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City Council Resolution Calls for Zadroga Act to Cover Cancer

By Ben Fractenberg | September 19, 2011 2:14pm

DOWNTOWN — The City Council is urging the federal government to include cancer under the list of conditions covered under the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.

Members of the council's Civil Service and Labor Committee voted unanimously Monday to pass a resolution calling for the head of the World Trade Center Health Program to consider the mounting research that has emerged linking cancer and the toxic dust at Ground Zero in the weeks and months after 9/11.

The vote comes after community leaders and first responders filed a petition earlier in the month to World Trade Center Health Program Administrator Dr. John Howard, citing a recent FDNY study linking an elevated risk of melanoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and thyroid and prostate cancers to firefighters who responded to Ground Zero after the attacks.

"Today we urge the administrator of the program to look at this evidence and look at the obvious conclusion that cancer be included," said committee chairman James Sanders Jr (D-Queens).

An advocate for police officers said a number of first responders have already become stricken with cancer and have not received any help from the government.

"We have already lost far too many responders who have not had the benefit of this program and as a result have suffered medically and financially," Frank Tramontano, Research Director of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, testified at the hearing.