t will be a shame if the U.S. Congress marks the eighth anniversary of 9/11 — which is just around the corner — by enacting the so-called Zadroga bill. The proposed legislation — meant to provide treatment for first-responders and others suffering from ailments related to their work in the rescue-and-recovery effort in the aftermath of history’s deadliest terrorist attack on American soil — will actually do little or nothing for the police officers that we call the forgotten victims.
The bill, named for Det. James Zadroga, who became the first NYPD service member recognized as having died from a WTC-related condition, has many flaws, the most serious being its failure to include cancer and blood disorders as qualifying medical conditions entitling the victim to treatment and compensation. PBA President Pat Lynch:
“It’s entirely likely that formerly healthy members of the NYPD who became ill and have since died of cancers and blood disorders contracted from working at the WTC site would have been excluded from coverage under this bill. It appears that his bill has been devised to funnel funds to medical issues having a remote relation to work at Ground Zero and other toxic post-9/11 sites while ignoring those who put their lives on the line by working at the various WTC locations during the rescue-and-recovery effort. The bill, as written now, is an effort to evade responsibility for the most serious medical consequences of 9/11 and is an insult to all WTC responders.”
Even Jacqueline Moline, director of the WTC Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program at Mount Sinai Medical Center, testifying in favor of the bill in April before a House subcommittee, cited likely conditions the bill doesn’t take into account:
“Longer-term conditions we might see could include cancers, auto-immune disorders and pulmonary fibrosis. The future outlook for responders still remains uncertain. The long-term consequences of such unique exposures are not yet fully known. Because physicians and scientists have never before studied an unprecedented mixture of toxicants like this — which resulted from the attack and collapse of the most computerized officer tower complex in the world, with vast numbers of compounds and potentially toxic agents inside released at Ground Zero – it will take decades to determine any collective tally of exactly what the health effects might be.”
The bill’s other serious drawback is the high standard of proof required to establish that the ailment in question was WTC-related.