NEW YORK, NY October 29, 2003 — Health care officials say they need at least 256 million dollars in federal funds to help them adequately monitor the health of those who worked and volunteered at Ground Zero. Their request was part of a Congressional subcommittee hearing in Manhattan on whether the federal government has done enough to help workers in the aftermath of the cleanup. WNYC's Amy Eddings reports.



It was a hearing on the health effects of a catastrophic event that occurred in 2001 .but a more distant past was evoked by the congressmembers who were seated at a long table in a Mount Sinai Medical Center conference room. Republican Congressman Christopher Shays of Connecticut says the current issues before the committee reminded him of the 1991 Gulf War.



Shays: Veterans suffered a variety of unfamiliar syndromes, faced daunting official resistance to evidence linking multiple, low-level toxic exposures, to subsequent chrnoic ill health. When the front line is not Bagdhad but Broadway, occupational medicine and public health practitioners may have much to learn from that distant, Middle East battlefield.



Shays held hearings on the Gulf War syndrome, and he says the lessons learned them were the need for long-term health registries, the early detection of diseases, and aggressive research.



None of the thirteen people who testified disagreed.



Doctor Robin Herbert, co-director of Mount Sinai's medical screening program for Ground Zero workers and volunteers, says her program is only funded for five years, and that it needs more time.



Herbert: Because the WTC responders sustained exposures without precedent. These exposures may cause new, unexpected health consequences, including, possibly cancers, which are unlikely to show up for at least 15 years after the time of exposure.



The financial help required to track the health of workers over the long-term is substantial. Herbert says at least $216 million dollars is needed for Mount Sinai to develop a twenty-year program. The city's health commissioner said its World Trade Center registry will need $40 million for it, too, to operate for twenty years.



As for the short-term, health care officials say the current well-being of Ground Zero workers is not good. A representative for the firefighters union told the subcommittee 1800 firefighters have retired due to World Trade Center-related illnesses .and 600 more are seeking to leave. The Mount Sinai screening program has found persistant, high rates of upper and lower respiratory symptoms, even now, two years after the attacks. Jimmy Willis offered testimony on behalf of the Transport Workers Union, which represents subway and bus drivers.



Willis: Of the four thousand transit workers who responded to Ground Zero, as many as half of us are now seriously ill. Most of us should not have been allowed to work at the site without appropriate personal protection.



Willis was asked by Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler if he wore a respirator.



71/Willis: I had a paper mask.

Nadler: Not a respirator.

Willis: No.

Nadler: Were you offered a respirator?

Willis: No. None were available.

Nadler: None were available. Did you ask for one?

Willis: No.

Nadler: But you were made aware that none was available?

Willis: There was no one around me at that time, in the first few days that I saw where we were working who had them.



But Pat Clark, the regional administrator for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, says that, three weeks into the recovery efforts, OSHA was distributing four thousand respirators a day. She acknowledged that many workers discarded them because they were uncomfortable, and they made it difficult for people to talk. She said her staff sometimes came to blows with workers as they urged them to wear their respirators.



Pat Clark: I think working with the respirator community on having respirators that are more likely going to be worn by workers is very important. Working with responders to make sure that they are comfortable with respiratory protection.



Clark says OSHA is working with the federal Homeland Security Office to provide caches of respirators across the country for any future catastrophe. But the testimony of health care officials and workers made it clear that the catastrophe of September 11th is still being played out in the mental and physical health of many Ground Zero workers and it will require money to help them.

For WNYC, I'm Amy Eddings.