(federal) Program Failed to Monitor (health of) 9/11 Workers, Report Finds

[DeepModem Mom]

Program Failed to Monitor 9/11 Workers, Report Finds
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: September 10, 2005


Thousands of federal workers who helped untangle the wreckage of the World Trade Center may have never been examined or treated for medical problems stemming from the disaster, a Congressional report has found. The report, completed by the Government Accountability Office, said that the federal program that was supposed to monitor the workers was shut down more than a year ago and remains closed.
The report, which was done at the request of local members of Congress, criticized the federal Department of Health and Human Services for suspending its efforts last March after screening only 394 of the estimated 10,000 federal workers who responded in an official capacity to the tragedy.

It said the federal program "accomplished little" by starting late - a year after efforts to monitor state and local responders - and ending early. Though $3.74 million had been provided to the department, the report said, only $177,977 was spent on examinations.

As a result, federal workers, including F.B.I. agents and forensics experts, might never have received a diagnosis or treatment for asthma or other ailments that have affected some Sept. 11 responders.

After reading the report, which will be publicly released today, several members of Congress and doctors who work with Sept. 11 veterans said that its findings confirmed what they had already witnessed. They said it showed that there is more to be done in monitoring the disaster's impact on public health....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/nyregion/10responders.html

[halobeam]

1. No one does anything right in this government. Truly pathetic.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. The same will be said one day about the rescuers who sloshed around in the

toxic soup of New Orleans.

[MsLeopard]

3. So typical of BushCo's Bizarro World

Like everything they do -- if you can't see it then it doesn't exist. They can't/won't study the health of 9/11 responders since they had been informed by public health officials that the air was unsafe after the WTC collapse but they decided not to tell the people. It's the same CYA they've carried into New Orleans and the Gulf coast.

[nookiemonster]

4. And the hits keep coming.

:mad:

eom

[HockeyMom]

5. Anyone with an IQ over 30 who smelled those fumes

would know the air was unsafe to breathe.