9/11 health czar supports treatment for responders

Current federal funding for the program — including a first installment for treatment totaling $75 million — runs out in 2009.

Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, told legislators he endorses the opinion that workers exposed to the Ground Zero witches’ brew should be tracked for 20 or 30 years.

Thousands are believed to face a disproportionate risk of contracting cancer, heart disease and other serious illnesses in the coming decades.

Experience teaches us that many conditions have long waiting periods, Howard told the House Committee on Government Reform.

Howard promised to develop justifications for sufficient appropriations, but didn’t guarantee delivery of required funding for the program, which has been estimated at $315 million-plus over 20 years.

He said his first order of business would be to develop a plan to ensure that any responder with a 9/11-related illness gets medical help.

You have a tough task ahead of you said Rep. Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn), who, although not a committee member, took part in the hearing.

That task was lent urgency by the testimony of medical screeners at the Fire Department and Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan, who warned that an all-out federal funding commitment is required to cope with what they described as a health disaster.

Dr. Kerry Kelly, the FDNY’s chief medical officer, said many of the nearly 14,000 firefighter veterans of Ground Zero screened by her agency show pulmonary function declines of up to 11 times what might be expected.

Dr. Kelly, a Grymes Hill resident, said that four and a half years after the terrorist attacks, over 25 percent of the department’s first responders still report severe respiratory problems, including asthma.

Many of our first responders are on extensive, multiple medications … and this is a group of people that was very athletic and very physical.

Dr. Stephen Levin of Mount Sinai, which has screened more than 14,000 other recovery workers, including civilian volunteers, said many of the World Trade Center responders sustained unprecedented medical exposure at the site.

The real story here is the very high rate of upper-respiratory problems, said Levin.