Thirteen years ago today, Americans watched in horror as planes hijacked by Al Qaeda-backed terrorists slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a vacant field outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Many of us lost friends and family. Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day, including 2,753 who died when the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers fell. The actual death toll associated with 9/11, however, is much higher.
When the Towers fell, they released a cloud of pulverized cement, shards of glass, asbestos, mercury, lead, PCBs, and other carcinogenic and poisonous materials into the air. That cloud lingered for months, with hundreds of rescue workers, thousands of construction workers and millions of New York City residents breathing in a witches’ brew of cancer-causing chemicals.
Rates of asthma, obstructive pulmonary disease and other respiratory illnesses are sky high among those who were exposed to the foul air or toxic dust that lingered over Lower Manhattan in the days and weeks the followed 9/11. A study of police who responded to the terror attacks found that more half have diminished lung function and chronic shortness of breath.
Rates of prostate cancer, thyroid cancer, and multiple myeloma are also elevated; one study looking at nearly 10,000 firefighters found that those who were at the World Trade Center were 20% more likely to develop cancer than those who were not there. Over 2,900 people who worked or lived near the World Trade Center on 9/11 have been diagnosed with cancer, including nearly 900 fire fighters and 600 police. Many of these cancers are likely associated with exposure to chemicals in the air and debris at Ground Zero.
Under the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, passed by Congress in 2010 after a prolonged partisan fight, first responders, recovery workers, and survivors of the terror attacks can seek free testing and treatment for 9/11-related illnesses. Nearly 50,000 people are currently being monitored and 30,000 are receiving medical treatment or compensation for illnesses and injuries associated with the World Trade Center’s collapse.
These numbers are expected to rise in the coming years. The incidence of cancer and chronic respiratory illnesses continues to increase at an alarming rate among survivors and responders of the terror attacks. At the same time, two of the key programs created by the Zadroga Act are due to expire. Unless Congress extends the Act, the World Trade Center Health Program, which provides free screening and treatment for 9/11-related illnesses, will end in October 2015. The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which provides financial support to the victims of 9/11 and their families, will close in October 2016. Desperately needed medical care and social services will be cut off for thousands of sick patients whose only crime was to survive the attacks or to provide care and aid for those who did.
A bipartisan group of New York politicians – including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and US Representatives Peter King and Carolyn Maloney – want to prevent this. Just this week, they called upon Congress to extend the Zadroga Act for another 25 years. But they and other supporters of the Act face an uphill battle.
One of the key reasons that it took nearly 10 years to get this legislation passed in the first place is that many prominent (largely conservative) Congressmen opposed its passage, including Representatives Michele Bachmann and Paul Ryan. House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy voted against it repeatedly. Senator Tom Coburn also filibustered its passage, arguing that the federal government simply cannot afford provide treatment and care for the victims of 9/11 in an era of record budget deficits. Should the deficit hawks of the Republican Party retain control of the House and recapture the Senate in the upcoming mid-term elections, the fate of the Zadroga Act is likely sealed.
The heroes and victims of 9/11 deserve better. I believe that we have a moral obligation to provide lifelong medical care and treatment for illnesses linked to the terror attacks. It is shameful that the same politicians who used these attacks to justify hundreds of billions of dollars in military expenditures are suddenly crying poor when asked to help the victims themselves.
A public health researcher and ethicist by training, Dr. Sean Philpott-Jones is Director of the Bioethics Program at Union Graduate College-Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in Schenectady, New York. He is also Director of Union Graduate College's Center for Bioethics and Clinical Leadership, and Project Director of its two NIH-funded research ethics training programs in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Caribbean Basin.
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