housands of people who live or work in Lower Manhattan and were exposed to the dust plume after the World Trade Center attack would be eligible to undergo health screening under a bill expected to be introduced in Congress on Monday. Posted on 03/27/2004 5:40:05 AM PST by NYC GOP Chick
housands of people who live or work in Lower Manhattan and were exposed to the dust plume after the World Trade Center attack would be eligible to undergo health screening under a bill expected to be introduced in Congress on Monday.
The legislation would greatly expand an existing health monitoring program that covers New York City firefighters and about 12,000 others who responded to the attacks.
Residents, office workers and federal employees who are not now eligible would be able to undergo screening and then enter the long-term health-monitoring program.
And for the first time, money would be made available to pay for health care expenses and prescription drugs for people without health insurance.
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a Manhattan Democrat, is cosponsoring the bill with Christopher Shays, Republican of Stamford, Conn., who has conducted hearings on the aftermath of 9/11.
Ms. Maloney said the expanded screening was needed because so much was still not known about the health impact of the dust cloud and the hazards it contained.
"Right now, the only people coming forward are people who think they are sick," Ms. Maloney said. "The point of screening is that we don't know what is going to develop."
Questions about the health risks posed by the dust cloud have been raised since federal environmental officials said, a few days after the attacks, that the air in Lower Manhattan was safe to breathe. Officials have since conceded that this declaration had been too broad.
Efforts to set up health screening programs were at first resisted by the federal government, and money was made available only after substantial pressure from New York's Congressional delegation.
An existing program at Mount Sinai Medical Center has already screened more than 9,200 people, and thousands more are waiting to be seen. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was instrumental in getting the federal government to establish the program and to provide $90 million to continue monitoring the health of people who have been screened.
But the release of that money was delayed for several months; it did not become available until last week.
More than 40,000 people exposed to the dust could end up being screened and monitored. The sponsors do not have an estimate of its cost.
Dr. Robin Herbert, co-director of the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program at Mt. Sinai, said that half of those screened had shown signs of respiratory ailments.
However, with few exceptions, the screening program has not been able to provide treatment for ailing workers. Some have filed claims with the workers' compensation system, while others covered by health insurance have gone to family doctors.
For those without health insurance or union benefits, there has been almost no help, Ms. Maloney said.
But I do like the creative use of that wussy word "plume." Trust me, folks, it was anything but a pleasant little "plume."
Other than my throat feeling as if it had been through a papershredder for a while that morning, I had no ill effects and know of nobody else who was exposed to that and suffering any health problems afterward.
I long ago found out that the loudest complainers are those who aren't even close to here, and weren't very close that morning - but they all want to get in on the "action" and live through it vicariously somehow. Like a "LOOK AT ME! I WAS AFFECTED/HURT!" thing.
Then again, even her staffers don't much like her. I don't think I told you about the time she made them follow her around with a big "RE-ELECT CAROLYN MALONEY" sign at a street fair in the fall of 2000. Besides the fact that the staffers were making faces at having to lug that sign around, one of them came over, pointed to the anti-Hillary and pro-Lazio stuff on our table and confided to me (I was helping out at some GOP booth) that he can't *stand* the Hildebeast and would be voting for Lazio.
Whiners and their enablers.
It reminds me of how this one girl at my job (at the time) who lives on the Upper West Side used to bitch about the smell coming from there -- after the fires had already been put out -- and refused to accept that what she was sniffing was from a major church fire in her neighborhood, and not from 7 miles south of her apartment.
You have no idea just how many people I know (or have met) who try to horn in on it and somehow stake a claim on "victimhood." Hell, I even know one guy who told me that he sometimes *wishes* he'd been here for it -- "just to have experienced it." Let's just say I set him straight on that.
Name one person (other than rescue workers and those right over that horrific mess for hours at a time over a prolonged period of time) whose health has suffered. As I said, the ones who've been bitching the loudest are those least affected.
I still remember (and hellinahandcart may also remember) shortly before the first anniversary of the attacks, when Congress came up to NYC for that photo-op and the protestors came out of the woodwork.
I kind of laughed at one hag who was screeching about this putative issue, and she then started in on me -- actually told me that I wasn't from here, so I couldn't possibly understand. Of course, she was wearing her ID around her neck (I suppose she was expecting to get arrested) and after noting that she lived a bit further from the WTC site than I do, she stomped away from me in a huff.
A lot of people did get out of town for a while. Some had to because their neighborhoods were declared off limits, some went voluntarily. This was not a good place to be after the attacks, for a number of reasons. The point is that the people who wanted to leave somehow just did so without any monetary aid from the government.
Some people close to the scene have suffered health effects (and they are already being monitored). THIS bill is nothing more than a way to get every Tom Dick and Harry within a 10-mile radius of Ground Zero on board, with the federal government picking up the tab.
They will use it as a basis for expanding it to include even more people with even more health issues, unrelated to terrorist attacks. This bill needs to be soundly defeated.
All true, but I'm talking about people right *now* who are insisting that they've been rendered ill by this.
Oh, and I do have a damn good idea of what was in that cloud -- steel, glass, concrete, plastic and other things I *really* don't wish to ponder.
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