were contracted from inhaling the dangerous fumes at Ground Zero. City health officials also say that one in eight WTC responders suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of working at the site, the morgue and other clean-up facilities.

For now, responders receive federally funded monitoring and treatment, but this micro-form of universal health-care is in a precarious situation. Funds are allotted on an annual basis, and next year funding could be reduced or not granted at, leaving many sick responders with nothing. While the health-care debate rages on with false accusation of “death panels,” Congress is also considering a bill that would establish permanent Federal funding for 9/11 medical monitoring and treatment, giving workers—and lower Manhattan residents—long-term health resources.

The James Zadroga Act, named for a New York Police Detective who many believed died as a result of illnesses contracted while working at Ground Zero, has support in both houses of Congress from the New York and New Jersey delegations and lobbying muscle from the building trades and municipal unions, but it appears to inspire little action from other lawmakers. While workers from all over the country participated in the dangerous clean-up, the only sizable constituency of workers to push for change is in the tri-state area.

The bill has also lost some of its supporters from last year; it was shelved in October when Congress turned its attention to a $700-billion bailout package for Wall St. The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, which represents most NYC cops, opposes it in its current from because there is no specific language covering cancers that might arise from 9/11 exposure, even though other unions believe that it is more important to get the permanent funding stream in place and worry about specifics and tweaking later.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was a vocal supporter of the bill last year, but pulled it regarding language affecting the city’s oversight of treatment programs.

There is another aspect of Federal long-term funding that goes beyond simply treating the workers who are currently sick. Jacqueline Moline, the director of the clinical center the WTC Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, says by treating 9/11 responders doctors are able to conduct the necessary research to find out why conventional building materials were so toxic as a result of the Twin Tower collapse, research that will be invaluable to preventing such large scale harm to rescue workers in future disasters, man-made or otherwise.

For labor leaders, there is a clear moral obligation on the part of the Federal Government. “The mark of a country is how they deal with those people who have fought for that country,” says New York State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes. “We’ve always felt that we had a certain obligation to our veterans.” He adds that 9/11 workers “deserve the same care as we give our veterans because they in fact gave the same sacrifice.”

Photo by NJScott