Proof at last of Ground Zero-lung disease link - News - NY Daily News

Proof at last of Ground Zero-lung disease link - News - NY Daily News:

Rescue workers and firefighters contracted a serious lung-scarring disease called sarcoidosis at a much higher rate after the Sept. 11 attacks than before, said a study that is the first to link the disease to exposure to toxic dust at Ground Zero.

The study, published by nine doctors including the medical officer monitoring city firefighters, Dr. David Prezant, found that firefighters and rescue workers contracted sarcoidosis in the year after Sept. 11, 2001, at a rate five times higher than the years before the attacks.

Sarcoidosis, which can be life-threatening, causes an inflammation in the lungs that deposits tiny cells in the organs, leaving scar tissues that damage them. Some rescue workers and others who were exposed to the dust cloud that enveloped lower Manhattan after the World Trade Center collapsed say they contracted the disease from their work at ground zero.

The study compared the rates of contracting sarcoidosis among fire department employees for 15 years before Sept. 11 and for five years after it. It said firefighters who showed symptoms of the disease on chest X-rays underwent more intensive exams.

After the trade center attack, 26 firefighters were diagnosed with sarcoidosis, the study found. Thirteen were diagnosed in the first year after the attacks, which represents a rate of 86 per 100,000. In the 15 years before the attack, the rate of sarcoidosis was 15 per 100,0000, the study found.

None of the 26 rescue workers, who are in their 30s and 40s, has died of the disease, and about 10 have improved or recovered since their diagnoses, the study found. Two of the firefighters were former smokers, the study found.

Dr. Jacqueline Moline, who directs the largest monitoring program for ground zero workers, which has screened more than 20,000 people at Mount Sinai Medical Center, said several patients in her program have been diagnosed with sarcoidosis.

Mount Sinai plans to publish its own research in the next few months on the rate associated with ground zero work. Last fall, it published a study concluding that 70 percent of ground zero workers suffered from different respiratory illnesses after the attacks.

“We’re all looking to see various diseases that might develop as a result of 9/11 exposure,” Moline said. “We have to be vigilant.” The study was published this week in the May issue of CHEST Physician, a journal published by the American College of Chest Physicians.

“If the bones are still there,” Ms. Mattei said, “why do we assume that the asbestos and the lead are not?”

E.P.A. Is Urged to Widen Focus on 9/11 Health Effects - New York Times:

"Speaking at a Congressional hearing held in Brooklyn Borough Hall, they said that with the recent focus on the deaths and illnesses of people who worked at the World Trade Center disaster site, effects on those farther from ground zero were being overlooked.

Several experts presented evidence that they had gathered in recent years of increased asthma rates and widespread home contamination in Brooklyn, and urged more research to at least determine the extent of the problems.

Representative Jerrold L. Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan, said that having already misled ground zero workers that the air they breathed was safe, the E.P.A. was now engaged in a “second cover-up.”

“This,” Mr. Nadler said, “is that the people in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Jersey City and Queens are still being poisoned daily.”

The hearing was conducted by a subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Governmental Reform and was presided over by Representative Edolphus Towns, a Democrat of Brooklyn.

In the hours and days after the attacks on the World Trade Center, aerial photographs showed the main plume of smoke and dust blanketing a northwest-to-southeast swath of Brooklyn.

The E.P.A. paid for apartment cleaning in some of the Manhattan neighborhoods closest to ground zero, and in 2005 it proposed expanding its clean-up zone to affected areas of western Brooklyn and farther north in Manhattan. But it dropped the plan after an independent panel rejected the agency’s proposed criteria for determining contamination.

At yesterday’s hearing, an official in the State Department of Health’s Office of Managed Care cited a study, which his office helped conduct in the summer of 2002, of Medicaid recipients with pre-existing asthma. The survey found that asthma sufferers in western Brooklyn were 2.4 times more likely to complain of worsened asthma after 9/11 than asthma sufferers in the rest of the city — more likely even than asthma sufferers in Lower Manhattan.

The survey also found that asthma sufferers in western Brooklyn were 1.5 times more likely to have visited a hospital for asthma complaints than those in the rest of the city, the health official, Patrick J. Roohan, said.

