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Originally published: September 10, 2012 4:26 PM
Updated: September 10, 2012 4:37 PM
By
ridgely.ochs@newsday.com
Photo credit: AP | A file photo of firefighters working amid debris on Cortlandt Street on Sept. 11, 2001.
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Cancer will be added to the list of diseases covered under a federal law that provides financial aid and health monitoring to ill 9/11 first responders and others exposed to toxins at Ground Zero, a federal official ruled Monday.
While elated by the decision, advocates worried there wouldn’t be enough money to cover treatment and compensation over the long term.
Dr. John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, issued a proposed rule in June expanding the list of illnesses covered under the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act to include about 50 cancers. Monday, he made his ruling official.
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Under the Zadroga law, enacted in January 2011, $2.8 billion was set aside to compensate people made ill by exposure to toxins at Ground Zero. Another $1.5 billion has been allocated over five years to fund the World Trade Center Health Program, which treats and monitors about 40,000 first responders.
For Joseph Vuoso, 68, of Mount Sinai, the ruling means he will be able to worry less about money and more about keeping himself alive. A court security officer at the Foley Square courthouse, Vuoso watched the towers fall and stayed at his post the rest of that week. The next year he was diagnosed with leukemia that has since become an aggressive lymphoma.
“We have heavy medical bills,” he said. “I’m on seven different drugs and the copays are astronomical. . . . I’m fighting to keep me here right now.”
His attorney, Troy Rosasco of Ronkonkoma, who represents about 500 first responders, called having cancer covered “a godsend.” But he, like others, said he’s worried there won’t be enough money.
“I’m very concerned there will not enough in the fund,” he said. “It sounds like a lot, but when you start calculating people with cancer who are now out of their careers, their lost wage claims can add up to millions.”
Manhattan attorney Noah Kushlefsky, who with fellow Manhattan attorney Michael Barasch represents about 6,000 first responders or others working or living near Ground Zero, agreed.
“I think the program was underfunded without cancer and this kind of magnifies the problem. But it doesn’t change our resolve to get full funding from Congress,” he said.
Those suffering from a 9/11-linked cancer, like those suffering other 9/11-recognized ailments, have until October 2013 to apply to the fund.
But Kushlefsky and Barasch said that under the present law, federal coverage for health care costs, including cancer treatments, ends in 2016, and future treatment will then have to be covered by their compensation awards.
In a statement, New York’s Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand called the decision “a huge step forward,” adding that “if the funds end up being insufficient, we will push Congress to provide more funds for all who deserve them.”
The statement continued: “We will press on — with advocates, the community and our partners in government — to ensure that all those who suffered harm from 9/11 and its aftermath get the access to the program they so desperately need.”
Longtime advocate John Feal, founder of the FealGood Foundation, a first-responders’ advocacy group, said proponents of more congressional funding know “we’re only at the 50-yard line.”
“We have to insure that the coverage period stays open longer,” he said. “Five years is not going to cut it.”
How many first responders suffer from cancer is unclear. Last September, the first major cancer study of city firefighters who worked at Ground Zero after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks found they were 19 percent more likely to have cancer than those who weren’t there.
Feal said his group has compiled an unofficial list of close to 400 responders with the disease. That number is likely to grow, given that cancer can take decades to develop and an estimated 40,000 people were exposed.
Dr. Benjamin Luft, director of the World Trade Center Health Program in Suffolk, Nassau and Brooklyn, which monitors or treats about 7,000 first responders, called Howard’s announcement “an important milestone” that acknowledges “that the toxic environment that responders were exposed to was not safe.”
Luft said he plans to begin offering cancer screening and treatment within months. But he too said he was concerned about funding.
“It’s so important for it to be renewed in the near future so that patients will not be worried about long-term care,” he said.
About 300 first responders have submitted eligibility forms to a special master of the fund for diseases other than cancer now covered under the law that are in the process of being reviewed, according to Allison Price, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice. “We expect more people to file as the fund progresses — it is hard to speculate, but thousands of additional claimants will most likely apply,” she said.
But for the moment, some responders were feeling a little less anxious. In 2008, Patrick Triola, 49, of Wantagh, a former city police officer who worked 104 days at Ground Zero, lost a kidney after he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He said he was granted less than three-quarters disability from the police department and can’t get life insurance.
“It’s some security for my wife and kids,” he said of Howard’s decision. “I went 18 years on the job and handled some hairy stuff. This isn’t about Pat. This is about my wife and kids. I want to make sure they are taken care of.”
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