Nearly 17K first responders are suffering cancers, diseases linked to 9/11 over two decades later
More than 45,000 people are living with the physical manifestations of the September 11 attacks more than two decades after the tragedy.
At least 45,200 civilians and officers from the FDNY, NYPD and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are suffering from at least one cancer or disease that has been directly linked to the largest terrorist attack in history.
That whopping number doesn’t include the 1,872 civilian program members who have since passed away.
The shocking number reflects the amount of victims enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program with verified illnesses — but because the project only recognizes some cancers and diseases, officials warn the true total of sick survivors is much higher.
Civilians
The bulk of the sick survivors are those who lived, worked and went to school in the Big Apple during the tragedy and in the weeks following, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tallies the data for the health program.
As of March 31, 2024, there were nearly 28,320 “living members with at least one physical or mental health condition related to their exposure to dust, smoke, debris, and the traumatic events,” a spokesperson told The Post.
That whopping number doesn’t include the 1,872 civilian program members who have since passed away.
The shocking total doesn’t differentiate between physical and mental illness.
Program members like attorney Michael Barasch link their illnesses to living in the aftermath of the tragedy after the Environmental Protection Agency claimed it was safe to return to lower Manhattan.
“The smell would hit you like a baseball bat in the face when you got out of the when you got out of the subway, but we believed them. We still came back to work at the school and to our homes. Well, it turns out that the air was not safe,” said Barasch, of Barasch & McGarry, a firm that covered first responders injured in the line of duty well before the tragedy.
In the 23 years since the tragedy, the attorney said he has watched several of his colleagues die from cancer-related illnesses and himself has suffered from squamous cell skin cancer and prostate cancer, the latter of which he is still in active surveillance for.
Now a 9/11 survivor advocate, Barasch warns the 28,320 doesn’t completely cover the total number of sick victims, namely because many don’t know they are eligible to enroll in the program.
The CDC estimates as many as 400,000 people who lived, worked and went to school in the area in the tragedy zone who were exposed to toxic contaminants, risk of physical injury, and physically and emotionally stressful conditions in the days, weeks, and months following the attacks, the CDC said.
FDNY
There are 15,500 FDNY first responders who are enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program for at least one cancer or disease that is certified — though many suffer from several certified illnesses.
About 200 of those survivors were diagnosed within the last six months alone, according to Dr Prezant, the FDNY’s Chief Medical Officer.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of other survivors whose status is pending as the FDNY works to convince the program to expand coverage to other diseases, like pulmonary fibrosis — a serious lung condition that has become increasingly common and rapidly progressive in FDNY 9/11 survivors in the last few years.
“It’s not that it’s becoming more common. It’s because it’s evolving in terms of respiratory diseases,” Prezant told The Post.
“Fibrosis takes a long time to develop. We know that from asbestosis, where the fibrosis takes 20 to 30 years to develop. In terms of cancer, it’s a combination of the exposure impact as well as the aging phenomenon, these things can’t be separated.”
“It tells us that these patients still need 23 years later to be monitored and treated for these evolving, changing and new diagnoses that are recurring.”
The FDNY has lost 370 members to 9/11-related illnesses in the 23 years since the tragedy, surpassing the 343 FDNY members who died when the Twin Towers fell.
Twenty-eight died in the past year, and officials expect the number to rise, with union leaders pushing for more funding to be funneled into the World Trade Center Health Program.
NYPD
Between five and ten NYPD officers who responded to the 9/11 attacks are being diagnosed with 9/11-related illnesses every month, according to the Police Benevolent Association.
The total number of officers with liabilities linked to the tragedy is more than 1,400 — with the most common illness being prostate cancer, the union reported.
The department lost 23 officers when the Twin Towers collapsed, a death toll that has since been eclipsed by the number of police who have succumbed to illnesses.
The union recognized 377 total members on its NYPD Memorial Wall as those who passed from 9/11-related illnesses during a ceremony in May, but said the number has already climbed to more than 400.
Port Authority
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey lost 37 members on the first day of the September 11 tragedy — the greatest number of line-of-duty deaths suffered by a police department during a single incident in history.
Since then, another 16 Port Authority officers have died as a result of confirmed 9/11-related illnesses.
There are a number of other deaths that are still pending, meaning they are still being evaluated as to whether they could be considered related to the tragedy.
The department and its union could not say how many members are still battling illnesses today, but sources said it was “several.”
“We don’t provide specific medical or statistical information regarding the medical status of our personnel due to privacy concerns,” a spokesperson for the Port Authority said.
Fight carries on
Because survivors continue to be diagnosed with cancers and diseases tied to 9/11 on a frequent basis, officials have continued to call for government support to help care for the surviving but still suffering, heroes before 9/11 becomes a further distant memory.
Earlier this week, the FDNY hosted a call for support of the 9/11 Responder and Survivor Health Funding Correction Act of 2024, which would fund the World Trade Center Health Program through 2033.
“I am 100% confident that if you walked up to any one of the 15,500 members in our program who have mild to severe disease, every one of them would do it again,” Prezant said.
“They would be there again. In fact, the majority of them would say that if tomorrow, they would volunteer, despite their illness, to be there again … We cannot ever forget that despite the tragic illnesses that our members have developed and other responders as well.”