Yvonne J. Graham, the deputy borough president in Brooklyn, said that of the $140 million that the federal Department of Health and Human Services gave to health care organizations after the attacks, only $5.5 million went to Brooklyn, $4 million less than the Bronx, which was not in the path of the main plume.

Kwa-Cheung Chan, a former assistant inspector general at the E.P.A., said that in a 2003 survey conducted by his office, about a quarter of Brooklyn respondents said that their homes had been contaminated with dust or debris from 9/11. A survey by the Sierra Club in neighborhoods southeast of the Brooklyn Bridge, including Red Hook, Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope, found similar results, said Suzanne Y. Mattei, the club’s New York City executive.

“This is only preliminary information meant to indicate where further testing needs to be done,” Ms. Mattei said, “but it sure does follow the dust cloud.”

Representative Anthony D. Wiener, a Democrat from southern Brooklyn, recalled watching scraps of paper settling on the terrace of his office near the waterfront in Sheepshead Bay, nearly 10 miles from ground zero.

Bonnie Bellow, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A. in New York, said by telephone yesterday, “While we had a wide range of various kinds of data to indicate there certainly was some dust that went to Brooklyn, we have focused our program closest to ground zero.” The agency, she said, was “prioritizing the testing and the necessary cleanups” there.

Ms. Bellow said the agency had not been invited to attend yesterday’s hearing.

Mr. Chan said that five years down the road, it made more sense to examine people than their homes.

“It’s like when you dirty the water, a few years later you start to see mercury in the fish,” he said. “Why don’t we look at the fish rather than the water?”

But Ms. Mattei said that even at this late date, a cleanup could prevent health damage.

“There’s no World Trade Center dust left on the kitchen table,” Ms. Mattei said. “But what about the carpet, the curtains? I’m more concerned for young children and toddlers.”

She noted that even five years after what she said was an exhaustive effort to locate the remains of those who died on 9/11, they are still turning up on building rooftops and elsewhere.

“If the bones are still there,” Ms. Mattei said, “why do we assume that the asbestos and the lead are not?”

Correction: April 28, 2007

An article on Tuesday about a Congressional hearing in Brooklyn at which speakers urged the Environmental Protection Agency to address contamination and medical problems in areas outside Lower Manhattan resulting from the Sept. 11 attack included incorrect information about the hearing from a spokeswoman for the E.P.A. Although the agency itself was not invited to testify, the agency’s inspector general, who operates independently, was. (He declined the invitation.)

Original story at NY Times link

9/11 FIREFIGHTER LUNG AILMENTS ON THE RISE

By SUSAN EDELMAN - NY POST

April 22, 2007 -- Twenty-six firefighters who toiled at Ground Zero came down with sarcoidosis, an inflammatory illness that often attacks the lungs, in the five years after 9/11 - a significant increase, a new study has found.

The study has angered the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, which complains that the NYPD has refused to acknowledge that 9/11 caused sarcoidosis in cops.

Half the firefighter cases were diagnosed in the first year after 9/11 - a rate six times higher than the average for the Bravest in the 15 years before 9/11, according to a paper to be published in CHEST, a medical journal.

The results "strongly argue for improved respiratory protection" at future fires, disasters and toxic sites, says the report, whose authors include FDNY top doctors David Prezant and Kerry Kelly.

The PBA, which has its own registry of ailing WTC responders, counts 19 cops with sarcoidosis.

Unlike the FDNY, the NYPD has been reluctant to link the disease to 9/11.

The NYPD has also rejected some cops' medical bills for sarcoidosis.

"First they denied any connection between the WTC and sarcoidosis. Now that there's scientific evidence, they refuse to accept it," PBA president Patrick Lynch told The Post.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Commissioner Ray Kelly welcomed line-of-duty death benefits recently given the daughter of detective James Zadroga, 34, a 9/11 responder who died of respiratory illness.

"The department hasn't refused to acknowledge a link. The medical division is reviewing the cases," Browne said.

