On 9/11 Anniversary: Never Forget: Giuliani, Whitman, Bloomberg, Other GOP Betrayed First Responders' Health

As some may have noticed earlier this month, the British journal, "The Lancet," released a study, reporting that Fire Department of New York (FDNY) firefighters that served duty at "the pit" or Ground Zero of the footprint of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers developed cancer at a rate of 19 percent greater than the rate for the population of New York firefighters who did not work at Ground Zero.
Duh!



With the fires and dust clouds that remained at the pit for months and at streets in a one-quarter mile radius from the site for days, the air was sickening to encounter for a few minutes.

On the fifth-year anniversary of the airplanes's terror attacks collision into the Twin Towers, the New York Times reported on what was in the air after the buildings collapsed ("the film" refers to "Dust to Dust," a documentary on the health problems that the air posed to workers in the Ground Zero area):

In addition to more than 400 tons of asbestos, this film counts 90,000 tons of jet fuel containing benzene; mercury from more than a half-million fluorescent lights; 200,000 pounds of lead and cadmium from computers; crystalline silica from 420,000 tons of concrete, plasterboard and glass; and perhaps as much as two million pounds of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from the diesel-fueled fires. Some of those substances are carcinogens; others can cause kidney, liver, heart and nervous-system damage.

It doesn't take a graduate degree in any field of science to realize that this stuff would be dangerous to breathe and that health problems would create fatalities beyond the original roughly 3,000 to die on the original September 11.

MSNBC ran a story, also on the 2006 anniversary, “Most 9/11 recovery workers suffered lung ills: 70 percent of WTC responders developed symptoms, major study shows“ which is still available in video online.

(Will the James Zadroga Fund administrators now include cancer coverage to Ground Zero workers, after their denial this summer? --"Anger voiced at NYC meeting on 9/11 victim fund")

GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS LIED TO OR OTHERWISE BETRAYED THE FIRST RESPONDERS
*Then Mayor Rudy Giuliani told New Yorkers that "The air is safe as far as we can tell, with respect to chemical and biological agents."
*Then Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd-Whitman said that
the air was safe to breathe and that people in the area were not "exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances."
*Never forget the opposition of Congressional Republicans to the James Zadroga bill to give health expense aid to Ground Zero workers.
*Then there's current mayor Michael Bloomberg, who banned religious leaders and organized prayer at the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
*And he banned firefighters from the 9/11/11 commemoration ceremony. Read CNN report, "First responders decry exclusion from 9/11 ceremony" on the same.

Bloomberg had sought to limit local monies for the sickly first responders. From Jan. 21, 2007 reporting on mayor Bloomberg's legal struggles to limit city payouts to those sickened at Ground Zero:

Mayor Bloomberg is calling for an emergency halt to a judge's orders that the city start paying sick World Trade Center workers, The Post has learned.

Lawyers for the city have asked an appellate court to stop Manhattan federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein from forging ahead with settlements and trials for 9/11 responders seeking compensation for respiratory illness, cancer and other diseases ....

Hellerstein has refused to delay the case while the Bloomberg administration appeals his earlier ruling that the city does not enjoy blanket immunity from such suits under a state disaster act.