New 9/11-related cancer cases soar 75% from 2023 to 2025, data shows
Twenty-five years after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the health threat hasn't ended for many survivors.
The ramifications of breathing toxic air at Ground Zero has many of those who lived or worked in Lower Manhattan at the time angry and worried. Northwell Health's World Trade Center program says many cancers take decades to develop.
Felicia Ivey-Toure, of Jamaica, Queens, and Frank Kotnik, of Glendale, Queens, share in an ongoing health crisis in a fight for their lives from their days at Ground Zero.
Kotnik worked 20-hour shifts as a Department of Transportation blacksmith. He was diagnosed with bladder cancer after he found blood in his urine.
"Those millions of tons coming down when the towers were collapsing pulverized everything," he said. "Thousands of us are now ill, sick or dying."
Ivey-Toure, a psychologist, volunteered at the site, providing supportive counseling. She was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, which was discovered only because she was rear-ended on the Verrazzano Bridge and needed x-rays.
"My head was scanned, my throat and neck, and a mass was found," she said.
They recently enrolled in the nation's World Trade Center Health Program in Northwell's WTC system.
Their data now shows 9/11 cancer cases soared 75% from 2023 to 2025, rising from 177 to 235. Northwell says there were 132 new cases in the first half of 2026, for a total of 811 new cases in 42 months.
Doctors challenged alleged suppression of early data.
"Those of us who were involved in the early days knew that the air was not safe to breathe. We knew that there were going to be health effects, both acute and long-term," Northwell WTC Health Program director Dr. Jacqueline Moline said.
The toxic carcinogen known as 9/11 dust has sickened or killed more people in the 25 years since 9/11 than the number of people killed on that dark day.
Doctors say residents, students and workers from 25 years ago are encouraged to join WTC Health. Annual screenings are free.
"I'm hoping that other people will join the fund and the research, so that, not just to help me, but for future generations. We need to know," Ivey-Toure said.
"It will save your life," Moline said.
