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.
I doubt it very much. Other than people who worked on the site for any period of time, I have yet to hear of even one person with actual, legitimate health complaints that can definitely be traced to that.
Once *again*, I'll state that most of the bitching and whining comes from people who weren't here that morning and who don't live close enough to have breathed any of the air from the site.
Sorry, but when someone who lives in the West 80s whines about breathing the fumes from a fire that had been completely out for more than a month, I can't take her seriously, nor do I desire to waste money on making her feel a part of things, just because she missed out on running for her life that awful morning. I think there's a significant "I wanna be a part of this even though I wasn't there" factor going on here.
I would think a decent vetting process with a set of criteria should be able to handle this.
In other words, yet another federal program, pissing away our tax dollars...
In fact I was closer to the Towers before they came down than most having been told by some type of official that I couldn't walk further north, as I tried to get to the NJ Ferry which she told me was no longer running.
Didn't have much breathing trouble that day.
Going back into the area in October, just south of where the Towers had been I was coughing all weekend just from having been outside about a total of an hour those days walking from the Wall Street ferry to behind 130 Liberty Street where I worked.
One was breathing in chunks of glass at times and this is weeks later.
I have no idea how the policemen and firefighters dealt with it being outside in that air 8 or more hours a day.
I stopped going in and left my company, rather than keep going back into the area.
The area south of the Towers was not pleasant.
Don't know if they should invest in screening and monitoring as they are.<>
Instead, I'd wonder about another possibility. If your mother was like so many of us in the tristate region, she was overwhelmed with shock and sorrow. And, if she was like me (and many others with close ties to the city and the financial district) there was also unspeakable rage, such as we never have felt before (even after the Florida State Supreme Court decision in 2000). For me, there was no easy place to channel my emotions. I know I was not sleeping or eating well during those days. I'm sure my stress hormones were sky high. And high stress hormones (cortisol, etc) can inhibit your immune system and lower your resistance to microbial pathogens--both viral and bacterial. In a susceptible individual, this could easily lead to respiratory infections that could evolve into pneumonia.
Nobody is trying to deny anyone "health coverage," but this is bordering on the absurd. What's next? Are you going to agree with the folks who are throwing a tantrum and want the gubmint to pay for cleaning apartments throughout Brooklyn?
OK, but how do you determine just how much the attacks figure into various people's health problems? How much does it come into play for, say, asthmatics or heavy smokers or people who've spent decades exposed to asbestos? And why should the gubmint (read: we taxpayers) have to shell out for that? What's next?
Everyone is looking for a payday, so few people can just accept that s@#$ happens and their is no pot of gold at the end of the federal rainbow, there is only the federal sow, nearly out of life as the piglets continue to suckle with greater verve..
All true, but I've witnessed another phenomenon here in the last 2.5 years -- people who weren't here when it happened and don't live here, but still crave the feeling of being a part of it all. As I mentioned earlier, I know one man who actually told me that he wished he was here when it happened so that he'd have had "the experience" of it.
There are also LOTS of people who claim that they were closer than they really were -- around the first anniversary, I busted one hag on Usenet who was claiming that she was "in mortal danger," when a year earlier, she posted that she was in midtown (a good 3-4 miles away)!
I, for one, would give anything to have not been here and have gone through all that, and instead of looking for a payout, I thank G-d that I survived with the most minor of "injuries" (smoke inhalation and a sprained ankle).
People always do that, always have. Everyone around here claims to have been or know someone who was at the rioutous nickle beer night at the Cleveland Indianns game (way back in the day) of course the paid attendence was only around 8,000.
Moral of the story is: people lie, and some even buy into their own lies.
For example my face has been marked since that day. I believe from being in the area. I have had it looked at. People comment on it when they look at me.
I also experienced breathing troubles in October and went to the emergency room once.
Would be good if at least limited funds go to cover people's expenses like this, especially to the people who had more severe problems.
The taxpayer money that I am mad about being wasted is the 4 billion or so that just went to Pakistan.
Also the US taxpayer is picking up the cost of rebuilding Iraq while the US corporations are scared to invest. After the US taxpayer has made the investment the US corporations will likely swoop in and reep the rewards. Rewards generated from the taxpayer investments will go to these corporations rather than the US taxpayer.
These people were involved in attacking us and our money is going to them, go figure.
Every one who lost money on investments.
Better than our money going to them.
They attacked our economy and our livelihood and people have suffered.
People in all parts of the country have been impacted in one way or another.
The effects were meant to be broad and they were.
Makes me sick to see US taxpayer money going to these foreign countries of the Muslim faith who have radical Muslim preachers actively praising the attacks.
But the Democrats are for the money going there and Bush will tell us that Islam is a religion of peace.
There are many conditions imposed on any benefits from the government such that many people that they were meant to reach won't be able to receive them.
Well, that's the point I've been making...over and over and over...
For example my face has been marked since that day. I believe from being in the area. I have had it looked at. People comment on it when they look at me.
I also experienced breathing troubles in October and went to the emergency room once.
I'm sorry for the troubles you've endured, but I don't know you and I have no way of knowing if your problems have anything to do with 9/11. To be perfectly frank, how do we know that your "breathing troubles" weren't an anxiety attack? Or something totally unrelated to the attacks? So, we should all dig deeper into our pockets for that?
Would be good if at least limited funds go to cover people's expenses like this, especially to the people who had more severe problems.
Again, prove that the problems are related to the attacks. And what about people who'll turn up in 20-30-40 years with "breathing problems" and claim it's from that -- and not from their decades of smoking or living with asbestos?
Anyway, the point of this article is that people who were a mile or more away are trying to get in on this and bleed us dry.
The taxpayer money that I am mad about being wasted is the 4 billion or so that just went to Pakistan.
Irrelevant. But considering the help that we've been getting from Pakistan and the fact that we didn't have to invade and/or bomb the snot out of them in late 2001, it's not necessarily a bad deal.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.