Breathing the toxic air of the collapsed World Trade Center did not cause an increase in cancer — either among first responders or those who live and work downtown, according to a surprising new study.
The study, the largest ever to examine the link between 9/11 and cancer, was performed by the city’s Health Department. And it upends the widespread belief that extended exposure to Ground Zero dust caused a variety of cancers.
“It has always been of concern that subsequent cases of cancer could have resulted,” said Steven Stellman, the research director of the WTC Health Registry. “We found that there were effectively no statistically significant differences in either our rescue/recovery workers or in our nonrescue/recovery workers.”
Just six months ago, the federal government moved to include a host of cancers among the illnesses covered by the $4.3 billion Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, named for the late NYPD first responder James Zadroga, who died of respiratory disease.
But researchers for the city looked at 55,778 people and compared their health data with typical cancer rates in New York state. Of that group, 32,000 were those who worked at the 16-acre WTC site, either in the initial rescue phase or during the nine months it took to clear the area where the Twin Towers stood.
Stellman said experts long feared there would be an increase in cancer cases after 9/11 because the towers were among “the last structures in New York City where it was permissible to use asbestos.” That chemical, along with other carcinogens, flooded lower Manhattan’s air after the attacks.
In the end, examiners found elevated levels of only three types of cancer — prostate, thyroid and the blood illness called multiple myeloma — among first responders. But, the study said, those numbers “should be interpreted with caution.”
City Health Commissioner Thomas Farley acknowledged that the report “won’t settle the question because it’s still too early . . . Cancers take 20 years to develop, and we might see something different 20 years down the line.”
The city’s findings seem to contradict an FDNY report that found firefighters who responded to the scene were 19 percent more likely to get cancer than those who didn’t work at the site.
Released last year in time for the 10th anniversary of the attacks, that study was conducted between 2001 and 2008, and examined 9,853 firefighters, 8,927 of whom were exposed to the toxic chemicals at the site.
After considering that evidence, the feds decided to cover certain types of cancer under the Zadroga Act for injured and ailing 9/11 first responders.
Additional reporting by Sally Goldenberg