Film Traces Sick Ground Zero Workers Still Waiting For Aid

by Haider Rizvi

(IPS) NEW YORK -- While Washington continues to spend billions of dollars on its global "war on terror," thousands of volunteers who took part in cleaning up the World Trade Center site after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks are wondering if they will ever receive government aid for medical treatment.

"Never the Same," a recently released documentary, shows how tens of thousands of courageous New Yorkers rushed to the Twin Towers -- while they were still burning -- to save the lives of their fellow citizens.

Yet their ailments from exposure to toxic materials like asbestos and mercury at the site remain largely unacknowledged by government officials and politicians.

Driven by a deep sense of solidarity and compassion for the victims, the rescuers worked day in and day out among the poisonous clouds of dust and the toxic smoke that hovered above the Manhattan skyline for weeks.

As a result, many are still suffering from physical and emotional sicknesses, including severe breathing problems, skin rashes, nausea, depression and anxiety.

Preliminary data released by Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital, which was given funding to screen workers involved in the clean-up and recovery efforts, found that some 80 percent of emergency responders reported at least one respiratory symptom attributable to Sept. 11, including sore throat, chest tightness, cough and wheezing. Half were still having problems a year after the attacks.

"Despite sacrifices made by those selfless individuals," says Jonathan Levin, director of the film, "nothing has been provided by the U.S. government for their physical and emotional healthcare, while the Workers Compensation system treats them as frauds."

Workers Compensation is a state-run program that provides medical treatment and cash benefits for workers injured on the job -- regardless of their legal status. The window of time in which workers must file a claim usually expires two years after they first become aware of their injury.

Kevin Mount, a sanitation engineer who worked to clear the rubble, told reporters at a press conference in February that his experience with the municipal workers compensation board was "one big runaround."

After being hospitalized in February 2002 and diagnosed with restrictive airway disease, hepatitis C, sinusitis, gastric reflux disease and depression, Mount had to fight for three years to get assistance.

"The attorneys for New York disputed each and every one of my injuries," he said.

Spanning nearly half an hour, "Never the Same" is based on interviews with doctors and rescue workers and footage of testimony before the U.S. Congress.

In interviews with Levin, doctors at Mount Sinai who have seen and treated the rescue workers say that in addition to cancer, many affected volunteers may continue to suffer from asthma and other kinds of respiratory diseases for years.

"They should be examined year after year," says Dr. Stephen Levin, the director's father, who runs the clinic at Mount Sinai. "They need long- term medical help."

Levin and others testify that many of the patients they saw had no such diseases before Sept. 11.

According to one participant in a Congressional hearing held in November 2003, about 40,000 people took part in the rescue and cleanup operation at the World Trade Center site. They included a large number of undocumented immigrants, mostly from Latin American countries.

"I was a healthy father, son and husband before Sept. 11," a rescue worker tells U.S. lawmakers in the film. "Now I am a chronically ill man and anxious about my ability to support my family."

"I am no longer able to work. It breaks my heart not to be able to run and play with my daughter," he adds.

Moved by the rescue worker's story, Congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York tells his fellow lawmakers: "People who are no longer able to work are being fired. They have no health benefits. This is not the way to treat them."

In the same hearing, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, also a New Yorker, voices her concern over the official stance towards the welfare of Sept. 11 heroes. "How in the world are other first responders going to respond to disasters if they see the first responders to Sept. 11 are not, at the very minimum, given health care?

Many experts in government bodies, according to Dr. Levin, refused to accept compensation claims by branding victims as "liars and cheats."

"It's infuriating that people who have done so much to help others have been put to this level of misery. They have been made to feel if they filed claims, they were essentially maligners and criminals," he says. "This is unacceptable."

The opening scenes of the movie show President George W. Bush standing next to a team of rescue workers at the Trade Center site and a government official thanking all "those volunteers who took part in the rescue efforts." The government went so far as to encourage financial district staffers to return to work the next day, assuring them there was no danger

This is contrasted with footage of doctors and volunteers. "I went down there to help," says one worker. "Now, it seems like I am one of the victims."

Rev. Franklin Chandler, a bus operator who rescued many people on Sept. 11, is genuinely angry. About the official refusal to compensate, he says: "It's really a slap in the face."

Levin says he chose to bring to light the stories of volunteers because "not only do they deserve recognition for their remarkable efforts, they deserve the healthcare they need to help them heal."