Sicko

Feds may probe ill 9/11 workers who went to Cuba in film

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/4919834.html

June 25, 2007, 11:15PM
Feds may probe ill 9/11 workers who went to Cuba in film

By LISA ROSE
Newhouse News Service

After suffering more than five years of health problems related to his volunteer work at Ground Zero, Maywood, N.J., resident Bill Maher felt he had nothing to lose joining documentarian Michael Moore on a sneak trip to Cuba for medical treatment, captured on film in the new movie Sicko.

Maher knew he was taking a risk journeying to the communist country with the controversial director, but he didn't think he was breaking any laws.

He was surprised to learn last week that, for violating travel restrictions, he and two other 9/11 responders featured in the picture are under investigation by the Treasury Department, which is building a case against Moore.

"We were traveling for journalistic purposes," said Maher, 54. "I never even thought about any kind of legal restrictions."

Maher believes the government is pursuing the case for political reasons, persecuting Moore because of his leftist views.

9/11 workers from Moore film fear political attack

Source: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--sicko-workers0622jun22,0,3020596.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

9/11 workers from Moore film fear political attack

By VERENA DOBNIK
Associated Press Writer

June 22, 2007, 2:22 PM EDT

NEW YORK -- Three ground zero workers who accompanied filmmaker Michael Moore on a trip to Cuba for medical treatment featured in his new movie "Sicko" charged Friday they were targeted by the U.S. government because of their participation.

"It's ridiculous after what we did for the city and the country on that day, that they won't allow us to go 90 miles offshore to get treated," said Reggie Cervantes, a 46-year-old EMT who worked with only a thin dust mask after the World Trade Center collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.

The Brooklyn-based worker, among the first responders performing triage on the street below the burning towers, now suffers from severe pulmonary diseases, as well as kidney and liver problems.

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.

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.

Michael Moore Faces U.S. Treasury Probe

Source: http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20070510/117880002000.html

Michael Moore Faces U.S. Treasury Probe

Thursday May 10 5:27 AM ET

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary "Sicko," The Associated Press has learned.

The investigation provides another contentious lead-in for a provocative film by Moore, a fierce critic of President Bush. In the past, Moore's adversaries have fanned publicity that helped the filmmaker create a new brand of opinionated blockbuster documentary.

"Sicko" promises to take the health-care industry to task the way Moore confronted America's passion for guns in "Bowling for Columbine" and skewered Bush over his handling of Sept. 11 in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

The Treasury 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. A copy of the letter was obtained Tuesday by the AP.

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