By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor


Oct 15, 2009, 00:19



Thanks to Stephanie Gaskell, New York Daily News Staff writer, we read of the above’s shocking news, which New York City and the US governments seemingly refuse to let sink into their thick heads and even thicker skin. Thousands of first responders are in dire health conditions, and consequently dire financial and familial conditions, due to illnesses contracted while working at Ground Zero following 9/11.

In this case Robert Grossman, a police office who worked at Ground Zero following 9/11, died of cancer on Friday, October 9. Family members and First Responder activists rightly blame their deaths on the incredible array of poisons released into the air after the explosions and subsequent pyroplastic collapse of the Twin Trade Towers and subsequently Tower Seven.

Stephen Grossman, whose son Robert died of cancer at the age of 44, commented that “Everybody is denying that this stuff is connected to 9/11.” And right he is. Robert Grossman was a police officer in Harlem who worked at Ground Zero for several weeks after 9/11. His father added, “He never once said he was sorry he went down there. None of them walked away even though they all knew it was really dangerous.”

The very day after Grossman passed, Firefighter Richard Mannetta, 44, died of cancer. The preceding Wednesday, 37-year old Police Office Cory Diaz died of cancer. Stephen Grossman pointed out, “Unfortunately, it’s just going to happen more and more.” He added that there are still many more first responders, in fact, thousands of them, who are sick.

Adding a tone of righteous irony, he said “This country just says, ‘That’s fine. We’ll just wait another 15 to 20 years and you’ll all be dead and we’ll all be sorry. This country is [or should be] better than that.”

In fact, in an article I’d written, 9/11’s second round of slaughter, I reviewed a documentary film Dust to Dust, by Heidi Dehncke-Fisher, that detailed with incredible accuracy, just what these first responders were up against.

What hit the victims?

Dust to Dust catalogs some of the 2,500 contaminants that erupted from the explosions of the World Trade Center towers, Tower Seven and the two, fuel-laden jetliners, turning into a toxic gray dust that hung in the air as well as settled in people’s lungs and on area streets, vehicles, buildings, residences, both outside and inside the city for months . . .

*Over 400 tons of asbestos, which once inhaled in any quantity cannot be expelled by the lungs
*90,000 liters of jet fuel containing benzene, a carcinogen that suppresses the immune system and causes leukemia
*Mercury from over 500,000 fluorescent lights that is toxic to the nervous system, and damaging especially to the kidneys
*200,000 pounds of lead and cadmium from personal computers, toxic to the respiratory track, especially damaging to kidneys
*Polycystic aromatic hydrocarbons that cause lung, laryngeal and throat cancers
130,000 gallons of transformer oil with PCBs, causing serious skin rashes and liver damage
*Crystalline Silica from 420,000 tons of concrete, sheetrock and glass (tiny particulates that lodge in heart, causing ischemic heart disease)

. . . and so on and on and on . . .

I suggest you read the full review to get the full picture of what these heroic people were up against and what they have had to live through and in many cases die from. The tale includes the lies told by the EPA, the New York City and US governments that minimalized the dangers of the environmental catastrophe, the worst in the history of the United States.

The lies were told to speed the return to work of Wall Streeters, as well as to maximize the elimination of the crime scene Ground Zero crime scene. The evidence was whisked away in eight months, with men and women working round the clock, while Mayor Rudy Giuliani had a year and a half to complete the work, and in that time, allow for investigators to scour the scene for clues.

It’s no wonder, that as Ms Gaskell reports, “”The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act -- named after an NYPD detective who died from his post-9/11 ailments -- is still sitting in Congress, and Grossman and others are urging lawmakers to act now.” That is for the men and women who acted “now” when the call came on 9/11 to help. Would that the members of Congress could live up to the integrity and strength of its selfless First Responders!

John Feal, founder of the FealGood Foundation added, “These three deaths are proof that we need this bill passed today -- not a year from now.” Why, indeed, wasn’t it folded into the present health reform bill being hammered out in Congress, that is, if those hammerheads can get anything done!

The bill would put aside $10 billion (most likely less than Wall Street’s bonuses this year) for medical care for hundreds of first responders who have since become ill, though doctors amazingly have not yet correlated these illnesses with the World Trade Center. Given the shotgun blast of what those men were hit with, one wonders where those doctors’ heads are.

As Kenny Specht, a 40-year-old firefighter who worked with the NYPD on 9/11 and was subsequently diagnosed with thyroid cancer three years ago said, “The facts are indisputable. This week alone proves what we’ve been saying is absolutely occurring.” But never let it be said that our government rushes to help its heroes, whether in New York City or Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s too busy protecting the health and well-being of the insurance industry and the stock market, the defense industry, etc., which has got to change.

Feal added that the deaths of Grossman, Diaz and Mannetta in a span of five days should be hard to ignore. “How do you get this high cluster of serious cancer in just people that worked the pile? That isn’t a coincidence.” No, it isn’t, Mr. Feal. Nor is the neglect of the bravest, the finest, and the most dutiful. But that’s gotta change too. Or else they can send the Wall Streeters, AIG-ers and other clowns to the next catastrophe at home or abroad. And god help us!

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York City. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net. His new book, “State Of Shock: Poems from 9/11 on” is available at www.jerrymazza.com, Amazon or Barnesandnoble.com.

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