U.S. Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) on Tuesday issued a statement supporting a new decision issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that adds all types of uterine cancer to the List of World Trade Center-Related Health Conditions.
“I applaud this decision by the World Trade Center Health Program [WTCHP] to include uterine cancer as one of the covered conditions for 9/11 first responders and survivors,” Rep. Garbarino said about the final rule, which became effective on Jan. 18.
The WTCHP provides medical treatment and monitoring for more than 118,000 responders and survivors from the 2001 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and lower Manhattan, the Pentagon, and the Shanksville, Pa., plane crash site.
The CDC’s final rule is in accordance with WTCHP regulations, which establish procedures for adding a new condition to the list of covered health conditions, and specifically adds malignant neoplasms of corpus uteri and uterus (uterine cancer) to the list, according to the CDC’s published final rule in the Jan. 18 Federal Register.
The final rule follows discoveries in September 2020 by a team of scientists and physicians at a WTCHP Center of Excellence that led a petition to add uterine cancer to the list of WTCHP-covered conditions due to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) being referenced as possibly contributing to the development of endometrial cancer, a form of uterine cancer, according to information provided by Rep. Garbarino’s staff.
Many chemicals from the World Trade Center site have been cited as EDCs, the information says, and Rep. Garbarino during the 117th Congress joined several colleagues from both sides of the aisle in supporting the petition and urged the WTCHP and the CDC to issue this rule.
“While women were active participants in the rescue and recovery efforts after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, and many other cancers of the female and male reproductive system have been included in the WTCHP as covered conditions, until now, uterine cancer was not on that list,” said Rep. Garbarino.
“The inclusion of uterine cancer as a WTCHP covered condition will further advance the good work that the WTCHP continues to do for those that it serves and ensure that our first responders and survivors receive the health care they deserve,” he added.