9/11 health plan to be expanded
Source: Agencies |
June 10, 2012, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
FIRST responders and New York-area residents who were stricken with cancer after being exposed to the toxic ash that exploded over Manhattan when the World Trade Center collapsed would qualify for free treatment for the disease and potentially hefty compensation payments under a rule proposed on Friday by United States federal health officials.
After months of study, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said in an administrative filing that it favored a major expansion of an existing 9/11 health program to include people with 50 types of cancer, covering 14 broad categories of the disease.
People with any of the cancers on the list could qualify for treatments and payments as long as they and their doctors make a plausible case that the disease might be connected to the caustic dust.
The decision followed a March recommendation by an advisory committee made up of doctors, union officials and community health advocates, who recommended that cancer be added to the US$4.3 billion program.
Previously, the aid effort has only covered people with a short list of mostly less-serious ailments, including asthma, acid reflux disease and chronic sinus irritation.
To date, there is little scientific evidence of elevated cancer rates connected to either the trade center dust or other toxins at the ground zero recovery site.
Some doctors and health advocates, however, have expressed concern about the presence of carcinogens in substantial enough amounts to create a risk. NIOSH director Dr. John Howard said in a statement that the agency had embraced all of the recommendations of the advisory panel, which had urged inclusion of a majority of the most common forms of cancer.
Some 60,000 people have already enrolled in 9/11 health programs for those who lived or worked within the September 11, 2001, disaster zone.
After months of study, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said in an administrative filing that it favored a major expansion of an existing 9/11 health program to include people with 50 types of cancer, covering 14 broad categories of the disease.
People with any of the cancers on the list could qualify for treatments and payments as long as they and their doctors make a plausible case that the disease might be connected to the caustic dust.
The decision followed a March recommendation by an advisory committee made up of doctors, union officials and community health advocates, who recommended that cancer be added to the US$4.3 billion program.
Previously, the aid effort has only covered people with a short list of mostly less-serious ailments, including asthma, acid reflux disease and chronic sinus irritation.
To date, there is little scientific evidence of elevated cancer rates connected to either the trade center dust or other toxins at the ground zero recovery site.
Some doctors and health advocates, however, have expressed concern about the presence of carcinogens in substantial enough amounts to create a risk. NIOSH director Dr. John Howard said in a statement that the agency had embraced all of the recommendations of the advisory panel, which had urged inclusion of a majority of the most common forms of cancer.
Some 60,000 people have already enrolled in 9/11 health programs for those who lived or worked within the September 11, 2001, disaster zone.
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