Feds backed in WTC air case

BY THOMAS ZAMBITO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saturday, April 21st 2007, 4:00 AM

---

Federal officials can't be held liable for painting a rosy picture of lower Manhattan's air quality after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, a federal appeals court has ruled.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling that tossed out a lawsuit by five emergency workers. The workers, who say they all suffer ailments related to their work at Ground Zero, charge that former Environmental Protection Agency head Christie Whitman misled them by issuing public statements assuring them the air was safe.

The court's chief judge, Dennis Jacobs, said holding public officials accountable for releasing bad information could have a chilling effect on future government responses during a crisis.

"Officials might default to silence in the face of the public's urgent need for information," Jacobs wrote.

In passing, Jacobs also took a dim view of a related lawsuit currently on appeal that was filed by students, workers and residents of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. Last year, Manhattan Federal Judge Deborah Batts refused to dismiss that suit, saying, "Whitman's deliberate and misleading statements to the press" about air quality "shocks the conscience."

Jacobs said the panel disagreed with Batts' reasoning.

Five days after the attacks, Whitman said, "The good news continues to be that air samples we have taken have all been at levels that cause us no concern."

The collapse of the towers released a cloud of hazardous dust across lower Manhattan, including lead from personal computers and asbestos. Thousands of workers say they have suffered ill health as a result of their time at Ground Zero.

"There is a prospect, essentially, that these people will get nothing through the court system," said Stephen Riegel, the attorney representing the five workers: a national guardsman, a deputy U.S. marshal and three city Emergency Medical Service workers.

Officers denied on-duty death benefits - U.S. Life - MSNBC.com

BUSH JUSTICE DEPARTMENT UNFRIENDLY TO FIRST RESPONDERS IN DEATH

"Congress didn’t pass the Hometown Heroes Act so the Administration could pass the buck. The Department of Justice must change its policy and change it now." -U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass

Officers denied on-duty death benefits - U.S. Life - MSNBC.com:

By Bill Dedman

Investigative reporter

MSNBC

Updated: 9:54 a.m. PT March 27, 2007

BOSTON — More than three years after President Bush signed a law granting federal benefits to families of firefighters, police officers and EMTs who die of heart attacks and strokes on the job, not a dollar has been paid. The U.S. Justice Department has denied all 34 claims that have been decided, and has yet to act on more than 200 others, MSNBC.com has learned.

In the Hometown Heroes Act of 2003, Congress said that heart attacks and strokes on the job should be presumed to be line-of-duty deaths, making survivors eligible for federal benefits.

"I think the Department of Justice has intentionally misinterpreted the intent of Congress and the president," the sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Bob Etheridge, D-N.C., told MSNBC.com on Wednesday.

The Department of Justice confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that no claims have yet been paid, while 34 have been denied and about 206 are pending. A spokeswoman said the delays are caused by the complexity of the cases, not by any disagreement with the intent of the law.

The denials come to light as a new study demonstrates that firefighters are at much higher risk of heart attacks when fighting fires or responding to alarms. In the study to be published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found that firefighters face up to 100 times their normal risk of heart attack while working at a fire.

About 11 of the 34 Hometown Heroes claims denied so far were filed by the families of law enforcement officers, according to the Fraternal Order of Police, which also got its numbers this week from the Justice Department.

Most of the remaining denied claims have been filed by families of firefighters. The Justice Department didn't say whether any claims by families of emergency medical workers have been denied.

‘Nonroutine strenuous activity’
At least some of the denials were based on Justice Department judgment that some of the duties the firefighters were performing at the time of their deaths do not meet the law's requirement of "nonroutine strenuous activity."

Courtesy of French family Cordell "Cory" French, a volunteer firefighter in Towanda, Kansas, died at 44 after a training exercise.

In Kansas, 44-year-old volunteer firefighter Cordell "Cory" French died of a heart attack on Aug. 28, 2004, in the small town of Towanda, east of Wichita. His wife, Kelly, said he had been carrying hoses during a training exercise in the high school parking lot that morning, then collapsed at home that afternoon. She said the Justice Department told her last week that her claim was denied, because his work was "non-strenuous activity."

"He contributed many, many, many hours as a volunteer to that department," Kelly French said. "He was awarded firefighter of the year many times. That day he went to work as a volunteer. He loved it. He was an extremely healthy man. If he was in training, and working with the hoses, that is a strenuous duty."

