The Freedom Tower

Seven years after the terror attacks on the World Trade Center, hundreds who served as first responders are still suffering health problems, seven years after the terror attacks on the World Trade Center, according to Newsday, the Long Island newspaper “and despite a new $9 million federal grant for treatment and monitoring, doctors say more money is needed.

The Long Island World Trade Center Monitoring and Treatment Program at Stony Brook University Medical Center received the funding in a newly announced grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The money will pay for treatment and patient monitoring through next July.

Dr. Benjamin Luft, the program’s director, said yesterday the difference between the medical conditions seen shortly after the attacks and those being treated now has been the transformation from acute illnesses to chronic ones.

Respiratory problems, gastrointestinal conditions and post-traumatic stress disorder are common and often chronic for those who worked at Ground Zero, Luft said.

“We have about 4,500 people in the program,” he said, “many of whom suffer from a wide variety of problems and we continue to do our surveillance for new things that might evolve, whether it’s cancers or autoimmune diseases.”

But if, as Luft and his colleagues predict, World Trade Center disorders could afflict some for life, funding through next July will do little to aid the center’s long-term work.”