Media Center

 WASHINGTON, DC - More than three years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a number of Ground Zero rescue workers and area residents are suffering from long-term health effects, but the federal government still has not adequately supplied them with health monitoring and compensation. To alert lawmakers to their continuing needs, a group of sick 9/11 responders and area residents are in Washington and will sit in the balcony for the State of the Union speech. In addition, New York Reps. Carolyn Maloney (NY-14), Jerrold Nadler (NY-8), Major Owens (NY-11), Tim Bishop (NY-1) and New Jersey Senator Job Corzine, who are helping host the responders and residents, sent a letter today to new Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, urging him to provide adequate funds for 9/11 health effects early in his tenure (PDF of letter).

 WASHINGTON, DC - More than 60 years after World War II, legislation re-introduced in Congress today would hold railroad companies that worked with the Nazis accountable in United States courts. The railroads that carried Holocaust victims to Nazi concentration camps would be subject to trial in the United States under the bipartisan legislation sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). More than 75,000 Jews were transported from France to concentration camps during World War II by French railroad companies.

 NEW YORK, NY - The CIA has refused to release perhaps hundreds of thousands of pages of information on the U.S. government’s cozy post-WWII relationship with Nazi war criminals, in violation of the law. Today, a chief sponsor of the law and members of the governmental working group charged with reviewing the information demanded that the CIA begin complying with the law and release the classified information.

 WASHINGTON, DC - The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is violating the law by delaying its decision on granting over-the-counter (OTC) status for the morning-after pill, says the law’s author. A rider attached to the FY05 Agriculture Appropriations bill prohibits the FDA from actions that run counter to its obligation to make decisions based on sound science, not political or ideological considerations (PDF of legislation - see Sec. 774). However, by extending its timeline and continuing deliberation on whether to grant OTC for the Plan B ® contraceptive, the FDA is ignoring the intent of Congress and the overwhelming recommendation of its own scientific panel.