Fury over loss of 9/11 heroes' health program

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/340738p-290928c.html

A program supposed to monitor the health of thousands of federal workers who answered the call of 9/11 has been lost for more than two years, the Daily News has learned. "We seem to have inherited our own Loch Ness monster in terms of being able to find this monitoring," said Jon Adler, vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers' Association.
Programs were developed to check on the health of every other group that rushed to Ground Zero during and after the Sept. 11 attacks, primarily the World Trade Center Medical Screening Program run by the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Officials involved told The News the feds barred their workers from that program because they were setting up their own.

Unfortunately, that program vanished during the bureaucratic shuffle creating the Department of Homeland Security.

After trying for months to find out what happened, Manhattan Rep. Carolyn Maloney's office was able to uncover only that a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services got $3.7 million for the work. But it started and stopped in 2003, seeing fewer than 600 people.

"I was told there was a 'lull,'" said Maloney, who fired off a letter to HHS yesterday seeking explanations. "This is unacceptable, these men and women are certainly not experiencing a lull in the health effects they are suffering from exposure to toxins at Ground Zero."

[anotherdrew]

1. typical. repugs only take office to sabotage any and all public works

unless their crony friends can get rich off it.

[Supersedeas]

8. reverse cronyism

[forintegrity]

2. I'm not at all surprised

Greed and corruption is the name of the game and everyone is fair game....oh, except the top 2%

The rest of us are just in the way.

[Solly Mack]

3. where did the money go?

[Straight Shooter]

4. Probably into the same hole as the missing $9 billion in Iraq. n/t

[Solly Mack]

5. that's what I'm thinking

funnel funnel...

[Eloriel]

6. Oh, I'm sure it was all just an innocent oversight

Aren't you? :eyes:

[daleo]

7. It just vanished

Call in Mulder and Scully - I think we have an X-file.

[atommom]

9. Slimy, disgusting, but not at all surprising.

:(

[anotherdrew]

10. I wonder what else got lost in the shuffle of forming the DHS?

[whalerider55]

12. homeland security got lost n/t

[dflprincess]

11. Or...

they know damn well that those exposed to the toxins at Ground Zero are in for a lot (read expensive) health problems and the government is looking for a way to weasel out of taking responsibility for them. Not unlike the denials about the Atomic, Agent Orange and Gulf War syndrome vets.