Northwell Health officials warned Tuesday that 9/11-related cancers have surged 75 percent across their system in just three years.
The Long Island-based hospital network, which treats patients across the five boroughs, Westchester County and Long Island, revealed that its World Trade Center Health Program has logged 800 new cancer cases in the past 42 months. Dr. Jacqueline Moline, director of the program, gathered with colleagues at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park to present the stark figures ahead of Friday’s 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
“The past is a prologue for a slow-motion health disaster as cancer cases have exploded,” a Northwell spokesperson said at the briefing.
The program’s tally of 9/11-linked cancers jumped from 177 in 2023 to at least 235 in 2025, officials reported. By June of this year, the system’s cumulative total reached 2,445 cases — a dramatic acceleration from the just over 1,630 cases recorded across the program’s first decade beginning in 2013. The count tracks individual cancers rather than patients, meaning one person may carry multiple 9/11-related diagnoses simultaneously.
Currently, just under 1,500 patients are actively battling these illnesses within the Northwell system.
The disclosure arrived hours after Mayor Zohran Mamdani released 170,000 pages of previously concealed city documents detailing the toxic air quality at Ground Zero. Those records indicated that past city officials may have understood the risks and misled the public about the safety of downtown Manhattan’s air following the attacks.
“When officials declared the air ‘safe to breathe,’ we knew that couldn’t be true — we saw the dust, smelled the fumes, and understood the environmental catastrophe in front of us,” Moline said in a statement Tuesday.
The physician continued, “Despite the care we’ve provided and the commitment everyone has shown, we must continue to recognize all of those who were exposed to the dust and fumes from the WTC, and continue to provide the care they deserve.”
The Northwell data forms part of a catastrophic broader pattern. Nationwide cancer certifications among first responders, recovery workers, downtown residents and others exposed to The Pile have detonated from 3,204 confirmed cases in 2015 to more than 57,000 this year — an increase approaching 1,700 percent. The September 11 Victim Compensation Fund counted roughly 10,000 deaths from 9/11-linked illnesses as of July 31.
The 132 new cases diagnosed in Northwell’s system during the first six months of 2026 alone suggest the crisis is still accelerating rather than plateauing as the exposed population ages. The hospital network’s WTC program began in 2013, a dozen years after the attacks, initially serving a patient base whose cancers were only beginning to emerge in statistically significant numbers.
Mamdani’s document release marked the first major disclosure of city records on the environmental aftermath, potentially opening new avenues for accountability as well as additional claims for medical monitoring and compensation.
Northwell Health is scheduled to continue its patient intake and treatment operations across its New York-area facilities.