In New York, the claim by the family of one volunteer firefighter was denied because he had responded to a call but hadn't actually fought the fire, and his duties were therefore "nonstrenuous," said Dave Finger, director of government relations for the National Volunteer Fire Council. He said his account was based on an e-mail from the firefighter's family.

Medical reviews cause delays
Other claims are being held up as the Justice Department searches the medical records for pre-existing medical conditions. The law says that the presumption in favor of the claims can be overturned by "competent medical evidence," but didn't specify what that meant. Families of some firefighters say they have been required to provide 10 years of medical records.

The Justice Department spokeswoman said that only 20 cases have so far begun the medical review process, while about 180 or so haven't reached that stage. The department rewrote the rules for the entire benefit program for public safety officers, postponing any action until September 2006, and delays since then have been caused by the complexity of the cases, she said.

"With few exceptions, PSOB (Public Safety Officer Benefits) death claims involve diverse facts and documents; complex legal issues; beneficiary uncertainties; and frequent outreach to claimants and agencies," said the spokeswoman, Sandra Gunn. "Additionally, if a claim fails to meet the Hometown Heroes Act criteria, it gets processed under the criteria applicable to all other PSOB claims; thus, processing can be extensive and time-consuming, because different tracks must be followed in many cases."

With heart attacks recognized as the leading cause of on-the-job deaths of firefighters, the Hometown Heroes Act easily passed the Congress with support of both parties. President Bush signed the law in a ceremony on Dec. 15, 2003, and both he and Vice President Dick Cheney have used their support for the law as a sure-fire applause line in speeches before fire and police organizations.

The White House President Bush signs the Hometown Heroes Act on Dec. 15, 2003.

But those organizations said this week that the Bush administration's Justice Department has turned the intent of Congress on its head, seeking any reason to deny the claims instead of giving them the positive presumption that the legislation intended. Justice took nearly three years to write rules for the program, and began deciding claims only in recent weeks.

"The Justice Department has been beyond difficult from day one," Harold A. Schaitberger, the general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, told MSNBC.com. "They've made it pretty clear they don't like the law. I don't think this is about regulatory issue, medical issues, issues of potential fraud. They've done everything in their power to disregard the law, they have stonewalled it. I think it's showing a complete disrespect for the memories of firefighters and law enforcement officers who have laid it on the line for their communities."

‘Some sort of political payback’
Schaitberger said it was his view that the administration was holding up the payments as "some sort of political payback" for the union supporting Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.

The Public Safety Officers Benefits' Program became law in 1976, providing death and disability payments primarily to police officers killed in the line of duty. Congress added coverage for firefighters in 1984 and for emergency medical personnel in 1986. In 2002, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, police and fire chaplains were added.

/ U.S. Fire Administration The decline in firefighter line-of-duty deaths in the U.S. has stalled. The number of deaths has leveled off at about 100. This chart does not include 343 firefighter deaths on Sept. 11, 2001.

The Hometown Heroes Act of 2003 extended the same benefits to victims of heart attacks and strokes on the job. The death benefit, which is adjusted each October for inflation, is now $295,194. To qualify, the victim had to have been involved in "nonroutine stressful or strenuous work" in law enforcement, fire protection, prison security or disaster relief, among other duties. And the heart attack or stroke had to occur within 24 hours of such activity. Contractors, such as those widely used by the Forest Service to fight wildland fires, are not eligible for the benefits.

Etheridge, the legislation’s sponsor, said the goal of the bill was fairness. "If you go in a building and a beam falls on your head, or if you go in a building and come out and have a heart attack and die, either way you're dead,” he said. "… If a soldier dies in battle, we don't check to see what condition that soldier was in when they lost their life."

Widow's claim hinges on judgment calls
The intent of the Congress is being tested by cases such as that of Fire Chief Gary Tilton, from Katy, Texas, just west of Houston.

Courtesy of Tilton family Gary Tilton died on Oct. 20, 2004, after directing traffic at the scene of an accident.

