Rally at Ground Zero Aims to Build Support for 9/11 Health Care Legislation

RAY RIVERA
NY Times
Sunday September 9, 2007

Several hundred union workers and elected officials, including Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, rallied near ground zero yesterday in support of federal legislation that would provide long-term monitoring and treatment for people exposed to dust in Lower Manhattan during the 9/11 cleanup.

“The fact that men and women are ill and not being helped here is a national disgrace,” Representative Carolyn B. Maloney said. “We are the wealthiest nation on earth; the least we can do is provide health care for the men and women who were there on 9/11. They were here for us. We need to be here for them.”

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and some members of New York’s Congressional delegation had been calling on the federal government to assume more of the financial burden of ground zero-related health problems.

Representative Vito Fossella, Republican of New York, who sponsored the bill with Ms. Maloney and Representative Jerrold L. Nadler, both Democrats, said the federal government had been reluctant to provide a steady flow of money. That reluctance seemed to be waning, he said, as more scientific evidence about the illnesses emerged.

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“I think it’s gone from anecdotal individual stories of a diminished quality of life,” he said, “to stories of respiratory and pulmonary problems to hard and fast sets of data that point to the fact that there truly is a problem.”

The legislation, which will be introduced in the House on Tuesday — the sixth anniversary of the attacks — would require the federal government to collect data to better understand the extent of ground zero-related illnesses. It also would provide compensation to anyone exposed to asbestos and other contaminated dust, including rescue workers, office workers, students and even tourists who were in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11.

Mrs. Clinton, taking time away from her presidential campaign to attend the rally, appeared to stake out a position similar to that of Rudolph W. Giuliani as the 9/11 candidate.

“From the first moment that I came to ground zero on the day after the attacks on our city and our country and saw the conditions under which the firefighters and police officers and E.M.T.’s and paramedics were laboring,” she told the crowd, which included many 9/11 first responders, “I knew we were going to have problems, that people would get sick, and that people would die from what they were exposed to.

“And I pledged to myself, and I pledge to all of you, that I will stay with you every step of the way until we get every single person the health care they deserve,” she said. Doing that, she added, “will be my highest priority, whether I am your senator or I am your president.”

Mrs. Clinton drew cheers from the crowd and posed for pictures with labor leaders before leaving the stage. Both she and Mr. Giuliani are expected to return to ground zero on Tuesday to commemorate the attacks.

In a day of fiery speeches, Mr. Nadler provided perhaps the harshest assessment of the government’s response to the problems of people who became sick in the aftermath of 9/11.

“Government officials at all levels took perilous shortcuts on workers’ safety,” he said. “Many of you toiled for months on that toxic pile at ground zero without proper protection. You were unnecessarily exposed to hazardous toxins because of what the government officials said and did.”

The rally also featured Carole King, who led the crowd in singing “You’ve Got a Friend.” Union leaders held the rally yesterday in lieu of the annual Labor Day parade.

Dr. Robin Herbert, the director of the World Trade Center monitoring and treatment program based at Mount Sinai Medical Center, said about 4 in 10 of its patients have had breathing problems like asthma, and many suffer mental health problems like post-traumatic stress disorder.

A task force appointed by Mayor Bloomberg has estimated that as many as 400,000 people might have been exposed to dust from the collapsed trade center towers. And in March, Mr. Bloomberg asked the Senate for at least $150 million a year for monitoring and treatment.

The new legislation takes elements from several bills that have failed to get through Congress. The City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, said she would make the legislation “the top priority” when she and other members of the Council visit Washington this month.