NEW YORK (PIX11)—
It will be exactly a week Sunday since Osama Bin Laden was shot dead and buried at sea.The WTC Health & Education Conference was held Saturday morning to help first responders, volunteers and people living in Lower Manhattan, who had their lives irrevocably marred and changed by the world's most wanted terrorist and mass murderer find out just how the Zadroga Act will help them deal with illnesses brought on from the toxins released by the 9/11 terror attack that brought down the Twin Towers.
They're hoping the monies made available to them from the federal government will help pay for things like medication, which many will probably need the rest of their natural lives and are very expensive.
Published reports say U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez assured the gathering people who're chronically ill will be taken care of, and those who haven't come down with as yet will be closely monitored.
"And that monitoring is incredibly important because what we're doing is tracking the development of diseases as a result of the toxins that were emitted that day," he explained.
H.R.847 - James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 almost crashed and burned during the lame duck session of Congress in December, thanks to staunch opposition from House and Senate Republicans, who argued the legislation was "too expensive."
The legislation was named in honor of James Zadroga, a NYPD officer, who died of a respiratory disease that has been attributed to his participation in rescue and recovery operations in the rubble of the World Trade Center following the 9/11 attacks. Zadroga was the first officer whose death was attributed to his exposure to toxic chemicals at the site.
Federal funding provides $2.5 billion to a Victims Compensation Fund. Like the initial fund in operation three years after the attacks; it's being supervised by a Special Master.
The act more than quadruples the funding for health clinics and other programs that screen and treat people for 9/11-related illnesses. In 2010, the programs received $70 million. The Zadroga Act will fund the programs to the tune of $300 million a year, for each of the next five years.
Rep. Jerrold Nalder points out that as the years pass, there will be more illnesses to deal with and learn about. "The science tells us that the illnesses that we're seeing aren't the only ones," he says, adding "we're gonna start seeing cancers."
