By Joseph Picard: Subscribe to Joseph's RSS feed
September 21, 2010 4:12 PM EDT
A bill to secure healthcare treatment for the 20,000 people made sick by working at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the terror attacks of 9/11 has been delayed, once again, in Congress.
"We are outraged and truly disappointed by leadership in D.C.," said John Feal, founder of the Fealgood Foundation, the principle advocate for the bill. "Elections and votes have been placed in front of human life."
"They can vote and pass a proclamation last week honoring those who served on 9/11 and the months thereafter but fall short of delivering the needed health care for responders," said Anthony Flammia, a former New York City police officer and first responder. "I am truly disgusted as to the leadership of our government."
The Zadroga bill is named for James Zadroga, 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.
Two of the bill's sponsors, Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler, both D-NY, who had said that the bill would be brought to the floor this week, today issued a joint statement:
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"We are disappointed that the 9/11 health bill will not be coming up for a vote in the House this week -- due to the fact that the schedule for this week was shortened to allow members more time in their home districts -- but we are working with the Democratic leadership to ensure that there will be a vote next week."
The bill would establish an $11.6 billion fund over 10 years, with roughly a third of that going to cover the healthcare costs of the victims, and the other two-thirds to compensate them for their losses. Over 20,000 people, according to government figures, have suffered since the event, either from exposure to the toxic dust of pulverized buildings and combusted chemicals, or injuries, or post-traumatic stress, or two or all three.
An estimated 900 people have, like Zadroga, died from diseases contracted at Ground Zero.
"When you remember those who died on 9/11, remember, too, the responders who have lost their lives and those right now struggling to live," Jennifer McNamara, widow of New York City firefighter and first responder John McNamara, said at a commemorative gathering earlier this month.
McNamara, who logged over 500 hours at Ground Zero, died of colon cancer in August 2009. He was 44.
"They told my husband that the air was safe to breath," Jennifer McNamara said. "Clearly, it was not."
Maloney said workers at Ground Zero, and the public in general, were misled by "an overly optimistic assessment by members of the Bush administration of the risk of long-term exposure to that environment."
The government's assessment "cost many of those cleanup workers their health" and some of them "their lives," the Congresswoman said.
Five days following the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Christie Whitman, the Bush administration's head of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced at Ground Zero that the air was safe.
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