5,441 people have been diagnosed with cancer tied to 9/11

World Trade Center after the 9/11 attack

(Image credit: BETH A. KEISER/AFP/Getty Images)

published 8 September 2016

Americans are still dying from the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A report by Newsweek published Wednesday revealed that people who worked on World Trade Center rescue efforts are being diagnosed with cancer by the thousands:

As of June, 5,441 of the 75,000 people enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program have been diagnosed with at least one case of 9/11-related cancer, according to data Newsweek obtained from the program. And many of them have multiple cancers, with the total number of cancers certified at 6,378 as of June. [Newsweek]

So far, the federal government-created World Trade Center Health Program has tied "nearly 70 types of cancer to Ground Zero," as well as "issues of the upper airways, gastroesophageal acid reflux disease, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, panic, and adjustment disorders," Newsweek reported.

One week after the twin towers came crashing down 15 years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency incorrectly reassured the public that the air did "not pose a health hazard." Now, Newsweek reported, it's clear the air was a "massive plume of carcinogens, turning lower Manhattan into a cesspool of cancer and deadly disease." "We will never know the composition of that cloud, because the wind carried it away, but people were breathing and eating it," said Mount Sinai Doctor Michael Crane. "What we do know is that it had all kinds of god-awful things in it. Burning jet fuel. Plastics, metal, fiberglass, asbestos. It was thick, terrible stuff. A witch's brew."