9/11 Cancer Cases Jumped 75% in Three Years. Doctors Say It's Only Going to Get Worse.

Twenty-five years after the towers fell, the cancer is still coming.

Northwell Health's World Trade Center Cancer Program recorded 811 new cancer cases over the past 42 months — a 75% increase from three years earlier. The World Trade Center Health Program now has 145,000 enrolled patients. More than 57,000 of them have battled cancer.

"Our fear is that cancer diagnoses will only rise as we move into the next 25 years," researchers said.

This isn't a surprise to the doctors treating these patients. It's exactly what they expected — and have been warning about for years. Carcinogens don't announce themselves. They damage DNA quietly, and that damage turns into tumors on timelines that stretch across decades.

Frank Kotnik, a retired New York City Department of Transportation employee, worked 20-hour shifts in the aftermath of the attacks as a blacksmith. More than two decades later he was diagnosed with bladder cancer.

"I still can't grasp getting this cancer 23 years later," he said.

Felicia Ivey-Toure, 58, worked near Ground Zero as a mental health counselor. She was diagnosed with thyroid cancer only because a car accident sent her to the emergency room, where doctors happened to find a mass in her neck. She had no symptoms at all.

"My symptom was that I was asymptomatic," she said.

Why This Keeps Happening

The toxic cloud that hung over Lower Manhattan for weeks after the attacks contained more than 2,500 distinct contaminants — asbestos, benzene, jet fuel residue, pulverized glass, heavy metals, and dozens of known carcinogens. People breathed it because they didn't know not to. The EPA initially told residents the air was safe. It wasn't.

Many carcinogens have latency periods of 10 to 25 years before causing detectable cancer. That means someone who inhaled that cloud in 2001 is getting their diagnosis in 2024, 2025, 2026 — right now. The cancers showing up most commonly include prostate, thyroid, skin, bladder, and blood cancers including multiple myeloma.

"You're still at risk for a whole host of different cancers that take many, many years to develop," said Dr. Jacqueline Moline, director of the Northwell World Trade Center Health Program.

The survivor population is also aging into the demographic where cancer becomes more likely in general — which compounds the problem. Twenty-five year olds in 2001 are 50 now. The biological risk curve and the exposure latency timeline are converging at exactly the wrong moment.

The Death Toll That Nobody Counted on September 12

On September 11, 2001, the official death toll settled at 2,977 people killed in the attacks. That number was mourned, memorized, and carved into stone at memorials across the country.

Nobody talked much that day about what the number would eventually become.

Twenty-five years later the picture is staggering. The World Trade Center Health Program has certified more than 57,000 cancer cases alone — nearly 20 times the number of people killed that morning. Add respiratory disease, cardiovascular conditions, and other 9/11-linked illnesses, and the total number of people whose health has been seriously damaged by that day runs well into six figures.

The death toll from 9/11-related illness has already surpassed the number killed in the attacks themselves. Researchers at Northwell estimate that number will keep climbing for at least another 25 years.

None of that was really on anyone's radar in the immediate aftermath. And there's a reason for that — not negligence, but the nature of how toxic exposure works. In the hours and days after the towers fell, the visible crisis demanded visible response. Bodies needed to be found. Fires needed to be put out. People needed to be accounted for. The idea that the air workers were breathing in those weeks would be quietly damaging their DNA in ways that wouldn't show up for two decades — that was a medical understanding that existed in research settings but hadn't made its way into emergency response planning.

The EPA's initial assurance that the air was safe to breathe is now widely regarded as one of the most consequential public health failures in American history. Workers who might have worn respirators consistently didn't, because they were told it wasn't necessary. People who lived and worked downtown went back to their routines within weeks because they were told it was safe. The consequences of those assurances are still being diagnosed every single day.

The lesson — absorbed painfully and too late — is that the immediate death count after a mass casualty event involving airborne toxins is never the final count. It's just the first count.

Who Doesn't Know They Qualify

The World Trade Center Health Program provides free lifetime medical care and monitoring for certified 9/11-related conditions. But awareness among the survivor community — downtown residents, office workers, students, people who weren't first responders — has always lagged.

Many survivors don't realize that being in Lower Manhattan in the weeks and months after September 11 may qualify them for both free healthcare and financial compensation through the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. The exposure window for the Health Program extends through May 2002.

If you or someone you know was in the area during that period and hasn't checked eligibility, the World Trade Center Health Program can be reached at cdc.gov/wtc or by calling 1-888-982-4748.

Curious for more stories that keep you informed and entertained? From the latest headlines to everyday insights, YourLifeBuzz has more to explore. Dive into what’s next.