The towers came down in two hours. The dying has not stopped for twenty-five years.
New figures compiled by the World Trade Center Health Program and reported in a New York Post show certified 9/11 cancers jumping from 3,204 in 2015 to 57,044 this year. That is a 1,680 percent surge in a decade, and it is not slowing as the nation marks the grim anniversary of the attacks.
Here is the part that should knock the wind out of anyone still treating Ground Zero as a closed chapter. For the first time, civilian survivors now outnumber first responders on the cancer rolls. Downtown residents, office workers, and people who lived, worked, or went to school near The Pile account for 28,913 certified cases, up 4,066 percent from 694 in 2015. Firefighters, police, and other responders sit at 28,131.
The men who ran toward the fire are still getting sick. So are the people who were told to go back to work.