An advisory panel examining which conditions should be covered by the Zadroga Act appeared close Wednesday to recommending that some cancers be included, members said.
While the fund covers numerous illnesses linked with breathing 9/11 toxins, cancer is currently excluded because of insufficient scientific proof — a decision criticized by first responders and city officials who believe the link is crystal clear.
Evidence that there is a cancer link appears to be mounting.
There are 297 cops who have been diagnosed with cancer since working at Ground Zero — and the average age is a shocking 44 at the time of diagnosis, according to the data from the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.
The cancers range from lung — which is the most prevalent, with 19 cases — to rarer cancers that affect the bile duct, tongue and nasal passages, according to the data obtained from a random sampling of retired cops.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, 56 cops have died from cancer, the PBA said.
And an average of 16 cops are applying annually for cancer-related disabilities since the terror attacks, compared with about six a year before 9/11.
Interestingly, New York City is not releasing the names of the NYPD who worked at the destruction site of the WTC. NY Daily News has this:
Scientists at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan have asked for the full roster of officers who served at Ground Zero, but the NYPD’s surgeon refused, citing privacy concerns.
In a statistical model, PTSD mediated the association between exposure at the site and respiratory symptoms among both police officers and other types of responders, Evelyn Bromet of Stony Brook University in New York and colleagues reported online in the journal Psychological Medicine.
The results suggest “an indirect association of exposure with respiratory symptoms through PTSD, a finding that mirrors research conducted with Vietnam veterans,” the researchers wrote.
“Mental and physical health are integrally linked,” Bromet said in a statement. “It is not always obvious which one is the driver, but, in the end, what matters is that both mental and physical health are recognized and treated with equal care and respect.”
Respiratory illness and PTSD are both signature health problems among rescue workers who responded to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, but the relationship between the two conditions isn’t clear.
So Bromet and her colleagues assessed 8,508 police officers and 12,333 other types of responders who were evaluated at the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program between July 16, 2002, and Sept. 11, 2008.
….
The study was limited because the sample was comprised of volunteers, which could introduce bias, and by the fact that police officers may under-report PTSD symptoms because of concern about keeping their jobs.
A state appeals court decision to award full benefits to the widow of a police officer who died of cancer after 9/11 could help ensure compensation for the disease for first responders, advocates said Wednesday.
But it isn’t clear whether it will have much impact on the 1,500 to 1,600 first responders who have lawsuits pending against New York City and the Port Authority.
They have until Jan. 2 to decide whether to drop their suits and join the $7.8-billion federal victim compensation fund.
The Appellate Division of State Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that Nilda Macri of Forest Hills was due accidental line-of-duty benefits after husband Frank, 51, who worked about 350 hours at Ground Zero and at Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, died of lung cancer in 2007.
The decision overturned rulings by the city’s police Medical Board and the Police Pension Fund Board of Trustees.
The boards contended that Macri, a nonsmoker, already had the disease before he was diagnosed with an aggressive lung cancer in August 2002.
The appeals court disagreed, citing a 2005 state law. The law holds that administrative panels should presume the onset of certain illnesses among first responders was caused by their 9/11 exposure.
The fund is intended to help people who became ill after working at ground zero. It does not help, however, those who claim cancer resulted from exposure to the debris.
McCormick, who was diagnosed with Hodgkins Disease in 2003, died in 2008. He was 34.
David McCormick, Ryan’s father, said Sunday that because the government “has decided to exclude cancer at this point in time because they say they don’t have enough evidence … is disappointing.”
A provision in the new 9/11 health bill may be adding insult to injury for people who fell sick after their service in the aftermath of the 2001 Al Qaeda attacks, The Huffington Post has learned.
The tens of thousands of cops, firefighters, construction workers and others who survived the worst terrorist assault in U.S. history and risked their lives in its wake will soon be informed that their names must be run through the FBI’s terrorism watch list, according to a letter obtained by HuffPost.
