3/10/07 - 9/11 claims another victim.
As many of you, I hope, read on our information blog - another person has passed away from having spent time at Ground Zero. Now mind you, this is not what the city or the MTA is saying, but this is what his family and common sense would dictate.
Philip Rooney, 41 years old, who was a city transportation worker passed away from Leukemia and left behind a wife of 12 years and 3 children. However the City's stance on this is simple - being that Philip's job never subjected him to the physical testing performed on police officers and firefighters; how do they know that this wasn't a preexisting condition?
Indeed - how do we know? Philip's type of Leukemia is awfully rare, it strikes 1 out of every 150,000 people. However, this type of cancer seems to be much more common in the 9/11 community - - so how do we know?
I feel as if we have reached the point of ridiculous. We've got the people who are literally beginning to 'drop like flies' and the people entrusted with dealing with this have resorted to responses that would stymie an 8Th grader. It angers me and others that we live in a country that has protocols for dealing with absolutely everything health wise - but have now chosen the 'head in the sand approach'. We, as a public health policy, deal with the possibility of an outbreak of some deadly disease - not by mass vaccine production (that's not profitable for the drug companies) but by early detection and containment. If 5 or 6 people came down with similar symptoms - the CDC would descend on that area like locusts and seal it off. Actually, they are quite good at what they do. However, knowing this - knowing upwards of 12,000 people involved in the WTC disaster and recovery effort are now ill with similar symptoms - I'm left with the question.............."where the hell is everyone?"
Deep down, however, I think I know the answer - and it makes me sick. My greatest fear is that there is some magical number of people who have to die before anything will be done about this. What is that number? Are we getting close? Are they willing to 'lose a bunch more' before they spring into action? And worse, what if there isn't a number? What if someone looked at estimates and saw that cancers were the most likely result of exposure to all those chemicals and they feel confident enough (given the unpredictable nature of cancer itself) to keep saying, "we can't be sure you got that from 9/11".
In the end, I guess (to get in touch with my feelings) I'd have to say the forecast looks like; anger with a 70% chance of rage within the near future. But, Rest In Peace Philip - in the odds game of life you could have won the lottery, but instead got cancer for your troubles.
Philip Rooney, 41 years old, who was a city transportation worker passed away from Leukemia and left behind a wife of 12 years and 3 children. However the City's stance on this is simple - being that Philip's job never subjected him to the physical testing performed on police officers and firefighters; how do they know that this wasn't a preexisting condition?
Indeed - how do we know? Philip's type of Leukemia is awfully rare, it strikes 1 out of every 150,000 people. However, this type of cancer seems to be much more common in the 9/11 community - - so how do we know?
I feel as if we have reached the point of ridiculous. We've got the people who are literally beginning to 'drop like flies' and the people entrusted with dealing with this have resorted to responses that would stymie an 8Th grader. It angers me and others that we live in a country that has protocols for dealing with absolutely everything health wise - but have now chosen the 'head in the sand approach'. We, as a public health policy, deal with the possibility of an outbreak of some deadly disease - not by mass vaccine production (that's not profitable for the drug companies) but by early detection and containment. If 5 or 6 people came down with similar symptoms - the CDC would descend on that area like locusts and seal it off. Actually, they are quite good at what they do. However, knowing this - knowing upwards of 12,000 people involved in the WTC disaster and recovery effort are now ill with similar symptoms - I'm left with the question.............."where the hell is everyone?"
Deep down, however, I think I know the answer - and it makes me sick. My greatest fear is that there is some magical number of people who have to die before anything will be done about this. What is that number? Are we getting close? Are they willing to 'lose a bunch more' before they spring into action? And worse, what if there isn't a number? What if someone looked at estimates and saw that cancers were the most likely result of exposure to all those chemicals and they feel confident enough (given the unpredictable nature of cancer itself) to keep saying, "we can't be sure you got that from 9/11".
In the end, I guess (to get in touch with my feelings) I'd have to say the forecast looks like; anger with a 70% chance of rage within the near future. But, Rest In Peace Philip - in the odds game of life you could have won the lottery, but instead got cancer for your troubles.
posted by Iloveny_marf @ 7:51 PM
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