The airwaves are filled with blame for Republicans for not passing the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Bill, yet that is the short-sighted view of a very long and unnecessarily drawn out issue. Blame is across the board for the last 9 years of delays.
After a wrenching seven-year battle, more than 10,000 workers who sued New York City over health damages they claimed after the 9/11 recovery efforts have approved a settlement, clearing the way for payouts totaling at least $625 million, lawyers said Friday.
Their responses, delivered to a federal judge in Manhattan, ended months of wrangling over whether the city and its contractors were shortchanging the workers for the respiratory and other illnesses they developed after toiling in the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center.
Thousands of rescue workers sickened after the September 11 attacks in New York have until the end of Monday to accept a settlement that could near 800 million dollars.
The staggering death toll for Ground Zero responders has soared past 916 – and still no one knows what really killed them.
Now, nine years after the terror attacks, doctors and some New York lawmakers are urging the federal Department of Health and Human Services to draft autopsy protocols to pinpoint 9/11-related fatalities, the Daily News has learned.
Astonishingly, there are no written standards to help doctors diagnose post-9/11 deaths, leaving a void that’s wreaked enormous emotional pain and conflict on survivors.
“It was heart-wrenching,” said Joe Zadroga, who watched his NYPD officer son, James, slowly deteriorate from scarred lungs until he died in 2007.
Only 24 names will be displayed for now, but that doesn’t change the fact that over 900 first responders have passed due to their 9/11 related diseases.
Firefighters and emergency-medical technicians who died of illnesses related to their service at the World Trade Center will be memorialized with a special plaque to be installed by the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Fire Department Commissioner Salvatore Cassano announced Wednesday.
The plaque will stand parallel to the Memorial Wall of Honor at FDNY headquarters in Brooklyn, which enshrines the names of those who died while in the line of duty. According to the firefighters union, the move marks a change in the FDNY’s stance on memorializing those who died of illness relating to 9/11. Union officials said they have been lobbying for years for a place on the Wall of Honor.
Mr. Cassano made the announcement during an annual memorial service that honors the members of the FDNY who died in the past year. This year, 14 members were memorialized, all of whom died as active members of the department but not while on duty. Mr. Cassano said three of them were victims of illnesses traced to their service at Ground Zero.
“In the years since Sept. 11th, we’ve realized that our jobs have become dangerous in ways that none of us could have ever imagined,” he said.
Those who gathered for the ceremony at the Firemen’s Memorial Monument on the Upper West Side, which included the families of the fallen, offered tepid applause. Initially, 24 names will be engraved into the memorial plaque which will include firefighters and emergency medical technicians, officials said.
The House on Wednesday approved legislation to provide billions of dollars for medical treatment to rescue workers and residents of New York City who suffered illnesses from breathing in toxic fumes, dust and smoke at ground zero.
The bill’s fate is unclear in the Senate. Republicans have enough votes to filibuster the measure, and Senate Democrats have not shown great interest in bringing the measure to the floor.
The office of Congressman Jerrold Nadler emails to say that the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which would provide health care to first 9/11 first responders and provide economic help to those hurt in the attacks, is expected to receive an up-or-down vote on the House floor tomorrow today.
In July, the bill failed, but was then operating under a requirement that it achieve 2/3rds vote, a parliamentary move by Democrats to keep the Republican minority from adding amendments. This time, the bill is expected to pass, even if Republicans add so-called “poison pill” amendments. The money—to the tune of $5 billion—has already been appropriated, and would cover 50,000 first responders and survivors of the attacks.
President Obama has indicated that he will sign the bill.
Dear Friends, Supporters and Fellow First Responders:
As most of you are aware, the past twenty-four hours have been extremely chaotic in regards to the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. I, along with fellow FealGood Foundation board members, have worked with various union leaders to keep the pressure on our elected officials. As of approximately 5:30 today our bill was moved into the “Rules Committee” of the United States House of Representatives and prepared for full House vote. While a modest victory, this should be considered a step forward to our ultimate goal. However, to our great displeasure, a date for such a vote has not yet been announced. This is unacceptable and over the next twenty-four hours we will continue to place additional pressure on leadership to give us the date we have waited nine years for.