On Oct. 20, 2004, Tilton was at a church supper when he was called to a traffic accident at a major intersection. He stood directing traffic and other operations for nearly an hour. Witnesses said the chief, age 58 and overweight, "appeared pale, was breathing a little hard, and sweating," but felt well enough to go home. Three hours later his wife found him collapsed in the shower after suffering a heart attack. He died that night.

The Tilton family's claim is still pending with the Justice Department, but his case demonstrates two judgment calls that the government, so far, has not made in favor of any claimants.

First, was the chief's work "nonroutine stressful or strenuous" activity? The law didn't define that phrase, though the Congress made a point of saying that it didn't include "actions of a clerical, administrative or nonmanual nature." So if the chief had keeled over while pushing papers at the office, he would not have been covered.

The Justice Department rules for the program say that the phrase requires "non-negligible physical exertion" and requires the officer to be involved in a situation that would:

• pose, or appears to pose, "significant dangers, threats or hazards (or reasonably foreseeable risks thereof), not faced by similarly situated members of the public in the ordinary course; and
• "provoke, cause, or occasion an unusually-high level of alarm, fear, or anxiety.

Justice will have to decide: Does directing traffic at a major intersection in the Texas heat qualify?

The Harvard study of 449 heart attack deaths among firefighters nationwide found that 32 percent died when they were involved in fire suppression or other activity at a fire. But less stressful duties were associated with higher-than-expected risk of heart attack as well: 13 percent occurred while responding to an alarm; 17 percent in returning from an alarm; 13 percent in physical training; 9 percent in emergency medical services and other nonfire emergencies; and 15 percent in a fire-station or while performing nonemergency duties.

The second issue open to debate, in Tilton’s case, is whether he was at high risk of a heart attack because of pre-existing medical conditions.

Defining ‘competent medical evidence’
Congress said that the presumption of a line-of-duty death could be overturned "by competent medical evidence to the contrary," but didn't explain what that meant.

The Justice Department has interpreted this phrase to mean that claims should be denied if there is evidence of a non-duty-related medical factor or event that would have independently caused the stroke or heart attack. That evidence has to rise to "a degree of medical probability" that the other factor was "a substantial factor" in causing the heart attack or stroke, under the Justice Department’s interpretation.

The first draft of the regulations from the Bush administration in September 2005 would have used criteria from the Framingham heart study and known risk factors from the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association to determine whether the officer was already at risk. Because such risk factors include not just medical conditions – including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity -- but being male, older than 40 and nonwhite, the firefighters union and others argued that use of the criteria would have made it practically impossible for anyone to collect benefits for heart attacks or strokes.

The union lobbied hard for changes, and the Justice Department removed the specific criteria from the final rules issued in August 2006. The union declared a victory.

But the new rules left a void: They don't say what the Department of Justice will use to determine the medical probability.

The suspicions of firefighter advocates were raised when the Justice Department began asking claimants to provide 10 years of medical records.

A history of risk factors
Chief Tilton's records show a history of risk factors for heart problems. At age 58, he was 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighed 343 pounds at his last checkup. He had been diagnosed with high blood pressure, high cholesterol (both of which were well controlled by prescription medication), severe sleep apnea and had a family history of heart problems, according to the report on his death by the Centers for Disease Control, which investigates many firefighter fatalities.

Chest discomfort in 2001 had caused him to have a stress test, which he passed with "no chest pain or shortness of breath with good exercise tolerance." His fire department required no periodic medical evaluations or physical agility tests "for budgetary reasons," the CDC found.

On top of that, he had recently survived cancer. Two months before he died, he underwent surgery for colon cancer, and was undergoing chemotherapy at the time of his attack.

"Before you say, 'Oh my, no wonder he had a heart attack,' I will tell you that he was doing great with the chemo," his wife, Jo Ann Tilton, told MSNBC.com this week. "His blood work was all normal (which is not always the case with chemo). I have a detailed deposition from our doctor describing my husband's health. Several times the doctor has stated that the chemo did not contribute to his attack," she said.

"This is one of the things that makes this ordeal so hard: It is considered a line of duty death, but there are people out there who would say that he would have had a heart attack no matter what the circumstances. I have come to grips with those folks by knowing that my husband lived as a hero and he is being honored for that life.

"Yes, he may have had a heart attack one day, but I am convinced that it would not have necessarily been that day."

