Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, Conversations about issues that matter.
Here's your host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I want to introduce you to a dear friend of mine,
Michael Barish. It's Michael Barrish of Barish and McGary Lawyers
for the nine to eleven community. It has been an
absolute rollercoaster ride since the beginning of the year, really
since the end of January with the start of the
Trump administration, and we've had cuts to the World Trade
(00:35):
Center health program and then reinstatements, and then cuts and
then reinstatements. Where are we, Michael Barrish, First of all.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Thank you Hill my pleas and thank you for always
supporting the nine to eleven community. Shelley, thank you for
always following this story so I can get the word
out and tell your listeners before we end today what
they can do to help us get the full funding
that Congress that a prior Congress promised us. And I'm
(01:08):
not here to criticize our bashed President Trump because he
was the president, as you may know, who signed the
permanent extension of the Victim Compensation Fund in twenty nineteen.
So I know that he's in favor of supporting the
nine to eleven community, the responders, and the civilians. The
(01:29):
problem is that he asked mister Musk, who was not
an elected official, to come in here, and he allowed
him to make to use a sledge hammer instead of
a scalpel to save money for the government. And I'm
totally in favor of us saving money. God knows, I'm
sure there's a lot of waste in government. In government,
(01:52):
but what mister Musk did by first slashing the budget
of the health program twenty percent, and then there was
a huge, huge bipartisan outcry because after all the toxins
at the World Trade Center, they didn't care if you
were a Democrat or a Republican, black or white, Jewish, Muslim, Christian.
(02:12):
It attacked everybody the same. And not surprisingly, everyone I
know is getting sick. So many people are dying. I
lose two clients a day, Shelley Tomnilysis. So when mister
Musk cut the funding twenty percent, that was a huge
body blow to the entire nine to eleven community. We
(02:33):
pushed back, We went running down to Washington and I
went with the UFA, the UFOA A lot of clients,
both in New York and who were at the Pentagon,
and we spoke to legislators Republican and Democrats. They alerted
mister Trump this was a big problem, and Trump reversed
the cuts. What happened a few weeks later, mister Musk
(02:56):
decides to end NIOSH. NIOSH is the Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health. It administers the World Trade Center Health Program.
So by firing and ordering a firing of sixteen doctors,
they came from the World Trade Center Health Program. Again,
we went running back to Washington to fight against this.
(03:18):
This is a breach of the promise that Congress made
that President Trump signed into law, and mister Trump reversed that.
So the doctors got rehired. Doctor Howard, who's head of
the World Trade Center, got rehired. Until the beginning of June,
nobody really knows now what is going on, and my
(03:43):
neck hurts. I feel like I've been at a tennis match.
They're fired, they're rehired, They're fired, they're rehired. And now
let me ask you this, Shelley. If you were a
doctor or a nurse, and these doctors are wonderful, They're compassionate.
They can be making so much more money doing working elsewhere,
but they have twenty years of experience taking care of
(04:04):
people who were exposed to these illnesses, so they look
for certain illnesses that might not be seen by regular doctors. Right,
if you were a doctor or nurse, you've been hired
and fired twice in the last three months, and you
have a family to take care of, do you think maybe,
for job security's sake, you should be looking for another job.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
That's a very good point.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
So with this, I mean, my firm enrolled five hundred
and twenty five people into the World Trade Center health
program because with all this crap going on in Washington,
people aren't not getting sick anymore. They continue to get sick.
So we enrolled five hundred and twenty five people to
(04:47):
the health program and in the month of April, we
received zero certifications for their illnesses.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Wait a minute, wait, you signed up five hundred over
what period of time?
Speaker 3 (05:00):
In the month of April, we enrolled five hundred of
our clients who had already us We enroll our own
clients into the health program because it's a bureaucratic nightmare
to do it yourself. We want to make sure that
this is as easy as possible. Many of these people
at PTSD, it's really hard for them to do it.
They've got to find the right proof. You can't have
(05:21):
witnesses contradict something else that may have been submitted in
one of your applications. So we do it for our clients,
and we got zero of our clients certified because they're
a mess down there in Washington. So this is not
only causing increased stress and anxiety in the nine to
(05:42):
eleven community, but it's also affecting their ability to get
treatment because remember, you don't get treated until you first
get certified with an illness, and then I can't get
you money from the Victim Compensation Fund, which is the
second program created by the za Roga Health and Comperenceation Act,
until you're certified. So the awards are now being delayed
(06:05):
as well. It's a real travesty and I'm not going
to stand for it. As you know, I take this
so personally because first of all, I was here on
nine to eleven. My office is just two blocks from
ground zero. I represented firefighters and cops before nine to eleven.
I was there when they were coughing and they diagnosed
(06:26):
it the World Trade Center cough. When the first Victim
Fund ended, I represented Detective zen Roga for whom in
twenty ten, after six years of lobbying, we finally got
Congress to pass something called the zen Roga Health and
Compensation Act, creating these two programs, the Health Program and
the Victim Fund. And then that was ending in twenty fifteen,
(06:48):
so we went back to Washington to fight for another extension,
which got us another five years, and then we fought
again and thanks to John Stewart and the unions and
John feel only got the permanent extension of both programs. However,
the health program has come under attack and it's not right.
