Unions, U.S. Legislators Seek Zadroga Bill Vote

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang MEMBERS SUFFERING: Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy joined responders and fellow labor leaders in calling for Congress to pass legislation securing permanent medical monitoring and treatment funding for 9/11 responders. He noted that firefighters who responded were found to have lost 12 years of lung capacity as a result of the toxic cloud created by the Twin Tower collapse.

The New York and New Jersey congressional delegations have vowed to continue to press for floor votes on a bill securing permanent Federal monitoring and treatment funding for first-responders with 9/11-related health ailments.

During a press conference with labor leaders Sept. 8 near Ground Zero, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a key sponsor of the James Zadroga Act, said that the bill currently has the support of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Obama, and that eight years was too long for the Federal Government to have taken to provide annual appropriations funding for World Trade Center health centers, which have treated nearly 40,000 response workers.

'Need Help, Not Awards'

She said that responders tell her, " 'Don't give me an award. . . give me health care, give me what I need.' ''

Congresswoman Maloney said that of the thousands of responders who came down with illnesses due to inhaling toxins at Ground Zero, 40 percent were misdiagnosed by the primary care doctors, proving that dedicated World Trade Center specialists were needed. There are currently several WTC monitoring and treatment programs in the area, including an inhouse program for Fire Department members. However, the Robert Wood Johnson Center in New Jersey has only enough emergency appropriations funding to last until the end of this month.

U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler argued that the Federal Government owed first-responders long-term health coverage because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at the time wrongly told workers and residents in the first weeks after 9/11 that the air was safe to breathe, even as some elected officials urged work in the area to stop.

"The Bush Administration and the city and the EPA lied to us," he said, noting that as a result responders "were unnecessarily exposed to hazardous toxins."

'Feds Shirked Obligation'

Congressman Nadler added, "The Federal Government has a moral obligation . . . The Federal Government has shirked that obligation."

He countered the notion that the bill's popularity would be confined to the tri-state delegations, saying responders from 431 congressional districts came to the city to work at the World Trade Center site and that when the House Judiciary Committee approved the bill's terms, the vote did not fall along geographic lines.

Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy underscored the severity of 9/11's impact on the health of his members, saying that 2,500 FDNY members were forced to retire for health reasons after the attacks and that the department declared that the firefighters responding to the building collapses lost 12 years worth of lung capacity due to the toxicity of the air.

The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association opposes the current language of the Zadroga bill—named for an NYPD Detective and Ground Zero recovery worker who many believed died of 9/11 exposure—on the grounds that it does not include specific language about cancers that could develop. Most other unions representing workers involved in the rescue and recovery effort support the bill.

New York State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes noted that one ill responder was supposed to address the crowd, but couldn't make it to lower Manhattan because he was too sick, which he said highlighted the gravity of the situation.

"I think his absence tells us the whole story," he said.