I am in the 9/11 World Trade Center health registry that you may have heard about; fortunately I am completely healthy. Below are several true stories, followed by some more or less related current political commentary:
As a physician and public health doctor, whose office is 4 diagonal blocks from the World Trade Center, and who watched the first plane go in from our 38th floor office, I was what one might call a secondary responder on 9/11. After our building was evacuated, I initially walked in the opposite direction, uptown a little ways to the late lamented St Vincent’s Hospital on 11th Street. As I walked away, like many others, I watched as the towers fell. At about noon on 9/11 I had linked up with some other health care workers, and walked down to a first aid station that was set up in Stuyvesant High School, under the Tribeca Bridge at the Corner of West and Chambers.
As it became increasingly apparent that there was very little first aid to be offered -- since mostly everybody in the WTC and vicinity had either died outright, or walked away with minimal injury, and the few in between had been taken to hospital already -- our attention turned to the firemen and other responders going in. That first day we did not have any respirators for the construction (or as I prefer to put it given what they were already doing, deconstruction workers). The firefighters of course had their own. One of things I started was standing on the corner of Chambers and West, so when the trucks slowed to make the turn, I climbed up and handed them surgical facemasks. They are not that helpful, keeping out only the largest particles, but it was all we had that first day and night. Over the next three weeks I alternated between doing eye-washing (using IV saline solution to wash away the irritation and foreign bodies the workers routinely came off the pile (and some other remedial aid) from a site 2-3 blocks away from ground zero (or as we referred to it then "the pile"; doing fitting and dispensing of real respirators right on the pile site; and some administrative work at the emergency operations center which was set up at the Hudson River Piers further uptown (since Giuliani had foolishly, against expert advice, but because of political payoffs, insisted on putting the EOC in the predicted target of the WTC).
Suffice it to say that my own toxic exposure was not as great as many and of course in my role as an onsite health care provider, I wore a respirator... most of time... after that first day.
File the following under the category of "many things are true at once":
- I have to note, that despite our handing out respirators to most, perhaps almost all of the workers after things got better organized, it is also true that most of them did not wear them consistently. Despite our (health care workers on the site) mantra at the time of "if you get sick or injured, the terrorists win so please wear the masks and be careful out there", the truth was also that they were almost impossible to wear while getting the work done. They were basic models that filtered just fine, but of course had no walkie-talkie or radio inside. So not only were they hot and uncomfortable, especially for the firemen, cops and construction workers doing physically laborious work on the pile (as opposed to me just standing there at the health tent), but there was no way to communicate while wearing them.
- It is also true that there are legitimate issues around causality, and multiple causality, in any given case of 9/11 related illness, and for the cohort exposed persons overall. Sorting that out is exactly what we medical epidemiologists do, and have been doing as profession for over a hundred years. The 9/11 workers situation is similar to the issue around poorly protected coal miners and asbestos workers, who also have (or used to have) high rates of tobacco use. How much of the illness is from the occupational exposure, and how much from other causes? But just as there is no question as to the fact that many coal miners and asbestos workers got sick and died from their exposure at work, there is absolutely no question whatsoever that many people are getting sick, and some have died, because of 9/11 related exposure. None.
Three other memories:
The inch or more of grey dust that was everywhere from at least Canal Street on down. It did not go away until a heavy rain came much later. In addition to the lack of the usual pedestrian and street traffic noise, the sound dampening effect of that layer of dust contributed to the quietude around ground zero.
Also, despite all my official credentialing for being there, I still had to get off from the train several stations beforehand and walk in from the frozen zone perimeter. And the silence on the walk in. And the camaraderie once there.
By bizarre morbid coincidence, a close friend and colleague at work, an elderly woman who had done fine work supporting the National Health Service Corps over for 30 years, had died suddenly and unexpectedly on 9/10 of a heart attack. In the midst of the all the national (and international) mourning and attention paid to those who died in the terrorist attack, who was to mourn and publicly acknowledge the unrelated plain and simple heart attack death of an elderly government "bureaucrat"? Well despite our dispersion from our closed workplace, depsite being spread across all the boroughs and several states, all her fellow workers made it to the funeral and service just a couple days after 9/11. I was glad her story (and ours of taking time to mourn her in the midst of everything else), made it into a latter story in the Village Voice.
Three weeks after 9/11, I went to my uncle's wedding in North Carolina and a previously planned family vacation. By the time we came back, my office was beginning to re-open.
Okay now for some current politics:
1. What the opposition to the 9/11 First Responders Bill was Really About:
Let us recognize that it had nothing to do with increasing the debt. One way or another it was paid for by offsets, since the congressional Democrats (unlike the Republicans in the past) stuck themselves with "paygo". The real objection by the "U.S." Chamber of Commerce and hence for the Repuglicans was that the original plan was to actually close some serious corporate tax loopholes:
December 17, ThinkProgress:
The Chamber fought to help kill the 9/11 compensation bill because it was funded by ending a special tax loophole exploited by foreign corporations doing business in the United States.