(07:08):
It's bureaucratic cruelty. I won't stand for it. We're going
back to Washington in two weeks to demand that they
give the health program once and for all the funding
it needs to survive to twenty ninety.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I'm speaking with Michael Barrish of Barrish and McGary, lawyers
for the nine to eleven community. We're talking about the
funding cuts for the World Trade Center Health Program, and
you said that they have now extended the funding till well,
at least for the jobs until June.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Does that mean right, so the doctors have been rehired, but.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Only till June.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
That's till June. But so far what happens but we
don't know. It's total chaos. There's no communitvcation, and that's
part of what's so frustrating. Clients are calling me up, Shelley, saying,
are they going to pay for my chemotherapy? Can I
see my doctor in July? I have an appointment for
my annual exam. I don't know. Then another thing, new
(08:15):
clients say, how long is this process going to take? Now?
I used to be able to say, well, it takes
approximately four months once you enrolling the health program, get
an appointment to get a certification. Well now it's taking
about six months. And with the uncertainty and nothing at
(08:37):
all happening in the month of April, you've now got
maybe even a longer delay. And you know what I mean.
I hate to be chicken little saying that the sky
is falling, But the fact is, I know this is corny,
but it's true. Early detection of cancer saves lives. And
that's why, even though we know sixty nine cancers have
(08:58):
been linked to the World Trade accent of toxins and
many respiratory illnesses. Fewer people die of their cancers once
they're in the health program because they go for their
annual exams, and annual exams will catch a cancer at
stage one or two rather than another eight month delay,
(09:19):
which could mean the difference between stage one and stage
four cancer.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Let me raise another question that I have, Michael. We
are speaking after the House had passed what President Trump
calls his Big Beautiful bill, his budget bill, and now
it's going to the Senate and he wants everything done
(09:45):
by July fourth. My question to you is do we
know if there are possibly any more cuts to the
program included in this bill.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
There were no cuts. But before these cuts even happened, Shelley,
we were going down to Washington because the Health program
and Niosh said that they were in jeopardy of not
being able to accept new patients after twenty twenty seven
because so many people there's been an explosion of cancers
(10:18):
in the nine to eleven community, and medical inflation has
made it such that the health program was in jeopardy
and needed more money. So we've been lobbing Congress to
get more money for the health program. Ironically, the Victim
Compensation Fund is just fine because that's sponsored and paid
for by a tax on foreign corporations. But you don't
(10:41):
get money from the victim Fund unless you first get
certified with the ny level. While there's been no cuts
to the health program in this quote big beautiful budget,
which is anything but beautiful unless you mind three trillion
dollars of new debt, which are children going to have
to pay for. Again, this is not a political issue.
(11:01):
I just want to see that the government fulfills its
obligation to never forget the victims of nine to eleven.
And that's not just first responders. That's also the three
hundred thousand office workers, the fifty thousand students and teachers
in all fifty states. So I would be remiss if
I didn't use this opportunity to ask your listeners please.
(11:25):
If you've been listening to Shelley for years, then you
know how passionate she is. If you hear it in
my voice, you know how passionate I am. Because I
have twenty five people who work here who have lost
a parent from a nine to eleven illness. That's why
we take this so personally. But what you can do
is reach out to your legislators and demand that they
(11:47):
give the World Traits and a Health program the full funding.
Remember when they told us the air was safe to
breathe Shelley five days. That was one week later. That
was one week after such, it was not safe. When
they did the autopsy of my client, Jimmy Zadrogan, theyk
I'm ground glass and asbestos and benzing and his lungs.
If he had it in his lungs, stow does everyone else,
(12:08):
which is why they've linked all these sixty nine cancers.
But this is not just a New York issue. Responders
came from all fifty states, and students who were here
have moved to all fifty states. So many of my
clients live in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida. Now we
need those people to call their legislators and say, I'm
one of your constituents. This isn't a New York area
(12:31):
a New York issue. I live in South Carolina. I
live in Florida, and I am asking you, Senator Graham
to be as one example. Vote for this budget only
if it includes another three billion dollars for the World
Trade cet of Health program. Enough games I'm tired of
going to Washington with sick responders and sick people to
(12:55):
just show them off to congressmen who are forgetting that
they made a prime to never forget.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
So we're almost twenty four years to the day that
September eleventh occurtain. You're telling me that there are even
more and more cancers being detected twenty four years later,
a recent explosion, and we only have two minutes left.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Yeah, no, I mean they the last cancer that they
added was uterine an entometrial cancer. They were studying more
cancers until these cuts to the World Trades and Health
Program would stop the grants that we're studying autoimmune illnesses
and heart disease to see if they should be added.
But every single day, Shelley, I lose two clients to
(13:42):
a nine to eleven illness. It's heartbreaking. On the other hand,
it is incredibly gratifying to be able to say to
someone who's got terminal cancer, sir or ma'am, I don't
want you to worry. Your kids will be fine, your
wife will not have to leave the house, You'll be
financially a okay, And that gives them so much comfort.
(14:03):
But by delaying these health program the cutting the health
program and delaying the exams people. I really fear more
people will die because of these ridiculous cuts.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
How do people reach out to you, Michael Barrish, Go.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
To nine to eleven Victims dot com. That's nine to
eleven Victims with an s dot com. There's a lot
of information on my website. You can reach out and
contact us someone. I'm as meted. I'm happy to call
you back. You don't have to use me, you don't
even need a lawyer, really, but I want you to
apply to the health program if you were anywhere south
at Canal Street between nine to eleven and May thirtieth.
(14:41):
The more people who apply first, well, it protects you
even if you're currently healthy. But the more people apply,
the government will realize we need to increase the budget here.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Okay, thank you Michael Barrish, and thank you personally from
me for your big contribution to the Tunnel to Towers
World Trades and Climb. I'm telling you, Michael is the
real deal. He is the real deal.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
You've been listening to Sunsteen sessions on iHeartRadio, a production
of New York's classic rock Q one oh four point
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