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Sick responders ask Congress to reopen 9/11 fund
BY KRISTEN M. DAUM
April 1, 2008, WASHINGTON—After 9/11,
Michael Valentin of Ronkonkoma spent months helping with recovery
efforts among the pulverized concrete, asbestos and toxic fumes where
the World Trade Center once stood.
Six and a half years, four surgeries and two tumors later, the now-retired
New York City Police Department detective thinks it's time for the
federal government to give him a hand.
Valentin, 43, is one of an estimated 40,000 first responders to develop
chronic health problems after working at Ground Zero, and yesterday
he asked Congress to reopen a key 9/11 fund to help people like him,
who face thousands of dollars in medical bills.
"I don't have years to wait," Valentin said at a congressional
hearing yesterday. "My colleagues ... who are sick and out of
work because of their time at Ground Zero don't have years to wait."
House members expressed support for reopening the 9/11 Victim Compensation
Fund to help first responders like Valentin who developed 9/11-related
health problems after the fund expired in 2003.
Without a federal aid program in place, as many as 40,000 victims
might sue New
York City in the next several years because of severe illnesses
the victims have suffered after exposure to toxic debris. Already,
more than 10,000 claims are awaiting settlement.
"The suffering of the living victims of 9/11 is real and cannot
be ignored," said Rep. Jerrold
Nadler (D-Manhattan),
who convened the hearing in hopes of moving ahead with legislation
to reopen the fund.
The original fund paid $7.1 billion in aid to 5,560 victims of 9/11
and their families, but included tight restrictions on who qualified
as a 9/11 victim, said the fund's director, Kenneth Feinberg.
Some experts at the hearing argued that revising the compensatory
fund to include mental diseases and delayed illnesses would make
the government vulnerable to false claims.
But New York City Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo backed the
idea of reinstating the Victim Compensation Fund as an alternative
to paying claims through a separate $1 billion insurance fund controlled
by the city. Some victims have criticized the city for failing to
dip into its own insurance fund to help sick workers.
Such details and questions echo the controversy Congress faced six
years ago in how it should help 9/11 victims and first responders
who became ill after cleanup efforts.
California Republican
Rep. Darrell Issa and New York Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner of Brooklyn
exchanged heated remarks during yesterday's hearing, when Issa asked
why "New
York City needs to come to the federal government for dollars when
it's a state issue."
Weiner called Issa's comment "patently absurd and, frankly,
insulting. ... There are people every single day, bit by bit by bit,
who are dying from that attack."
