Category: first responders

Surely we all welcome more help for the men and women who dropped everything and risked their safety and health to rush to the World Trade Center 11 years ago today to begin the unspeakably sad process of sorting through the smouldering wreckage, hunting for anyone who might have survived.

Yesterday, the administrator of the $4.3 billion federal World Trade Center Health program that was set up for those responders said that 50 cancers will be added to the list of illnesses covered by the program.

While this is commendable in many respects, and surely a comfort to those at risk and their families, we might ask whether there is any evidence linking an elevated cancer risk to working at the World Trade Center in the days and weeks after its collapse. 

The New York Times, in a brief post by Anemona Hartocollis on...