Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, thousands of people exposed to toxic dust at Ground Zero are still developing and dying from related illnesses, lawyers representing victims have warned.
Over 52,000 people have now been certified with a 9/11 cancer, and more than 9,000 have died of World Trade-related pulmonary illnesses and cancers, according to Michael Barasch, founder of Barasch & McGarry, a law firm representing thousands of 9/11 victims.
“9/11 didn’t end on 9/11,” Barasch told Metro. “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.”
First responders still suffering
Harold Delancey, now 70, was working for the New York Police Department when the first plane hit the Twin Towers. Within minutes he was sent to respond in Lower Manhattan, and in the months that followed he worked in morgues around the city, 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,” he 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 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.”
Harold retired three years after 9/11. Within a decade, he developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and was later diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2023. He still suffers from PTSD, and says he knew on his first day at Ground Zero that it should have been a hazmat area.
“For them to tell us the air was clean and that it was safe to work, it was ridiculous,” he said. “Lower Manhattan was in total darkness at 10am. Then you factor in the fire at Ground Zero that burned until February. There was no way on God’s earth that the air wasn’t poison. But I had a job to do.”
Survivors told air was safe
In the weeks after the towers fell, workers, schoolchildren and families were told the air was safe to breathe. Frances Caulfield, 61, returned to work at the New York City Board of Education on the first day she was 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.”
It wasn’t until the late 2000s that Frances started to suffer from complications and was diagnosed with breast cancer, followed by chronic skin cancer. She has “lost count” of how many surgeries she’s had to remove it.
Dana Cohen, 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.
Victim Compensation Fund extended
In early 2002, Michael Barasch began working with the US government to expand the Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) to help New Yorkers who had been in Manhattan that day and became ill afterwards. Congress permanently extended the World Trade Center Health Program and the VCF until 2090.
However, many survivors still face issues accessing compensation and healthcare, while 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 it was not until 2020, when she saw a law firm commercial explaining she was entitled to compensation, that she considered applying. “On the first call I said I felt a little ashamed and guilty,” she remembered. “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.”
Harold now lives in a small town in North Carolina, spending time with his children and grandchildren. He meets with other retired members of the NYPD and NYFD multiple times a year, reaches out to those who are sick and can’t leave their homes, and helps file paperwork for friends who died from 9/11-related illnesses.
“I’ve lost a lot of friends over the last four years. Quite a few have passed away from 9/11 related injuries,” he said. “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.”
