iris udasin, medical director environmental and occupational health sciences institute, robert wood johnson pled medical school. welcome, dr. udasin. second we have mr. david howie, retired police officer new york city police department. and finally we have miss barbara burnett, former detective new york city police department. thank you very much for your patience, for coming, for your testimony testimony. your written testimony will be made a part of the record. you will each be given five minutes to summarize. there are a series of lights on the table. you'll see green first, then yellow. when red appears we ask you please conclude your testimony. so at this time, dr. udasin, you're recognized for five minutes. summarize your testimony. >> my name is iris udasin, and as i serve as rutgers clinical center of excellence in new jersey, we are one of six clinics in the new york/new jersey area. i'm a physician who is board certified in internal and occupational medicine and am a professor at rutgers and a member of the national toxicology panel an expert panel that advises the national insti

iris udasin who runs the new jersey health clinic. and thank you for being here and sharing your expertise with us today. and let me mention representative maloney, the sponsor of the bill and representative nadler, and representative king i see who joined the committee today and our representatives, yvette clarke, eliot engel and leonard lance, a co-sponsor. since day one you fought tirelessly to make sure the responders are cared for and i'm proud to fight alongside you. beyond the loss of life we know with great documentation the first responders are suffering debilitating illnesses from the aftermath. in fact, more than 100 firefighters and 50 law enforcement officers have lost their lives to wtc related health conditions. additionally active duty firefighters and ems personnel and 550 law enforcement officers were forced to retire due to wtc related health conditions. we now have a deep understanding of how the tons of