“This is a time for reflection, not retribution.” – Barack Obama, 2009
Obama is no hero. Only after so many wrongs could the recently passed 9/11 Health legislation seem right.
The Twin Towers on 9/11, had they not been destroyed by demolitions, would have been a hard days work for the NYPD and NYFD; yet the fires would have been put out. In fact in many parts of the buildings the fires were put out, or going out. It is quite possible that the NYFD would have lost a few good men through the day fighting the fires inside the WTC on 9/11 had they had the chance to do so, maybe 10 to 15 firefighters even. But surely not hundreds, especially not a thousand.
343 of NY’s first responders were killed in the World Trade Center demolitions of 9/11/01. They were murdered along with thousands of civilians and no one responsible has gone to jail for those crimes.
The WTC demolition created a cloud of debris-turned-to-dust that covered the city of Manhattan streets, homes, schools and lungs of tens of thousands of people. This could not have happened without explosives and demolitions; volcanoes aside.
The month following 9/11 was so filled with mistakes, possible criminal intent, disinformation, and irresponsibility from the EPA and CEQ that I will just have to list some highlights below:
US President Barack Obama signed a benefits bill on Sunday that will help police, firefighters and other emergency workers who became ill after working in the area around the World Trade Center towers that collapsed on 9/11.
Last night, the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart skewered Republicans for killing deficit neutral legislation to provide health care to the 9/11 first responders and emergency workers who suffered illnesses from working at Ground Zero. He also mocked the celebrity-obsessed media that has completely ignored the story. Republicans, like Sen. John Thune (R-SD), filibustered the bill because they said tax cuts for the richest 2 percent were a higher priority for Congress. While Republicans quietly snuffed out efforts to compensate 9/11 heroes, they were aided by a quiet lobbying campaign by the powerful lobbying front — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber fought to help kill the 9/11 compensation bill because it was funded by ending a special tax loophole exploited by foreign corporations doing business in the United States.
The “U.S.” part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a misnomer. As ThinkProgress reported, the Chamber represents dozens of foreign businesses in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, Bahrain, India, Brazil, and other countries. An investigation of the Chamber turned up recent fundraising documents from the Chamber soliciting foreign contributions to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6), the tax entity the Chamber used to run nasty campaign ads against Democrats earlier this year.
In September, the Chamber sent a letter officially opposing the 9/11 first responders bill, called the “James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010.” The Chamber warned that ending the tax loophole would “damage U.S. relationships with major trading partners” and “aggravate already unsettled financial markets.” A lobbying disclosure filed with the Senate confirms the Chamber contacted lawmakers to help kill the bill.
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.
This article from NY Daily News details the passing of another NYPD officer due to 9/11 related health effects:
The sacrifice of a cancer-stricken city cop laid to rest Tuesday was held aloft by union leaders in the push to aid ill Ground Zero responders.
“He died from a rare cancer that literally ate his face,” Lynch said, flanked by other officers. “The young man that joined this police department withered away and died because he was willing to put his life on the line and respond on Sept. 11 – and not leave until our job was done.”
Lynch was supposed to be in Washington with other members of the New York delegation to press for passage of a bill that would help the families of injured Ground Zero heroes like Mahmoud.
Mahmoud died after contracting a rare cancer of the nasal passages that required disfiguring surgery to remove his nose.
“It is very difficult for us,” his brother, Hashem, said. “But David isn’t the only one. There are others like him and they should be looked up to.”
The following article from Newsday is from just after the court settlement:
Robert Ehmer of East Meadow had planned to use his share of the settlement for Ground Zero rescue and recovery workers to pay for treatment that his Medicare insurance wouldn’t cover, his sister Annette Ehmer said.
Ehmer, a 20-year New York City police officer, lost a three-year battle with kidney cancer Sunday, dying at the Hospice Inn in Melville. He was 47.
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.
Posted by Brian 