Postscript: U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., responded to this article by sending a letter to the Department of Justice's inspector general, requesting an investigation into the slow pace of decisions under the Hometown Heroes Act.

"It’s wrong to think that the families of first responders who die in the line of duty would be abandoned by their government," Kerry said in a written statement on Mar. 22. "Endless excuses, constant delay, promising one thing then doing another — these are unacceptable examples of a government in Washington that doesn’t have the right priorities. Congress didn’t pass the Hometown Heroes Act so the Administration could pass the buck. The Department of Justice must change its policy and change it now."

Rudy-Giuliani
9/11 Presents Challenges for Giuliani - Yahoo! News:

9/11 Presents Challenges for Giuliani

By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press Writer Fri Mar 30, 11:07 AM ET

NEW YORK - Rudy Giuliani's White House aspirations are inescapably tied to Sept. 11, 2001 — for better and for worse.

While the former mayor of the nation's largest city was widely lionized for his post-9/11 leadership — "Churchillian" was one adjective, "America's mayor" was

"While the former mayor of the nation's largest city was widely lionized for his post-9/11 leadership — "Churchillian" was one adjective, "America's mayor" was Oprah Winfrey's assessment — city firefighters and their families are renewing their attacks on him for his performance before and after the terrorist attack.

Oprah Winfrey's assessment — city firefighters and their families are renewing their attacks on him for his performance before and after the terrorist attack.

"If Rudolph Giuliani was running on anything but 9/11, I would not speak out," said Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son was among the 343 FDNY members killed in the terrorist attack. "If he ran on cleaning up Times Square, getting rid of squeegee men, lowering crime — that's indisputable.

"But when he runs on 9/11, I want the American people to know he was part of the problem."

Such comments contradict Giuliani's post-Sept. 11 profile as a hero and symbol of the city's resilience — the steadfast leader who calmed the nerves of a rattled nation. But as the presidential campaign intensifies, criticisms of his 2001 performance are resurfacing.

Giuliani, the leader in polls of Republican voters for his party's nomination, has been faulted on two major issues:

• His administration's failure to provide the World Trade Center's first responders with adequate radios, a long-standing complaint from relatives of the firefighters killed when the twin towers collapsed. The Sept. 11 Commission noted the firefighters at the World Trade Center were using the same ineffective radios employed by the first responders to the 1993 terrorist attack on the trade center.

Regenhard, at a 2004 commission hearing in Manhattan, screamed at Giuliani, "My son was murdered because of your incompetence!" The hearing was a perfect example of the 9/11 duality: Commission members universally praised Giuliani at the same event.

• A November 2001 decision to step up removal of the massive rubble pile at ground zero. The firefighters were angered when the then-mayor reduced their numbers among the group searching for remains of their lost "brothers," focusing instead on what they derided as a "scoop and dump" approach. Giuliani agreed to increase the number of firefighters at ground zero just days after ordering the cutback.

More than 5 1/2 years later, body parts are still turning up in the trade center site.

"We want America to know what this guy meant to New York City firefighters," said Peter Gorman, head of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association. "In our experiences with this man, he disrespected us in the most horrific way."

The two-term mayor, in his appearance before the Sept. 11 Commission, said the blame for the death and destruction of Sept. 11 belonged solely with the terrorists. "There was not a problem of coordination on Sept. 11," he testified.

Giuliani was also criticized for locating the city's emergency center in 7 World Trade Center, a building that contained thousands of gallons of diesel fuel when it collapsed after the terrorist attack.

The lingering ill will between Giuliani and firefighters was resurrected when the International Association of Fire Fighters initially decided not to invite the former mayor to its March 14 candidates forum in Washington. Other prominent presidential hopefuls, including Republican John McCain and Democrats Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, addressed the nation's largest firefighters union.

According to the Giuliani camp, the contretemps with the union dates to tough contract negotiations in his second term as mayor. His critics deny any political motivation.

The IAFF drafted a membership letter — it was never sent — that excoriated Giuliani and promised to tell "the real story" about his role in handling the terrorist attack.

The then-mayor's decision to change policy on the ground zero recovery effort was "an offensive and personal attack" on firefighters, the letter said, going on to say that Giuliani's "disrespect ... has not been forgotten or forgiven."

