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Senator Clinton Hails Health Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton last week welcomed the announcement of $81 million in federal funding for a five-year health screening program for New York City Firefighters and other workers and volunteers who went to offer assistance at Ground Zero following the September 11th attacks. "This is a tremendous step toward fulfilling our promise to the firefighters, emergency workers and volunteers who labored at Ground Zero," Senator Clinton said. "Emergency response workers and volunteers risked their own lives to help save others on September 11th. This is evidence that America has not forgotten and a true expression of our moral obligation to the people who took care of us, on that terrible day and in the days that followed". "It has been over a year since we secured $90 million for ground zero worker and volunteer health tracking from Congress. I am pleased that we can now get the funding into the hands of the people who need it," Senator Clinton said. "I am also pleased because it builds on the $12 million we originally secured for this purpose in December 2001." According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) eight grants totaling $81 million have been awarded to fund a five-year health screening program for New York City firefighters and other workers and volunteers who provided rescue, recovery, and restoration services at the World Trade Center disaster site. The grants will allow the recipients to conduct three, free, standardized clinical examinations for each eligible individual over the next five years. HHS awarded the grants to the New York City Fire Department, the Long Island Occupational and Environmental Health Center, the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, the New York University School of Medicine, the City University of New York’s Queens College, and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Of the more than 40,000 workers and volunteers who were present at Ground Zero, all of the approximately 11,000 New York City firefighters and about 11,000 other rescue workers have already received initial examinations through previous funding from HHS. These additional free, long-term examinations will help employers and public health professionals identify symptoms, injuries, or conditions that may indicate long-term illness as a result of the World Trade Center rescue and recovery operations, so that interventions can be pursued. Since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, there have been ongoing concerns about injuries and chronic illnesses related to the disaster among the many thousands of individuals who worked or volunteered there. These men and women were exposed to a range of environmental toxins, including cement and glass dust, asbestos, fiberglass, lead and other heavy metals and PCBs. They also sustained significant psychological trauma. To make matters worse, reports indicate that over a thousand firefighters have retired due to health-related problems stemming from September 11th - and that the number is expected to grow In 2001, Clinton helped secure $12 million to establish the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program at Mt. Sinai. With the $12 million, Mt. Sinai estimated that they would be able to screen approximately 8,500 workers and volunteers. However,health and labor experts estimated that thousands more individuals were experiencing health problems - perhaps as many as 30,000 overall. In response to this need, Senator Clinton worked to secure an additional $90 million to expand the number of workers and volunteers eligible for federally supported health screenings.
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