Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, the toll continues to rise: more than 52,000 people have been certified with a 9/11-related cancer, and over 9,000 have died from World Trade Center-related pulmonary illnesses and cancers, according to Michael Barasch, founder of the law firm Barasch & McGarry, which represents thousands of 9/11 victims.
Barasch, who witnessed both towers being struck from his office blocks away from Ground Zero, told Metro: “Since then, tens of thousands of people have developed respiratory illnesses. Over 52,000 people have now been certified with a 9/11 cancer. Over 9,000 people have died of World Trade-related pulmonary illnesses and cancers, and it does not stop. 9/11 didn’t end on 9/11. Losing all those people on the day was tragic, absolutely, but what’s just as tragic is that three times as many people have died of related illnesses since that day.”
A day that changed everything
On September 11, 2001, 2,977 people lost their lives in the deadliest peacetime attack on American soil. Harold Delancey, now 70, was working for the New York Police Department when the first plane hit the North Tower. Within minutes, he was sent to respond in Lower Manhattan. By 10am, both towers had collapsed, shrouding Manhattan in darkness and dust. In the months that followed, he worked in morgues, opening body bags filled with toxic dust and helping to identify victims.
“I try my best not to talk about it. It’s a bad month for me,” Harold told Metro from his home in North Carolina. “If someone asks me about that day, I’ll talk about it. But I don’t want to relive it.” He paused, then added: “I don’t like being called a hero because it was my job. It was something that I signed up for, and I’d do it again if I had to.”
Return to a toxic environment
Two weeks after the towers fell, workers, schoolchildren, and families were told it was safe to return to Lower Manhattan, but the air was not safe. Frances Caulfield, 61, a worker at the New York City Board of Education, returned on the first day allowed. “I took the subway, but the minute I got out at the Wall Street stop, I couldn’t believe the air,” she told Metro. “It was horrible. Thick and smelly. I put a scarf over my nose and mouth and kept my sunglasses on. I got to the building as soon as I could. Even though the air was horrible and smelled so weird and chemical-like, I figured they must have tested it, and it was harmless. I just assumed it wasn’t dangerous.”
Frances was diagnosed with breast cancer in the late 2000s and later developed chronic skin cancer, requiring numerous surgeries. She only began linking her illnesses to Ground Zero exposure in the late 2010s. Dana Cohen, 54, senior partner at Barasch & McGarry, was in her Manhattan office that day. “We were all sick, noses burning, eyes burning. I have clients who tell me they’d come to work and throw up. We knew it — it didn’t feel right. But they told us the air was safe, and we wanted to believe it, and we wanted New York City to get back to life, to recover,” she told Metro.
Expanding the Victim Compensation Fund
In early 2002, Michael Barasch began working with the US government to expand the Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) to cover those who became ill after exposure to toxins. Congress permanently extended both the World Trade Center Health Program and the VCF until 2090. However, many survivors still face issues accessing compensation and healthcare, and research on 9/11-linked illnesses has stalled after Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) fired dozens of doctors and nurses in May 2025 as part of a vow to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget.
Frances said she only applied for compensation in 2020 after seeing a law firm commercial. “On the first call I said I felt a little ashamed and guilty,” she recalled. “I just don’t feel I can compare my situation to the extent of loss that first responders, victims and their families experienced, and still experience.”
Ongoing losses and memorials
Harold Delancey retired three years after 9/11 and was later diagnosed with COPD and prostate cancer in 2023. He still suffers from PTSD. “I knew on my first day at Ground Zero that it should have been a hazmat area,” he said. “For them to tell us the air was clean and that it was safe to work, it was ridiculous. A friend of mine was sent to look for bodies, and when he was sent back to command, he was told not to wash his uniform – but to throw it away. That should tell you something: that area was contaminated.”
Harold now lives in North Carolina, where he meets with other retired NYPD and NYFD members, helps file paperwork for families of friends who died from 9/11-related illnesses, and receives therapy through the VCF. “People are dying left and right, and I don’t think it’s being publicised, and a lot of people don’t know. They just think it happened and the next day, everything’s normal,” he said.
This year, moments of silence will be held across America, and ceremonies will take place at Ground Zero. Meanwhile, the number of 9/11 casualties continues to rise. Dana Cohen noted, “Multiple families call daily to tell us their loved one died. How can we preserve the testimony of those who are dying each day about who they were with, what they did, who they saw?”
