Northwell Health Warns Rising 9/11-Related Cancer Cases at Long Island Jewish Medical Center

Twenty-five years after the World Trade Center terror attack on September 11, 2001, Northwell Health physicians warned that health consequences are still rising among people exposed to the toxic environment around Ground Zero.

“"September 11th was not a one-day event,"”

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At a gathering at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, Craig Devoe, system head of gastrointestinal medical oncology at Northwell Cancer Institute, said, "September 11th was not a one-day event," and urged people eligible for the WTC Health Program to use medical monitoring.

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Northwell said 145,000 people are enrolled in the federal program, and it recorded 177 9/11-certified cancer cases in 2023 and 235 in 2025.

Northwell also reported that through the first half of 2026 there were 132 new cases, bringing the total to 811 new cases over 42 months.

The program’s Northwell data also said prostate and skin cancers were the most common, followed by cancers of the breast and urinary tract, and that about 30% of Northwell’s WTC patients have battled cancer.

Northwell’s warning came as other reporting tied the long-term toll to federal and city records, including a figure that 145,275 people remain enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program.

El Heraldo de México reported that data from the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund show 9,677 first responders and survivors have died from illnesses related to 9/11, including 5,892 cancer cases.

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It also said authorities stopped counting deaths directly as a result of the attack at 2,753 people, while reporting that as of June 30, 2026 there were 57,044 people with cancer certified as a World Trade Center-related condition.

CNN said New York City released more than 170,000 pages of previously unrevealed documents showing municipal officials misled the public about air quality around Ground Zero.

CNN also described a new seventh moment of silence at 11 a.m. and an additional moment of silence at approximately 12:30 p.m., with a spokesperson for the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum explaining the timing.

Survivors and patients at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center gathering described how diagnoses arrived years later, including Frank Kotnik, 66, of Glendale, Queens, who said he was diagnosed with bladder cancer 23 years after working 20-hour shifts around Ground Zero.

“"You’ve got 9/11 bladder cancer,"”

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Kotnik recalled being told, "You’ve got 9/11 bladder cancer," and said, "I said, ‘Really? Twenty-three years later?’"

Felicia Ivey-Toure, 58, of Jamaica, Queens, described how her thyroid cancer was discovered after a car crash led to a persistent concussion, and she said, "We had no idea that it could be 9/11-related."

CNN also quoted Leah Betso, whose father, NYPD Agent James Betso, died of brain cancer in 2015, saying, "It means that my dad’s story, along with all the other stories, is also recognized as part of the full history of 9/11."

The same CNN report said the World Trade Center Health Program provides free treatment for conditions related to 9/11 and that by June more than 57,000 first responders and survivors enrolled in the program had been diagnosed with cancer.