Cancer Is Now The Leading Health Threat For 9/11 Survivors 25 Years On

Twenty-five years after the World Trade Center attacks, cancer has become the defining health problem among survivors who breathed the toxic dust.

The number who are getting help paying for cancer treatment has roughly tripled in five years, according to a Washington Post analysis of reports from the World Trade Center Health Program. 

The federal program pays for care for first responders, as well as survivors — the residents, students and office workers who were near Ground Zero.

In June 2021, 8,870 survivors received aid for cancer care. That number reached 27,300 this year, The Post reports. The rise far outpaced cancer claims filed by first responders.

About 54,000 survivors were enrolled in the program as of June. Roughly half are now being treated for cancer. This is up from 35% five years ago.

A recent New York University study of a smaller group found a similar pattern. Cases rose about 2.5-fold between 2019 and 2024.

“This is something that we are worried about,” Dr. Alan Arslan, an associate professor of population health at NYU in New York City and one of the study’s authors, told The Post. “We’re seeing more and more patients.”

Researchers first expected to see lung damage from smoke. Instead, they found many different cancers. 

The debris that coated Lower Manhattan contained asbestos, benzene and other substances known to cause cancer, Arslan said. Fires burned for months, and dust settled into apartments and offices.

Breast and prostate cancer are the most common cancers in this group, which matches national patterns. But breast cancers showed up in survivors about four years earlier than the national average, and a higher share were aggressive forms, Arslan said.

Lung cancer also ranked among the most common types. An unusual number of those patients were women who had never smoked.

Dr. Raja Flores, chairman of thoracic surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, said he is treating more 9/11 survivors with lung cancer.

“I don’t know if we’ve hit our peak yet,” Flores told The Post. “These cancers can take 20, 30, 40 years to develop.”

He urged anyone who was exposed to the dust to contact the World Trade Center Health Program about cancer screening.

One group has gone largely untracked: the children. 

Roughly 25,000 kids lived or went to school in Lower Manhattan that day, reports Reuters. Most saw their own pediatricians instead of enrolling in the federal follow-up studies, which focused on adults.

That is changing. Last month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began seeking researchers to build a World Trade Center Youth Research Coordinating Center. 

This new program will track people who were 21 or younger and living below 14th Street in Manhattan or anywhere in Brooklyn at the time of the attack and afterward. 

The agency expects to spend up to $50 million, and work is set to begin July 1, 2027, Reuters reports.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more information about the World Trade Center Health Program.

SOURCES: The Washington Post, Sept. 9, 2026; Reuters, Sept. 10, 2026