WTC Health Program

After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, rescue teams searched for survivors and the remains of victims amidst the wreckage of the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Pentagon in Northern Virginia. FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) deployed thousands of team members to both sites, and helped survivors access critical assistance. Their work contributed […]

Lisa-Jayne Lewis reached Ground Zero in late February of 2002. She arrived more than five months after the attack on the World Trade Center, even as rescue workers were still searching for victims in the debris of the Trade Towers. She was 24 years old, a youth pastor with the Salvation Army in Boston, Massachusetts, […]

After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and in the weeks and months that followed, more than half a million people were exposed to Ground Zero toxins in Lower Manhattan below Canal Street. Despite initial claims that the air was safe to breathe, all of these survivors are now […]

Barasch & McGarry released the following statement from Managing Partner Michael Barasch on reports that Congress could partially fund the free World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program deficit: “As each day the number of 9/11 responders and survivors with cancer or respiratory illness continues to increase, we need to fully fund the World Trade Center […]

August 1 is World Lung Cancer Day. If you were there as a first responder or you worked, lived, or studied in Lower Manhattan on or after 9/11, you have a higher risk of developing many respiratory illnesses and 69 different types of cancer resulting from exposure to Ground Zero toxins, including lung cancer. Within […]

There were dozens of schools in the Ground Zero exposure zone on and after 9/11, from Stuyvesant High School in Battery Park City to Murry Bergtraum High School on the Lower East Side. In addition, there were other educational institutions, including Pace University, New York Law School, and the Borough of Manhattan Community College. Tragically, […]