Ground Zero victims still seeking health care and compensation

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The bill, sponsored in the Senate by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, and in the House by Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler, both D-NY, would establish a $10.5 billion fund over 10 years, with roughly half going to cover the health care costs of the victims, and the other half to compensate them for their losses.

"I won't lie. I also want compensation," Feal said. "But the health care component is the main thing."

"The upcoming Senate hearing on the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act is a critical step in the long journey to achieve justice for the responders and survivors of 9/11," Nadler said in a release. "The federal government is long overdue in providing health care and compensation to the many heroes, workers, community members and others who have become sick because of their exposure to toxic Ground Zero dust."

A former compensation fund for victims ran out in 2003. Supporters of the Zadroga bill say that many illnesses only came to the fore after the former fund closed, and that many people were only partially compensated by the that fund.

Several studies have made clear the long-term effects from exposure at Ground Zero.

Physicians David Prezant and Thomas Aldrich of New York's Montefiore Medical Center published a study in the April 8, 2010 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine that traced respiratory conditions in New York City firefighters from before 9/11 to seven years after the event.

The study has great value because most of the firefighters had their lungs routinely checked before the attacks and clear comparisons could be drawn, said Prezant, who will also be testifying before the Senate committee..

"We demonstrated dramatic decline in lung function, mostly in the first 6 months after 9/11, and these declines persisted with little or no meaningful recovery of lung function among FDNY rescue workers (firefighters and emergency medical service workers) over the next six and a half years," Prezant said in a release.

Rescue workers suffered substantial loss in lung function in the year following the attacks - more than 12 times the decline in lung function that would be expected to occur with normal aging, the study showed.

"I have asthma and I've had precancerous polyps removed from my lungs," said Glen Klein, a former New York City police officer, who responded to Ground Zero on September 11, and logged close to 800 hours there in the following six months.

"I also have numerous gastro-intestinal problems, and I've been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome," Klein said. "I was forced to retire from the force in 2003."

Klein receives disability at half pay and is taxed on the sum. He has been trying to get a better compensation package for years, but has been denied five times.

"It's remarkable, all the paperwork they make you go through, just to deny you," Klein said. "And there's no reason they should deny me, since I was there and it made me sick. It's just all about money. The city doesn't want thousands of police officers and firefighters getting three-quarters untaxed pay."

Feal also lamented the apparently skewed priorities.

"In this land, human life takes a backseat to economics," he said.

 James Zadroga was a New York City police detective who worked several weeks at Ground Zero, and is the first 9/11 responder to have his death in 2006 attributed to illness contracted at the site.

"We have been trying for four years to get the Zadroga bill made into law," Feal said. "I've been back and forth to Washington enough times to circumnavigate the globe. This time, the bill has gotten further than ever before, being approved so far by three committees. I'm optimistic."

Supporters hope to have the bill pass both Houses of Congress this summer and be on the President's desk for signing by September or October.