GAO: 9/11 health program `accomplished little'for federal workers

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A federal probe has concluded that a program to monitor the health of federal employees at the World Trade Center disaster site in New York "accomplished little" even though city and state programs have screened more than 30,000 people. A report by the Government Accountability Office found the health screening program only conducted about 400 exams, a small fraction of the thousands of federal employees who worked on the hazardous debris pile in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The GAO's findings were to be presented Saturday at a special congressional hearing in New York City, but the hearing has been postponed. The agency is expected to formally release the findings Monday. The federal worker screening program established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services "has accomplished little, completing screenings of less than 400 of the thousands of federal responders," the GAO determined.

The study was requested by Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-Manhattan, who have for years complained the federal government has not shown the necessary attention to possible long-term health problems from work at ground zero. It has been known for some time that the government cut short the federal worker screening program, but the GAO report suggests part of the reason for that may have been uncertainty about what to do with the results.

"Officials told us they were concerned about continuing to provide screening examinations without the ability to provide participants with additional needed services," the report stated. Rep. Maloney charged the government stopped the program because it feared the findings. "The program that was set up to medically screen 10,000 federal workers who were exposed to the toxic soup of ground zero was shut down after only 400 exams because it was actually finding sick workers," she said in a statement. "That is inexcusable. It seems to me that the federal response has been don't ask, don't treat, don't care."

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/ny-bc-ny--sept11-workerheal0910sep10,0,2512320.story?coll=nyc-moreny-headlines