The "U.S." part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a misnomer. As ThinkProgress reported, the Chamber represents dozens of foreign businesses in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, Bahrain, India, Brazil, and other countries. An investigation of the Chamber turned up recent fundraising documents from the Chamber soliciting foreign contributions to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6), the tax entity the Chamber used to run nasty campaign ads against Democrats earlier this year.
In September, the Chamber sent a letter officially opposing the 9/11 first responders bill, called the "James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010." The Chamber warned that ending the tax loophole would "damage U.S. relationships with major trading partners" and "aggravate already unsettled financial markets." A lobbying disclosure filed with the Senate confirms the Chamber contacted lawmakers to help kill the bill.
In typical fashion, the Chamber has not revealed which of its foreign members had asked them to kill the 9/11 bill. As the Chamber CEO explained to the Washington Monthly’s James Verini, the entire purpose of the Chamber is to provide "deniability" to corporations that want to affect the outcomes of elections or of public policy. In 2009, the Chamber secretly used a $86 million donation from the health insurance industry to fight health reform. At the time, the Chamber lied and claimed to the public that they were simply acting on behalf of the entire "business community."
Republicans are continuing to protest any renewed attempts to pass the 9/11 first responders bill because of the tax issue raised by the Chamber. Yesterday, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) sent out a statement that mirrored the Chamber’s opposition to ending the foreign corporate tax loophole.
Yeah, not just Coburn and Enzi. Even "moderate" Republican Sue Collins.
December 19, Fox News:
The original bill would have required multinational companies incorporated in tax havens to pay taxes on income earned in the U.S. Bill supporters said that would close a tax loophole, but Republicans have branded it a corporate tax increase.
Instead, the new bill would be paid for with a fee on some foreign firms that get U.S. government procurement contracts. The bill also calls for extending fees on certain firms that rely on H-1B and L-1 visas. It would also extend fees on travelers who don't present visa travel documents at U.S. airports.
December 21, ThinkProgress:
The Chamber — a powerful trade association representing the health insurance industry, ExxonMobil, as well as dozens of foreign corporations — opposed the bill because it paid for health care benefits by ending a special tax loophole exploited by foreign corporations with business interests in the United States. The Chamber also demanded that Congress should stop deliberating over benefits for 9/11 heroes, and instead focus on extending "all of the expiring 2001 and 2003″ tax cuts.
Disclosures reveal that the Chamber used part of its multi-million lobbying budget on defeating the bill because of its funding provision. The Republican caucus, which was unified in opposition to the legislation, cited both the priority of the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2 percent and the Chamber’s concerns about closing the tax loophole.
Over the weekend, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) tried to revive the bill by changing the way the compensation fund would be paid for. Instead of ending the foreign corporate tax loophole, Gillibrand proposed a new funding mechanism, including a 2 percent excise fee on certain foreign companies that receive U.S. government contracts. However, the Chamber still believes the bill’s offsets are unacceptable.
Asked for comment by ThinkProgress, Chamber spokesperson Tita Freeman told us that the Chamber takes no position on compensating 9/11 first responders, but absolutely opposes Gillibrand’s new funding mechanism because the Chamber believes it to be "harmful to the business community and the economy."
And today, the final series compromises that led to passage without objection, as reported by ThinkProgress:
Senate Democrats have struck a deal to pass the 9/11 first responders bill with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who has been blocking the bill because of its cost. Coburn, along with fellow-obstructionist Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), managed to extract huge concessions, bringing the total compensation package to $4.3 billion, down from an original pool of over $7 billion. The "time span was also significantly limited to five years each for the health treatment program."
...The Senate passed a compromise version of the 9/11 first responders bill this afternoon. "The measure was passed on a voice vote with no one objecting after Democrats and Republican critics reached a compromise reducing the bill's cost from $6.2 billion to $4.2 billion." The House will vote on it later today.
2. On two related notes of what really matters to Republicans
The real reason the Repuglicans walked away from the overall budget and spending deal that they had already agreed to, and went with the continuing resolution, was probably not so much their lies over earmarks catching up with them, but rather a desire to defund implementation of the already passed Health Reform and Financial Regulation.
As with the 9/11 Responders health care bill, it is never about the debt or the other excuses. It is always about protecting the corporate plutocracy. And needless to say, Predident Obama and too many other Democrats caved in without a real fight.
Update OMG: I posted and went out for a while, and came back and found this mostly personal diary up on Rec. list. Very unexepected and kind of everybody.