Make no mistake, all involved in this struggle consider it an insult of the highest degree that we are forced to continue to lobby House leaders to merely place this bill on calendar. Despite this, we have been advised that the bill will be given a date for vote tomorrow, September 22, 2010. While promises to this fragile community have been made and broken so many times that I do not expect you to believe this one, we must respect the leadership our New York Congressional Delegation has provided and rely on them to ensure that this promise is kept. Tomorrow, the 9/11 community expects to be able to celebrate its victory at the same time Democratic leaders from around the country converge on New York for political appearances and fundraising.
The catch this time is that the bill also repeals the “Dont ask, Don’t Tell” military policy that bans openly gay service members: Something that the Republicans are sure to vote against. This is a good time to watch Dust to Dust; a 9/11 First Responders documentary if you have not seen it.
Senate Dems will try to attach 9/11 legislation to a military funding bill Tuesday in a surprise gambit to break a logjam on help for victims, the Daily News has learned.
The amendment would be identical to the $7.4 billion James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act pending in the House. Senate passage would raise the chances of getting the measure to President Obama, who vows to sign it.
Nine hundred 9/11 heroes have died since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Thousands of others are suffering from various cancers believed to have been caused by toxins at Ground Zero. The US federal government has failed, thus far, to pass 9/11 health legislation that would assist 9/11 responders with medical care.
Ex-paramedic Freddy Noboa traveled 1,100 miles with his 41 medications to Washington Wednesday, hoping to get Congress to finally pass a 9/11 health bill.
He wasn’t alone.
Dozens of other Sept. 11 responders and politicians – including Mayor Bloomberg – made the trip, intent on prodding the consciences of lawmakers who next week are expected to vote on that bill.
He made it to Washington yesterday to help the cause of the $7.4billion James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act so people like him can get care and afford to live.
The lawyers representing most of the ground zero workers who sued the city over health issues will be appearing in court in a new role: defending themselves.
The federal judge overseeing the cases has summoned the law partnership of two firms, Worby Groner Edelman and Napoli Bern Ripka, to a hearing on Friday to justify $6.1 million in legal expenses that they are charging their clients.
Next week, the lawyers are due back in federal court to respond to accusations of overcharging made by the other leading law firm representing workers. That firm, Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo, alleges that its co-counsel is trying to inflate its fees by inappropriately charging clients more than $400,000 for publicists, lobbyists and legal and medical experts as case-related costs.
A group of advocates consisting of 9/11 first responders and the widows of their colleagues gathered in Hauppauge Wednesday to garner support in their fight to get the 9/11 health bill, officially known as the Zadroga Bill, passed through Congress.
Jennifer McNamara, whose husband John logged more than 500 hours at Ground Zero and died of cancer in 2009, expressed her grief and frustration at the rally. “My husband died believing this bill would pass,” she said, joined by her young son, Jack.
If passed, the bill, named after the late NYPD Detective James Zadroga, would secure $7.4 billion to provide health care and compensation for thousands of first responders suffering from illnesses after working in the toxic rubble following the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. McNamara believes that if the bill had been passed already, her husband may still be alive today.
A settlement between the owners of 160 buildings damaged in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the workers injured during their cleaning, repair and demolition is very likely to come to fruition within months, a court-appointed official said during a hearing today in Manhattan district court. Despite the “monumentally complex” litigation, which involves around 1,300 building workers, 160 property owners and their insurers, James Henderson, a Cornell Law School professor who has been overseeing settlement talks, told U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein that he sees “a very good prognosis” and predicted that a deal is just months away, Bloomberg news reported. The building workers have claimed illnesses caused by exposure to toxic debris from the World Trade Center site. Hellerstein is the same judge who, in June, approved a $712.5 million settlement involving injury claims by rescue and recovery workers at Ground Zero
Posted by Brian 
