By Jennifer Smith
Newsday (New York)
Copyright 2007 Newsday, Inc.
The son of a desperately ill Ground Zero rescue worker from Queens will attend tomorrow’s State of the Union address as the guest of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Ceasar Borja Jr. said he wants to use the trip to raise awareness of the plight faced by people like his father, and to remind the country that New York City is still scarred by the attacks that leveled the World Trade Center.
A former New York City police officer, Cesar Borja suffers from pulmonary fibrosis and is in critical condition at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. Doctors fear that even a lung transplant may not save Borja, who breathes through a tube and is currently battling an infection.
Clinton, who has long urged the federal government to take an active role in tracking the health of Sept. 11 workers, initially asked Borja’s wife, Eva, to come to Washington, D.C., this week. Not wanting to leave her husband and two younger children, Eva Borja asked her eldest son to go in her place.
“I don’t want anyone to be where my father is now, where my family is now,” Ceasar Borja Jr., 21, a student at Hunter College, said yesterday. “I want the government to care.”
Borja said that he plans to ask politicians to pass legislation to support first responders who became sick after working on the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center.
“My father is covered by his own insurance,” Borja Jr. said. “All those heroes aren’t being cared for by the federal government. We’re having to make it here on our own.”
A report issued in September by Mount Sinai found that nearly seven out of every 10 Ground Zero workers suffered lung problems as a result of their exposure. Dust at the site contained high levels of fiberglass and pulverized asbestos, and many workers did not wear respirators or other protective gear.
But proving specific diseases were caused by such exposure has not been easy. The city has fought lawsuits by workers seeking compensation for claims of Ground Zero-related sicknesses. Last year Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the federal government should assume responsibility for those claims.
“I know there are a lot more people getting sick, and it’s like they are the forgotten ones,” Eva Borja said yesterday.