New York – A new medical study supports the argument for including cancers on a list of World Trade Center-linked diseases that qualify for assistance under the national Sept. 11 health program, federal lawmakers said Wednesday.
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“The evidence is now compelling,” said U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, standing with colleagues at the entrance to the subway station at the trade center site in lower Manhattan. “It’s essential that we do this.”
But evidence of a cancer tie is still largely lacking. The lawmakers — Nadler was joined by U.S. Reps. Carolyn Maloney, Charles Rangel and Nydia Velazquez — were responding to a study conducted by the city’s fire department that found no significant increase in cancer rates among nearly 9,000 firefighters exposed to trade center dust.
The lawmakers said they filed a petition with the administrator of the 9/11 health program to require an immediate review of the study, which was published Thursday in the medical journal The Lancet, and to consider adding coverage for cancers.
The study did note a few potentially worrisome trends, including an unexpected number of thyroid cancers. But cancers can take decades to develop, and the authors of the study cautioned that the seven-year period the study covered might be too brief to make anything but qualified interpretations.
This past summer, the national program’s administrator declined to add cancers to the list of covered illnesses, saying there was insufficient medical evidence that dust from the destroyed twin towers was giving people the disease.
Federal lawmakers said the new study was still sufficient to revisit the administrator’s decision of whether to add cancers to a list of diseased covered under the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.
“We don’t want to wait until all of the evidence is in,” said Rangel, who called the study “a tremendous medical bit of evidence.” He said people who were sick could not afford to wait.
Nadler said that they have “always known that many of the chemicals in that that toxic brew that people were breathing causes cancer.” And he said they knew with “moral certainty” that a link between 9/11 and cancers existed, but did not have the peer-reviewed studies to support that — until now.
“It would be inhuman to wait for more and more evidence,” he said.
Maloney said it was “a definitive study for firefighters, and that’s a very healthy portion of our population” of those who were exposed at ground zero.
But she said she would let the medical experts who consult with the 9/11 health program administrator to make the final determination of whether the study is enough to support adding cancers.
“I won’t be content, but they have to rely on medical evidence,” she said.
Bravo to these lawmakers for trying to get cancer added to the WTC list of diseases. To those of you yentas who are so upset about the idea, don’t be. What goes around comes around, life is very ironic. YOU can be cancers next victim R’L.
Is there no end to the demands of the 9/11 lobby for more and more and more. Yes, it was a tragedy, but what makes this particular group more deserving than many other first responders who suffer from a wide range of illnesses linked to their work but don’t get any special federal subsidies beyond normal workman’s compensation and disability insurance. Its time for some politicians to stand up and say NO, we have given you enough already. There are millions of other needy Americans who also need help and are equally deserving.
Long overdue.
While I appreciate the lawmakers well meaning, this means that every single person who was below Chambers Street that morning, or worked on the pile, or went back to lower Manhattan to work when they re-opened the following Monday will have a claim if he/she ever develops cancer. And the sad truth is that 1/4 of all Americans do get that disease.
Let me get this straight. The folks pushing for this specifically reject the findings of the NYFD study, and admittedly want cancer to be added to the list on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. Friends, this is political corruption of the most invideous kind. It is much worse than corrupt individuals bribing politicians. What you have here is corrupt politicians bribing their constituants to vote for them. “Vote for us and we’ll get you money from the government.” If further research shows that there is, in fact, a causal link between WTC dust and increase risk of cancer then, by all means, those victims deserve compensation but the current actions of the esteemed Representatives is nothing more than political bribery as stated above.
P.S. If they want compensation, why don’t they sue Saudi Arabia where the 9/11 hijackers came from and who’s Wahabist religion the espoused.