First Responders

Ailing Ground Zero Workers File Suit

Ailing Ground Zero Workers File Suit
Workers Want Money For Health Care Costs

July 17, 2007

NEW YORK -- Ailing ground zero workers went to court Tuesday to demand that the company overseeing a $1 billion Sept. 11 insurance fund spend the money to pay for their health care.

The workers have already filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the toxic dust from the World Trade Center site gave them serious, sometimes fatal diseases. On Tuesday, they sought compensation from the WTC Captive Insurance Co., the company in charge of money appropriated by Congress to deal with Sept. 11 health-related claims.

"The WTC Captive has consistently refused to pay any of the ground zero workers who have become ill on the work site, including any compensation" for lost salaries, pain and suffering, medical treatment, medical monitoring or burial expenses, said the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court.

It was filed by attorneys representing thousands who became ill after working to clean up the site while breathing toxic trade center dust, including more than 100 who have died.

Former EPA Chief Whitman On Hot Seat Over 9/11 Air

Source and Video: http://wcbstv.com/local/local_story_176060933.html

Former EPA Chief Whitman On Hot Seat Over 9/11 Air
Ground Zero Workers Head To D.C. To Protest

See Also -- Slideshow: The World Trade Center Remembered
WCBSTV.com's 9/11 Special Report

Magee Hickey
Reporting

(CBS) NEW YORK Lawmakers in Washington are holding a health hearing Monday about environmental issues at Ground Zero.

Former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman is expected to testify about what she knew about air quality in lower Manhattan in the weeks after the terrorist attacks.

Dozens of first responders boarded buses in Manhattan early Monday morning for the long trip to Washington, D.C., to make their voices heard.

They are demanding prison time for Whitman, and are scheduled to join a protest march at 1 p.m. Monday.

Nearly six years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Christie Whitman must finally answer some very tough questions at a congressional hearing about 9/11 health issues and air quality.

Christine Todd Whitman to testify today before Congress

From http://c-span.org/

"Christine Todd Whitman, former Environ. Protection Agency Admin. (2001–2003), testifies about her agencies response to the 9-11 attacks. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) conducts a House Judiciary subcmte. hearing on due process violations arising from the EPA's handling of air quality issues."

This will air on CSPAN3 and streaming at http://c-span.org/watch/cs_cspan3_wm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS3

On a related note, from John Feal of the FealGood Foundation:

Deadline Approaching For 9/11 First Responders To Receive Benefits

Source: http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=70527

Deadline Approaching For 9/11 First Responders To Receive Benefits

June 07, 2007

A group of city employees who worked at the World Trade Center site after the September 11th terrorist attacks gathered at City Hall Thursday to get the word out about applying for disability benefits.

The deadline is coming up and those who spent time in the pit, at Fresh Kills or in the temporary morgue are urging others to act before they lose their chance.

They say anyone who's feeling sick from working at those locations between September 11th, 2001 and September 12th, 2002 – and has documentation to prove it – is entitled to apply.

"There are thousands of rescue workers and recovery workers out there who need to get their paperwork in, to file to get their pensions changed from regular pension to disability pension,” said first responder Glen Klein.

"There've been different numbers, but about 113,000 people worked at Ground Zero,” said Sean Riordan, an attorney. “Approximately 13,000 – which was the last number given to me – had put in the notice of participation."

DNC: Rudy Giuliani Continues to Remain Silent about 9/11-Linked Death

Source: http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/48723900_rudy_giuliani_dnc_rudy_giuliani_continues_remain_silent_about_9_11_linked_death

DNC: Rudy Giuliani Continues to Remain Silent about 9/11-Linked Death

Wed, 05/30/2007 - 13:20 — admin

May 29, 2007 -- While Rudy Giuliani merrily celebrates his birthday with an "all-day, four-borough bash" in New York City today, he continues to withhold comment on new evidence that the dust from the destruction of the World Trade Center is definitively linked to a death. Giuliani has yet to express regret for not enforcing federal requirements that workers at Ground Zero wear respirators and, as a result, "more than 2,000 New York City firefighters have been treated for serious respiratory problems." [The New York Times, 5/24/07; The New York Times, 5/14/07]

According to the New York Observer, firefighters and 9/11 family members angered by Rudy Giuliani's poor decisions in the aftermath of 9/11 are planning to protest his fundraisers today. The new finding last week supports federal lawsuits filed against the city by firefighters and other Ground Zero recovery workers. [New York Observer, 5/29/07, The New York Times, 5/24/07]

New Study Links Cancer To Ground Zero Toxins

Source: http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_151063023.html

May 31, 2007 10:31 am US/Eastern

New Study Links Cancer To Ground Zero Toxins
Mt. Sinai: 'Third Wave' Of 9/11 Illnesses Appear

See Also -- Slideshow: The World Trade Center Remembered

WCBSTV.com's 9/11 Special Report

Magee Hickey
Reporting

(CBS) NEW YORK There are new cancer concerns at Ground Zero. Doctors fear a third wave of illness is starting to show up among first responders who worked in the rubble of the Twin Towers.

