(Ex-HHS) Thompson Wins 9-11 Work (Helping First Responders of 9/11)

JSOnline via AP ^ | June 4, 2008 | Staff Writer @ AP

[Diana in Wisconsin]

(La Crosse, WI company will track health of ground zero workers)

Washington - As President Bush's health chief, Tommy Thompson proudly trumpeted millions of taxpayer dollars to help workers sickened by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the World Trade Center, even amid complaints that his agency wasn't doing enough.

Now, Thompson's private company has won an $11 million contract to treat some of those same workers - the latest twist in a fitful government effort to determine how many people were made ill by the toxic debris and to care for them.

The contract awarded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is aimed at tracking the health of 4,000 to 6,000 workers who live outside the New York City area, where a separate health monitoring program is in place. The CDC is part of the Health and Human Services Department, which Thompson led in Bush's first term.

Internal e-mails show that the one-year contract went to Logistics Health Inc., a La Crosse, Wis.-based company where Thompson was named president in February 2005. He was paid $240,000 by the company in 2006, according to a financial disclosure form he filed shortly after he dropped out of the presidential race. The company is one of more than 20 that Thompson has worked at since leaving the Bush administration. He was paid $4.6 million in 2006 for speechmaking and for providing several services to his various employers, according to the disclosure form

Logistics was criticized last year after it won an $800 million Department of Defense contract to give soldiers medical and dental exams. The firm won the pact shortly after William Winkenwerder Jr., former assistant secretary for health affairs at the Department of Defense, joined the company.

While secretary of health and human services, Thompson was pressed by New York lawmakers to take a more active and aggressive role in tracking and treating Sept. 11-related health problems.

"It is ironic that former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson's firm won the contract to provide the services, given the history of delay from the Bush administration when he was secretary and now," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). "But I am glad these heroes are finally getting the help they deserve."

Logistics Health's chief operating officer, Bill Vandervennet, said the company was honored to serve Sept. 11 responders and won the contract "because of our proven experience and past performance."

The government has struggled to effectively track the health issues of ground zero workers who live outside New York. Advocates and some lawmakers have unsuccessfully sought to establish a permanent, government-funded treatment program.

In the years since the 2001 attacks, studies show, workers who toiled at the site have had higher than normal rates of lung problems and post-traumatic stress. Others have complained of an increase in gastrointestinal disorders.

The CDC contract was awarded after the government received proposals from four companies, including Thompson's, officials said. The contract went to Logistics Health based on "an evaluation of everything from cost to technical abilities to past performance," CDC spokeswoman Bernadette Burden said.

Thompson's company already provides some medical services for the Army.

Logistics Health will provide annual examinations to World Trade Center responders around the country, diagnose and treat Sept. 11-related conditions and provide a pharmacy benefit to those responders.

According to New York City officials, some 400,000 people were exposed to ground zero dust, and 71,000 have enrolled in a health-monitoring program for people with and without health problems.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Let the Tommy Bashing begin! ;)

[Poetgal26]

I have no use for Tommy Thompson anyhow before I heard this and now I for sure can’t stand the SOB