Sidelined by pneumonia, Clinton vows quick return to campaign trail

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton sought to draw a line Monday under the health scare rocking her White House campaign, assuring supporters she will return to the fray this week as her team stated she has no medical ailments other than pneumonia.

Clinton was set to get a boost Tuesday, when President Barack Obama will hit the campaign trail to support her bid to replace him.

Facing intensifying scrutiny about her health, the Democrat will also make new disclosures of medical records and data, as her team acknowledged it stumbled when it failed to transparently alert the press and public about Clinton's condition at the weekend.

"I felt dizzy and I did lose my balance for a minute, but once I got in (the van), once I could sit down, once I could cool off, once I had some water, I immediately started feeling better," Clinton told CNN, adding that she would be back on the campaign trail within the "next couple of days."

Clinton, 68, fell ill at a 9/11 memorial event in New York and was seen wobbling as she was helped into her vehicle, forcing her campaign to disclose she had been diagnosed with the acute respiratory infection.

The incident -- captured on amateur video -- gave her Republican rival Donald Trump, 70, a new opening to question her fitness for the nation's highest office as the race heats up with eight weeks until Election Day.

The campaign said she "felt overheated," then released a statement by her personal doctor, Lisa Bardack, revealing that Clinton had been diagnosed with pneumonia Friday and was suffering from dehydration.

"There's no other undisclosed condition. The pneumonia is the extent of it," Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon told MSNBC.

On CNN, Clinton initially said that she has "twice" gotten dehydrated and felt dizzy over the past five years, then said it had been "a few times."

Clinton was forced to scrap her California fundraising trip Monday and Tuesday. And the campaign acknowledged, just as Clinton was tweeting, that she will not attend her scheduled campaign event Wednesday in Nevada -- with Bill Clinton due to stump there on her behalf according to an aide to the former president.

In his first public comments since Clinton abruptly left Sunday's Ground Zero ceremony, an unusually restrained Trump offered her his wishes for a rapid recovery.

But he also suggested the former secretary of state's health issues were of longer standing than admitted.

"Something is going on but I just hope she gets well and gets back on the trail, and we'll be seeing her at the debate" in two weeks, the Republican told Fox News.

The unexpected turn of events has turned a conservative angle of attack into a serious line of questioning about Clinton's health and why it took two days to reveal the pneumonia diagnosis.

"Antibiotics can take care of pneumonia. What's the cure for an unhealthy penchant for privacy that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems?" asked David Axelrod, a former White House aide to Barack Obama, on Twitter.

Clinton admitted: "If we weren't fast enough, you know, I've talked to my staff, we, you know, take responsibility for that."

But she quickly insisted she has been far more transparent than Trump.

"The information is out there. You can't say the same thing about Donald Trump," she said.

"The American people deserve to know what he's up to and what he is hiding."

'Not the first time'

The episode has fueled fresh speculation and conspiracy theories on the internet, already awash with unsubstantiated rumors Clinton may have a brain tumor, Parkinson's or dementia.

The root of persistent claims about Clinton's health lies in 2012, toward the end of her tenure as secretary of state.

A stomach virus and dehydration prompted her to faint, causing what her doctor said was a concussion. Doctors said they found a blood clot on the brain. Clinton later received the all-clear.

On Monday, Fallon insisted that "there was nothing here in terms of anything that was caused by what happened in 2012."

He also said Clinton's team would be releasing medical records "in the next few days" in order to "further put to rest any lingering concerns about what you saw yesterday."

Trump also promised to release medical records once test results are back.

The former first lady has dismissed rumors about her health, but Trump has repeatedly raised doubts about Clinton's stamina and physical strength, and he questioned her campaign's account of the current episode.

"They say pneumonia on Friday, but she was coughing very, very badly a week ago and even before that if you remember, and this was not the first time," he told CNBC.

'Hard time keeping up'

Clinton spokesman Fallon said several senior Clinton collaborators at campaign headquarters in Brooklyn also fell ill in recent weeks, including campaign manager Robby Mook. But it was not known if that was the source of Clinton's infection.

Democrats including her running mate Tim Kaine rushed to her defense.

"Her energy staggers me," he told a crowd in Dayton, Ohio. "I have a hard time keeping up with her."

source: interaksyon.com

21 Pinoys remembered with nearly 3,000 victims of 9/11 attacks in US

The names of 21 Filipinos will be among those cited during the solemn reading of the names of nearly 3,000 World Trade Center victims on the 11th anniversary of the "9/11 attacks" on Tuesday.

According to a report of the Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency, the main ceremony will be the ritual reading at New York's Ground Zero of the names of the 2,983 people killed both on 9/11 and in the precursor to those attacks, the 1993 car bombing of the World Trade Center.

AFP said the relatives of the victims will take turns in reading the names.

The website of the 9/11 Memorial said 9/11 "is shorthand for four coordinated terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group, that occurred on the morning of September 11, 2001. The attacks killed 2,977 people."

On that day, "19 terrorists from the Islamist extremist group, al-Qaeda, hijacked four commercial airplanes, deliberately crashing two of the planes into the upper floors of the North and South towers of the World Trade Center complex and a third plane into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia," the site said.

The Twin Towers collapsed from the impacts of the plane and the resulting fires.

"After learning about the other attacks, passengers on the fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93, fought back, and the plane was crashed into an empty field in western Pennsylvania about 20 minutes by air from Washington, DC.," the 9/11 Memorial website said.

The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people from 93 nations. 2,753 people were killed in New

York, 184 people were killed at the Pentagon and 40 people were killed on Flight 93.

