USA: Hillary Clinton says the Bush administration should be doing more to help people whose health was compromised after 9/11

U.S. Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton has said that America was morally responsible for people who fell ill because of post 9/11 conditions at the World Trade Center. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her second public appearance since joining the 2008 White House race, said on Monday (January 22) that the U.S. government should be taking more steps to help people whose health was adversely effected by post 9/11 conditions at the World Trade Center (WTC). The former first lady appeared at the World Trade Center site in downtown Manhattan to talk about the efforts that a New York team including Senator Charles E. Schumer and Congressman Jerrold Nadler have made for WTC workers and downtown residents who fell ill because of unsafe conditions post 9/11. She used the platform to emphasize that resources for the treatment program of residents and workers effected by 9/11 should be be budgeted for by the President as soon as possible. "This is a call to action. I've spoken with the White House at length, encouraging them to put into the President's budget money to continue the treatment program that has now started. Without the President's budget commitment, the program that is treating many of these victims will end. It will end this summer. The treatment that has finally begun will be stopped. So, first and foremost, we have to have the money from the federal government to continue treating those who are now being treated," said Clinton. Clinton elaborated on the kind of care needed by those effected by hazardous conditions at WTC soon after 9/11, including the fact that many would need lung transplants. "There is a lot of medical work, prescriptions that are needed to keep people going, the medical interventions that are required. I believe this is a moral responsibility of our nation. We owe it to these responders, the residents and others who were sickened because of the attack on our country," said Clinton. New York and New Jersey resident present at the WTC site gave their opinion on Clinton's efforts for the WTC health victims and her plans to run for President. "I believe she (Clinton) is genuinely concerned about the care of the World Trade Center workers that worked after 9/11. However, I am interested in all that she has to say about health care and I will be particularly interested in the weeks ahead, in the months ahead, in what she has to say," said Jennifer Pranevicius, a resident of downtown Manhattan. Wayne Dejulia, a New Jersey resident seemed even more positive about Clinton. "I am very pleased with how Hilary Clinton is taking care of New York politics and taking care of the people that are involved here in New York City and she really cares about the people on this site, especially all the health problems that have come about and I think she'd very much like to take care of that, and she'd be a good candidate for presidential election coming up," said Dejulia. Clinton, 59, announced her widely anticipated bid to seek the Democratic Party's presidential nomination on Saturday with a statement on her Web site declaring: "I'm in. And I'm in to win." The second-term U.S. senator from New York leads a pool of Democratic hopefuls, including Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who is expected to be her main competitor within the party and whose bid could make him the first black president. Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, held a large lead in the Democratic race in a Washington Post-ABC News poll taken last week before she announced her candidacy. She was the favourite of 41 percent of Democrats polled, more than double the 17 percent, second-place rating scored by Obama. Clinton made history with her bid for the U.S. Senate in New York in 2000, becoming the first former first lady to win one of the most powerful political jobs in the United States.

ITN Source | January 23, 2007

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