Lawmakers Seek Ground Zero Health Czar

By KAREN MATTHEWS

NEW YORK – Two members of Congress called on the federal government Wednesday to appoint a health czar to oversee treatment and testing for workers and residents affected by the destruction of the World Trade Center.

"As we speak, there is not one individual who is charged with coordinating the screening and the monitoring and the treatment of the thousands of people who’ve been affected adversely from Sept. 11," said Rep. Vito Fossella, who joined Rep. Carolyn Maloney and ground zero recovery workers at the trade center site Wednesday.

Maloney, a Manhattan Democrat, and Fossella, a Staten Island Republican, said thousands of ground zero workers are still sick more than four years after the terrorist attack.

"They worked on this pile behind us, and they were exposed to a cocktail of poisonous gases, toxins, pulverized cement and glass, and these particles are still in their bodies, still in their lungs, and many of them are becoming sick," Maloney said.

The lawmakers cited the recent deaths of three trade center recovery workers as evidence of an ongoing crisis.

In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, they called the deaths "an ominous sign" and demanded to know the Bush administration’s plan for long-term monitoring and treatment of ground zero respondents and area residents.

The letter was signed by a bipartisan group of members of Congress.

A Health Department spokesman did not immediately return a phone call.