Filipino victims

A report of the Filipino Reporter in July this year said the Filipino victims of the 9/11 attacks are:

Twin Tower victims

• Grace Alegre Cua
• Cesar A. Alviar
• Marlyn C. Bautista
• Cecile M. Caguicla
• Jayceryll M. de Chavez
• Benilda Pascua Domingo
• Judy Hazel Fernandez
• Ramon Grijalvo
• Frederick Kuo Jr.
• Arnold A. Lim
• Manuel L. Lopez
• Carl Allen Peralta
• Maria Theresa Santillan
• Rufino Conrado (Roy) F. Santos
• David Marc Sullins
• Hilario (Larry) S. Sumaya
• Hector Tamayo, and
• Cynthia Betita Motus Wilson.

Fil-Ams killed in planes hijacked and crashed by terrorists

• Ronald Gamboa
• Ruben Ornedo, and
• Manolito Kaur.

The Filipino Reporter said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced last year that the scrapping of the name-reading was under discussion by the 9/11 Memorial and Museum Foundation, which the mayor also chairs.

However, in a letter by Joe Daniels, president of the National September 11 Memorial, this year said the name-reading will continue this year.

Last year’s plan was met with anger by the families of some 9/11 victims, who said the reading by family members should remain part of the official Ground Zero ceremony, the Filipino Reporter said.

A lottery system was used to select the family members that will read the names of the victims.

Health concerns

Meanwhile, in a report of Chris Francescani on Reuters said 11 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, New Yorkers will mark the anniversary on Tuesday against a backdrop of health concerns for emergency workers and a feud over financing that has stopped construction of the $1 billion Ground Zero museum.

While notable progress on redevelopment of the World Trade Center has been made since early disputes over financial, design and security issues, the project remains hobbled by political battles and billions of dollars in cost overruns.

A major sticking point is the museum at the heart of the World Trade Center (WTC) site redevelopment. Construction has been suspended because of a feud over finances between the National September 11 Memorial and Museum foundation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

When the foundation announced recently that for the first time, politicians would be excluded from having speaking roles in the Sept. 11 anniversary ceremonies, it was seen by many victims' families and others in the 9/11 community as a public reflection of these behind-the-scenes disputes.

Overall site redevelopment costs have grown to nearly $15 billion, up from $11 billion in 2008, according to a recent project audit.

But for many of the families of 9/11 victims and ailing Ground Zero workers, the redevelopment disputes are a disheartening sideshow to the rising loss of human lives.

When the 110-storey Twin Towers came down, thousands of tons of steel, concrete, window glass and asbestos came down with it. While thousands of gallons (litres) of flaming jet fuel and burning plastics released deadly carcinogens.

Last week, the New York City Fire Department added nine names to the 55 already etched on a wall honoring members who have died of illnesses related to Ground Zero rescue and recovery work.

Some estimates put the overall death toll from 9/11-related illness at more than 1,000. Nationwide, at least 20,000 Ground Zero workers are being treated and 40,000 are being monitored by the World Trade Center Health Program.

"We're burying guys left and right," said Nancy Carbone, executive director of Friends of Firefighters, a Brooklyn-based non-profit that helps treat first responders. "This is an ongoing epidemic."

In the past seven weeks, three New York City cops, two firefighters and a construction union worker who toiled at Ground Zero have died of cancer or respiratory illnesses, according John Feal, who runs a non profit that monitors Ground Zero health care issues.

The staggered nature of the respiratory diagnoses have complicated efforts to distribute $2.7 billion in federal victim compensation funds. A range of cancers is expected to be added to the list of ailments covered by the fund this month.

Leslie Haskins, who lost her husband on 9/11, said she has grown disillusioned by the politics of the reconstruction, and wants to see more attention paid to the ailing workers.

"They are sick and dying and their marriages are breaking up," she said. "Why are we pouring all this money into buildings when men don't have enough insurance to buy breathing apparatus?"

Progress and setbacks

Retired Fire Department of New York City (FDNY) battalion chief Jim Riches, who spent nine months digging through the rubble at Ground Zero before his firefighter son's body was recovered, called the reconstruction disputes "a disgrace."

Seven years ago, Riches was hospitalized with acute respiratory disease and fell into a 16-hour coma. He came out of the coma with stroke-like symptoms.

"We can send men to the moon but we can't rebuild some buildings in more than 10 years?" he asked.

Some progress has been made by Larry Silverstein, the developer who owned the lease on the Twin Towers and is now building three office towers at the Ground Zero site, and the Port Authority.

The September 11 foundation has also raised hundreds of millions in private and public funding for the overall project.

One step forward was last fall's opening of the September 11 Memorial at Ground Zero, twin reflecting pools in the footprints of the towers. More than four million people have visited.

Also, One World Trade Center, one of the tallest towers in the country, is near completion and expected to open in 2014.

Yet disagreements over costs have undermined the rebuilding and hurt public relations. Among the disputes, the September 11 foundation insists the Port Authority owes it $140 million, according to a source familiar with the financial issues.

The Port Authority believes it is owed $300 million, the source said.

Feal, a demolitions expert who lost part of his leg doing post 9/11 recovery work, is among those who said they are tired of reading about the contentious World Trade Center project when health concerns persist.

"2,751 lives were lost that day," he said "That's sad, but they didn't suffer long. These first responders have been slowly dying for 11 years." - with reports from AFP, Reuters, AM/VVP, GMA News

article source: gmanetwork.com