When cancer kills one, it kills all of us

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 1, 2001 last week claimed another innocent victim. And we all mourn.

New York City firefighter Ray Pfeifer slept in his fire truck for a week after the Twin Towers collapsed, surrounded by the debris and dust of the fallen landmarks.

He would spend the next eight months scouring through the rubble, “searching for friends,” he said.

After an 8-year battle, Pfeifer passed away on May 28 of terminal cancer, caused by the cloud of death that hung over the disaster site.

“With the death of Ray Pfeifer, New York City has lost a hero and an inspiration. My prayers are with his family and all of the FDNY,” wrote New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Twitter.

“Just learned that Ray Pfeifer has died. You meet very few truly great men in your life. Ray was one of them,” stated Sen. Chuck Schumer on the same social media platform.

Pfeifer wasn’t just another Joe who worked at Ground Zero after the attacks. He devoted months to scouring through the rubble, “searching for friends,” he said.

But he also did something else.

His legacy lives on through the Zadroga Bill, which secured medical care for Sept. 11 first responders, survivors and recovery workers. In December 2015, Congress passed the Zadroga Act extension, which funds health program coverage to 2090.

More than 33,000 first responders and survivors are living with illnesses or injuries related to the attack, according to a release by Congress following the extension.

“We’re still dying from terrorists. We’re still sick from terrorists,” he said with conviction and courage. “We dealt with people who didn’t really get it. We held it to (politicians) about never forgetting. [Then] they started to get it,” Pfeifer said.

“I was just the poster boy … but everybody did something.”

The Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on health recently held a hearing examining four bipartisan bills to advance public health. One, the Firefighter Cancer Registry Act of 2017, would require the Centers for Disease Control to develop and maintain a registry to collect data regarding the incidence of cancer in firefighters.

Kevin B. O’Connor, assistant to the general president, International Association of Fire Fighters, spoke in support of the bill.

Talking about his own experience as a firefighter and his battle with prostate cancer, O’Connor said, “I have suspicions that my cancer is the direct result of my years within the fire service. My father is healthy at 85 and has never experienced cancer. Collecting data on a national basis will permit scientists to conduct more comprehensive studies correcting the shortcomings of previous studies, and I am confident that this registry will be the catalyst to better cancer prevention measures in the future.” As devastating as the attacks on the World Trade Center were, the threat of cancer hovers around the head of every firefighter – paid or volunteer – because of the toxic chemicals found in today’s building materials and fabrics. The Firemen’s Association of the State of New York recognizes this and is pushing for expanded cancer coverage for volunteer firefighters under the Volunteer Firefighters Benefit Law.

A resolution by FASNY states: “Studies of cancer in career firefighters find significant associations between firefighting and certain forms of cancer. The current presumptive cancer bills covering career firefighters were built on the results of these studies. Why don’t we have the same coverage for our volunteers?”

(David F. Sherman is managing editor of Bee Group Newspapers and a columnist for the Weekly Independent Newspapers of Western New York, a group of community newspapers with a combined circulation of 286,500 readers. Opinions expressed here are those of the author. He can be reached at dsherman@beenews.com.)