Giuliani countered the attacks by releasing an open letter of support from retired firefighter Lee Ielpi, whose firefighter son was among the 2,749 victims on Sept. 11. "Firefighters have no greater friend and supporter than Rudy Giuliani," Ielpi said.

A contingent of nearly 100 South Carolina firefighters also expressed their support for Giuliani and his White House hopes.

Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran political consultant, predicted the 9/11 criticisms could resonate beyond New York during the presidential campaign.

"These are very emotional people who will touch a responsive chord with a lot of the electorate," he said. "The things that the 9/11 families say will wind up in television commercials used against Rudy Giuliani."

The issues also have forced Giuliani to try to strike a balance to avoid the perception that he's exploiting the attacks for his own personal gain. President Bush" President Bush faced the same challenge in 2004 when he invoked the attacks to portray himself as a strong and steady leader in the face of terrorism. Some victims' relatives criticized Bush for using the ruins of the World Trade Center in his campaign commercials, while others defended him.

9/11 Remains Possibly Used to Pave Roads

Posted: Sunday, 25 March 2007 7:15AM 9/11 Remains Possibly Used to Pave Roads

NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Lawyers for families of those who died at the World Trade Center in the 2001 terrorist attack said in court documents Friday that the city pressed workers cleaning up the site to take shortcuts that may have caused human remains to be lost forever. TOP PHOTO: Footings for the World Trade Center Memorial are being built on the footprint of the North Tower on (March 15, 2007). The papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan relied in part on affidavits from four people who participated in the recovery efforts at the Fresh Kills Refuse Site on Staten Island. Plaintiffs who brought the case against the city in 2005 include World Trade Center Families for Proper Burial, a group of about 1,000 families whose relatives' remains are at Fresh Kills. Court papers said the city failed to deliver on a promise to sift all debris through delicate screens to find body parts, human remains and personal belongings as small as a quarter inch in diameter. Only about 63 percent of the 1.65 million tons of debris recovered from the trade center site were subjected to the sifting screens, the court papers said. In one affidavit, former police Sgt. John Barrett said supervisors at Fresh Kills pressured workers to sift through piles hurriedly. He said he once refused to sift quickly, only to see two other piles carted away and dumped without having been sifted at all. PHOTO: The Survivors Staircase, one of the last on-site remnants of the destroyed complex, led many people to safety during the attacks. In another, construction worker Eric Beck, who worked at the landfill from October 2001 through July 2002, said recovery workers found as many as 2,000 bones a day in the early months, along with personal belongings including keys, wallets, pictures and jewelry. But he said some debris that had been through the quarter-inch sifting equipment was later loaded onto tractors by the city and used to pave roads and fill in potholes. The court papers said Beck's statement was proof that the city had failed to deliver on a promise that sifted material would be set aside and maintained with reverence. Since the families sued over the landfill, more than 1,200 human remains, ranging from small slivers to full arm bones, have been recovered from an abandoned skyscraper near the trade center site, the landfill of a service road at ground zero and underneath a former destroyed church. The city has launched a $30 million, scientific search for the bones of Sept. 11 victims in and around ground zero that includes searching hundreds of manholes and under a state highway. That search is expected to take at least a year, four months longer than the first recovery operation. Norman Siegel, a lawyer for families, said they want the court to require the city to carefully inspect the Fresh Kills site for personal remains. He estimated it would cost about $90 million, rather than $1 billion, which he said the city has claimed it would cost. ``This is not about money. We're not asking for any damages,'' Siegel said. ``We're asking the court to rectify the wrong, to order the city to resift the debris at Fresh Kill.'' Kimberly Miu, a city law office spokeswoman, said the city had no comment. The city has said in court papers that it engaged in ``a monumental and unprecedented search of more than one million tons of WTC material,'' an effort it called ``more than reasonable.'' ``The search was conducted with utmost care and solemnity. The possibility that the remains of some victims may not have been found in the process of searching the WTC materials does not empower this court to order the city of New York to commit tens of millions of taxpayers' dollars to resift and relocate the material,'' according to court documents filed by the city.