N002031
Friday, January 18, 2002 3:18 PM
Smoke inhalation / Dust ingestion
Kenneth L. Zwick, Director
Office of Management Programs
Civil Division
U.S. Department of Justice
Main Building, Room 3140
950 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20530
September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001
Special Master Kenneth Feinberg
Re: Smoke inhalation / Dust ingestion
Dear Special Master:
In relation to the rules of reference, you wrote: VICTIM COMPENSATION
FUND FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS C VOLUME 1 C (Updated January 10, 2002).
In it, you posed to yourself the following question at paragraph 1.18:
1.18. What if I did not suffer a bodily injury but I inhaled smoke and
dust, and was covered with cinders and ash?
To be eligible, you must have received medical treatment within 24 hours
and you must have been hospitalized or suffered disability or disfigurement.
By stating in your question that the hypothetic victim "did not
suffer a bodily injury", you did not really pose a question, at least
not a useful question. By definition, if the victim did not suffer bodily
harm, s/he is not entitled to compensation under this Law.
This hypothetic that you posed is useless. However, it manages
to confuse the public as well. You go on in this question to state that
the hypothetic victim inhaled smoke and dust. By definition of the law,
if the smoke and dust di not provoke bodily injury, the victim must receive
no compensation.
Yet, you must seriously guide and educate the victims. Members
of our group, among other perhaps, had prior conditions including heart
surgery and ailments, and respiratory diseases from asthma to asbestosis
in different degrees. Properly cared, they lived useful normal lives.
The inhalation of the dust (smoke is an euphemism under these circumstances
as it was not produced solely by combustion) provoked medically diagnosed
physical injury in some of these persons. Serious damage flowed.
The dust produced by the air crashes and collapse of the buildings
at the World Trade Center was composed of ground-up mortar, polyvynils,
polychlorinates, PVCs, asbestos, incinerated bodies and human bones and
other solid particles, toxic and poisonous inside the chest cavities
of the victims. Scientists and doctors agree that -depending on the prior
condition of the person- this dust produces the physical harm of which
some members in our group suffer after 9-11.
The statute under which you labor -Public Law 107-42- states,
in relevant part, that a person is eligible for the compensation under
the law if two conditions are met: that the person "(i) was present at
the World Trade Center " and "(ii) suffered physical harm or death as
a result of such an air crash." Physical harm produced by this black
dust is not excluded in this text.
You saluted this law as "an unprecedented expression of compassion
on the part of the American people to the victims and their families
" Your introduction to the interim final rule acknowledges receiving
comments from many organizations. Notably, you do not mention any medical,
scientific or psychiatric organization. The rules should be made on a
medical and scientific basis. Medical, scientific and psychiatric associations
are in agreement that "physical harm" can not be defined by what produced
the physical injury. Each human being is different.
The federal medical institutions -from Center for Diseases Control to
NIOSH to the US Department of Health agree that respiratory and heart
diseases are physical harm.
Over 100 WTC victims and their families integrate the Hispanic
Victims' Self-Help Group. Some of them suffered physical harm from ingesting
dust (or as you seem to be calling it, inhaling smoke). Please make a
question and answer that defines clearly your policy so that the victims
are treated with dignity and compassion.
Comment by:
Hispanic Victims' Self-Help Group