"As 9/11 Fund Runs Out, a Breast Cancer Diagnosis Shows The Need To Protect Future Victims" – Nancy Cutler
John Mormando, from Oakland, New Jersey, 52, worked on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange on 9/11 and breathed toxic air for weeks. Today, he leaves his office a bit early each day to receive radiation treatments on the heels of chemotherapy and surgery after his March diagnosis – with breast cancer. Mormando has no history of breast cancer in his family. But he did have one significant risk factor: as a former trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange, he had spent weeks near Ground Zero after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Over the past 17 years, some 10,000 first-responders and survivors have been diagnosed with cancer. Claims keep coming in, almost two decades later. Any many more will come. A long latency period fits the pattern of disease from environmental exposures, according to Michael Crane, MD, MPH, director of the World Trade Center Health Program Clinical Center of Excellence at the Mount Sinai Hospital and an expert in occupational medicine.
— Michael Crane, MD, MPH, Associate Professor, Environmental Medicine and Public Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Director, The World Trade Center Health Program Clinical Center of Excellence, The Mount Sinai Hospital