Implementing the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, Effective July 1, 2011

Contact: Fred Blosser, (202) 245-0645

The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 establishes a federally funded World Trade Center Health Program for adverse health effects associated with the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The program goes into effect July 1, 2011, and is funded under the Act for five years.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, administers the program. Steps necessary for standing up the program on July 1 have been implemented:

• An interim final rule with program requirements for enrollment, appeals, certification of health conditions, and reimbursement – with a request for public comment on the interim final rule – was published July 1 (Federal Register, July 1, 2011, Vol. 76, No. 127, pp. 38914-38936).
• Contracts were signed with the Clinical Centers of Excellence that will provide monitoring and treatment services for responders. Those centers are the Fire Department of New York (FDNY), Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York University/Bellevue, Long Island Jewish Medical Center, State University of New York at Stony Brook, and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
• Contracts were signed with two Data Centers that will receive, analyze, and report on data associated with health effects. Those centers are FDNY and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.
• The WTC Environmental Health Center, which provides monitoring and treatment services for survivors, will continue to be funded under their existing funding through a grant until on or before September 28, 2011.

Additional background:

Responders eligible for the program include those who received monitoring and treatment services under previous programs for conditions associated with the World Trade Center attack. They will be automatically enrolled in the new program unless they decline. The James Zadroga Act also extends eligibility to apply for services to responders at the Shanksville, Pa., and Pentagon disaster sites.

Survivors can still go to the WTC Environmental Health Center to receive their initial screening exams and, if found to have a condition associated with the World Trade Center attack, receive treatment and monitoring services.

People that have been identified and diagnosed with a health condition specified in the James Zadroga Act will receive health monitoring and treatment services, at no cost to them. The law also establishes a process by which additional health conditions can be covered under the program if scientific evidence links them to the 9/11 attacks.

A separate part of the Act provides for a September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. The fund is administered by the U.S. Department of Justice. Additional information can be found at www.justice.gov/vcf.

More information about the WTC Health Program can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/wtc/.