For many years, scientists reported that it was too soon to link cancers to the toxins that workers were exposed to at Ground Zero after 9/11. But new research could start linking exposure to blood cancers.

More than 20,000 responders to the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks have been examined by doctors at Mount Sinai's World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program, and those doctors are now worried about some of those responders could soon be facing a devastating "third wave" of illnesses.

The concern is that those who worked at Ground Zero will be diagnosed with blood and lymphatic cancers because of their exposure to the air at "The Pit."

The poisonous legacy of 9/11

Source: http://www.newstatesman.com/200706040025

The poisonous legacy of 9/11

Andrew Stephen

Published 04 June 2007

New Yorkers were told their air was safe to breathe after 9/11. It wasn't. As the city's first toxic dust-related death we report on the lies and the cover-up

I took the train to New York a few days ago - now definitely the only way to go, given the hellishness of travelling by plane in the US - and found Manhattan pulsating with life, as usual. My taxi driver careened through rush-hour traffic at the customary high speed and even managed to hit a man, who, miraculously, was not hurt. Restaurant workers were noisily picketing their workplaces, protesting at management for keeping large portions of the tips meant for them. The ever-widening gap between rich and poor was more evident than ever - 18,000 children aged five or under spend their nights in New York's homeless shelters, while the average yearly salary of a top hedge-fund manager, typically based in this city, has just been calculated at $363m.

9/11 Sicko and Cuban Healthcare

Some representation by the Fealgood Foundation and a cameo by Vito.

'Sicko' stars thank Moore for Cuba trip

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2007-05-19-michael-moore-cuba_N.htm?csp=34

'Sicko' stars thank Moore for Cuba trip

By Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press

NEW YORK — It could have been a college reunion: hugs, tears, laughter, photos, and a big friendly guy in shorts and sneakers organizing it all. But the guy in shorts was Michael Moore, whose new documentary, Sicko, takes aim at the U.S. health care industry with the same fury — laced with humor, of course, and plenty of statistics — that he directed at the Bush administration in his hit Fahrenheit 9/11.

And the people who'd flown in for this intimate first screening, a day after the film had been shipped to the Cannes Film Festival, included grateful Sept. 11 "first responders," suffering lung problems or other ailments from their days at ground zero. In the film, Moore takes them to Cuba and tries to get them treated at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay — where, he contends, terror suspects were getting better medical care than the heroes of 9/11.

U.S. Probe Could Boost Moore Movie

Source: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=9790

May 12th, 2007 2:29 pm

U.S. Probe Could Boost Moore Movie

By Kathie Klarreich/Miami / TIME Magazine

Michael Moore will never get a standing ovation from the Bush Administration, but he certainly won't complain about the free publicity he's getting for his newest documentary, SiCKO. Free publicity for an adversary may not have been the government's intention, but that has certainly been the effect of the investigation Washington has launched against Moore just one week before the movie's slated premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

Last March, six months after his initial request for travel documents, the award-winning documentary filmmaker visited Cuba. There, he filmed a segment of SiCKO, his movie focusing on the failing U.S. health-care industry. For the segment, Moore had taken along ten 9/11 first-responders who have been suffering respiratory problems ever since.

Michael Moore rips Bush admin for treatment of first responders

In a recent letter, Michael Moore attacked the Bush administration for investigating his trip to Cuba with ailing first responders. Moore's comments include:

"For five and a half years, the Bush administration has ignored and neglected the heroes of the 9/11 community," Moore said in the letter, which he posted on the liberal Web site Daily Kos. "These heroic first responders have been left to fend for themselves, without coverage and without care.

"I understand why the Bush administration is coming after me -- I have tried to help the very people they refuse to help, but until George W. Bush outlaws helping your fellow man, I have broken no laws and I have nothing to hide."

Treasury officials did not immediately respond on Friday to a request for comment on Moore's letter to Paulson.

The department's Office of Foreign Assets Control notified Moore in a letter dated May 2 that it was conducting a civil investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba.

Statement in Response to Bush Administration's Investigation of 'SiCKO'

Source: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=9780

May 10th, 2007 9:34 am

Statement in Response to Bush Administration's Investigation of 'SiCKO'

'SiCKO,' Michael Moore's new movie, will rip the band-aid off America's health care industry. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in just one week and opening across the U.S. on June 29th, 'SiCKO' will expose the corporations that place profit before care and the politicians who care only about money. Our health care system is broken and, all too often, deadly. The efforts of the Bush Administration to conduct a politically motivated investigation of Michael Moore and 'SiCKO' will not stop us from making sure the American people see this film.

Tony Nicer , First Responder shares his heart about 911 Truth with Jim Fetzer and Molly Chesire

With all of the struggles facing 9/11 truth why all the infighting? Molly Cheshire tries to get some answers.

ME (Tony Nicer) and JIM FETZER, on Molly Cheshire show NYC MNN Network.

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