USA: Six years after 9/11 attacks, illnesses reportedly from World Trade Center toxins are in the spotlight

Record ID: 560139

  • Title: USA: Six years after 9/11 attacks, illnesses reportedly from World Trade Center toxins are in the spotlight
  • Date: 12th September 2007
  • Summary: (BN04) NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF RESCUE AND RECOVERY OPERATIONS AT THE WTC SITE, HEADED BY THE NYPD AND THE NEW YORK CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT (FDNY)
  • Embargoed: 27th September 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Health
  • Reuters ID: LVAEW0JB6U006AMV57ZM0EN8GXGW
  • Story Text: Health repercussions from the World Trade Center attacks in New York City are in the spotlight during the sixth anniversary of 9/11. Former Ground Zero recovery workers say the city did little to help them with severe medical problems they got from toxins at the site.
    Six years after 9/11, medical problems experienced by emergency services personnel who responded to the attacks at the World Trade Centre Site and worked in the cleanup effort afterwards, are in the spotlight.
    As several medical lawsuits weave their way slowly through the courts and new health impact studies keep emerging, New York City is facing increasing pressure to do more to help those who say they fell sick because of exposure to WTC toxins.
    When Former New York City Police officer Richard Volpe visits Ground Zero now, he feels proud of his recovery work after 9/11, but he is also frustrated by the heavy price he paid for doing his duty. His kidneys are failing and he will eventually need a kidney transplant. He says his doctors are sure that his health issues are linked to 9/1.
    "I think from the beginning the actual site could have been secured a lot better. I don't hear of that I know of any illnesses from the site in Washington. I mean they sealed the whole site off, everybody that was in there had proper respirators and they had the tie back suits, and it seems like nobody got sick from there," said Volpe.
    Volpe says the city has done little to help him or his former NYPD partner, John Walcott, who also fell seriously sick soon after spending more than six months at Ground Zero and at Staten Island's Fresh Kills landfill, where 9/11 debris was sorted.
    Walcott is currently in remission from a severe form of leukaemia and says his doctors believe his cancer was linked to his exposure to benzene at these sites. Both former police officers are convinced that their illnesses could have been prevented if city agencies had taken adequate precautions for workers at these sites.
    "Now that you find out, you read that they knew the air was bad and they still sent you in there, it's one thing if you thought lives could still be saved but once they understood that there were no more survivors, I believe that they should have taken the proper precautions to safety of everybody there," said Walcott.
    In 2004, Walcott was one of the first WTC recovery workers to file a lawsuit against the city and agencies involved in the clean up, for failing to adequately safeguard his health from toxins at Ground Zero and Fresh Kills landfill, and for not compensating him for his mounting medical bills. Volpe joined the lawsuit soon after and today there are about 10,000 New Yorkers -- mostly firemen, construction workers and fire personnel -- who are part of what has become one of the biggest health related class action lawsuits against the city.
    The lawyer on the case is David Worby who says that the city's efforts to get immunity from lawsuits on the grounds of 9/11 being an emergency, are unfair. He believes that while the events of that day can be counted as an emergency, the days and months after the attack when recovery work was undertaken, cannot be called an emergency period and thereby the city must compensate those who fell ill because of a possible lack of adequate safety guidelines.
    A day before the sixth anniversary, at the WTC site, Discover Magazine held a news conference along with New York City political leaders like Democrat New York Representative Carolyn Maloney, to address the very issues also raised by Walcott, Volpe and Worby. They highlighted a new report, called "The 9/11 Cover-up," which discusses the health risks posed by the Environmental Protection Agency's alleged mishandling of the 9/11 cleanup.
    "We provided compensation for the innocent Americans who lost their lives, but not for the men and women who ran in to protect and try and save them, who then became sick, or died as a result," said Maloney.
    The Democratic Representative called for legislation to provide health coverage and financial compensation to responders who get sick from exposure to toxins at Ground Zero. It is a move that is also supported by speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who also visited the WTC site on Monday (September 10).
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