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The Air That We Breathed

9/11 Exposure Linked to Threefold Increase in Lung Cancer Risk

NYPD photograph

Dust and debris from the collapse of the World Trade Center hits the front doors of PS/IS 89 and rolls past Warren Street on the morning of September 11, 2001.

A new study from medical researchers based at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook has established a link between exposure to toxic debris from the collapse of the World Trade Center towers and a near-tripling of rates of lung cancer. The analysis, “Lung Cancer Incidence After September 11, 2001, Among World Trade Center Responders,” was published in October by JAMA Network Open, a peer-reviewed journal from the American Medical Association.

While lung cancer is covered by both the World Trade Center Health Program and the Victim Compensation Fund, no previous study has succeeded in quantifying the level of increased risk. This task was made more complicated by two factors. First, the latency period for lung cancer is measured in decades, which means that many people who will eventually develop the disease as a result of September 11-related exposure are only now beginning to show symptoms. And second (somewhat counterintuitively), because smoking rates happen to be significantly lower among people exposed to toxins on September 11 than in the general population, the incidence of lung cancer among the first group should theoretically be (and for years, appeared to be) lower than that of the second. As the study notes, “these results might seem contradictory when compared with previous work, where the incidence of lung cancer was lower among World Trade Center responders than in the general population.”

But scientists affiliated with the World Trade Center Health and Wellness Program at SUNY Stony Brook University tracked 12,334 subjects between 2012 and 2023. During that period, this cohort reported 118 diagnoses of lung cancer. Among those with the most prolonged exposure to toxins (mainly rescue and recovery workers), the study found a likelihood of lung cancer to be 2.9 times higher than for a control group.

“We assessed activities-based exposure metrics and found that World Trade Center site exposures were associated with lung cancer incidence one to two decades after the attacks,” the authors write. “To our knowledge, this is the first study to characterize the association between World Trade Center site exposure based on a severity index and lung cancer among responders, to examine activity-specific risk factors for lung cancer within a World Trade Center site–exposed cohort, and to quantify the absolute and relative risk of lung cancer associated with World Trade Center site exposures after a minimum 10-year latency period.”

Matthew Fenton

Significant Auteurs

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DOWNTOWN CALENDAR

Wednesday, November 12

6pm

With Friends Like These

Mysterious Bookshop, 58 Warren Street

Book reading and signing by Alissa Lee, author of With Friends Like These.

7pm

Estate

McNally Jackson, 4 Fulton Street

Author Cynthia Zarin presents her novel Estate, in conversation with Jonathan Galassi. $5 - $25.

7:30pm

Judgement at Nuremberg

Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers Street

Theater. Ernest Janning, one of the most influential German legal minds of the pre-war era, and other influential Nazis face a military tribunal in the second wave of post war trials at Nuremberg. Issues at the forefront of this trial reverberate through history and challenge humanity to this day. Through November 16. $5, $15.

Thursday, November 13

1pm-3pm

Fiber Art Crafts Studio

200 Rector Place

Bring your projects, which can include—but are not limited to—knitting, crocheting, embroidery and small-loom weaving. Free.

5:30pm

Diwali Celebration

Council chambers, City Hall

Hosted by New York City Council members. Free.

6pm

Person Place Thing

NYC Department of Records & Information Services, 31 Chambers Street

The president and CEO of the NYC Economic Development Corporation, Andrew Kimball, joins Emmy Award-winner Randy Cohen for a live recording of Person Place Thing. This interview show is based on the idea that people are especially engaging when they speak not directly about themselves, but about things they care about. The result: surprising stories from great talkers. Free.

6pm-8:30pm

Force of Evil

Alamo Draft House, 28 Liberty Street

Film screening. “Force of Evil” (1948) is Abraham Polonsky’s searing portrait of corruption and conscience in postwar New York. John Garfield stars as a Wall Street lawyer ensnared in the city’s numbers racket, torn between moral reckoning and ruthless ambition. Shot on location in Lower Manhattan and the Bronx, “Force of Evil” portrays New York as both a glittering cathedral of commerce and a shadowed landscape of decay. Blacklisted soon after the film’s release, Polonsky infused the story with a political urgency and human complexity that feel startlingly contemporary. Following the screening, critics Imogen Sara Smith and Geoffrey O’Brien will discuss the film’s artistry and enduring relevance. $5.

6:30pm

Noirvember Film: The Breaking Point

6 River Terrace

Each November, movie fans celebrate the hallmark antiheroes, femme fatales, moral complexities, and the stunning black and white cinematography of film noir. Free popcorn is served, and a discussion follows each screening. In The Breaking Point (Michael Curtiz, 1950, 97 minutes) John Garfield plays Harry Morgan, a charter boat captain who takes on dangerous cargo, then faces criminal propositions and playful come-ons, stretching his morality and his marriage. The story is based on Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not, and Hemingway himself called it the best film adaptation of any of his books. Free.

6:30pm

Path to Liberty: Orders, Discipline and Daily Life - Exhibition Preview

Fraunces Tavern Museum, 54 Pearl Street

Preview reception for Path to Liberty: Orders, Discipline and Daily Life. Expanding upon the museum’s commemoration of the United States Semiquincentennial in the Path to Liberty: The Emergence of a Nation exhibition series, this newest exhibition will feature orderly books from 1775 to 1783 drawn from the Museum’s collection. The books reveal how officers used daily orders to train, manage, and discipline soldiers, turning ordinary colonists into a trained force capable of challenging the world’s most powerful army. $30.

6:30pm

Nerdy Thursday

Black Gotham Experience, 192 Front Street

Nerdy Thursdays are the Black Gotham Experience take on the Harlem Renaissance salon. Tonight’s theme: War. Free.

7pm

Infinite Jest Fest

McNally Jackson, 4 Fulton Street

Third meeting of the Infinite Jest Monthly Read-Along Bash group. Read pages 199-299 (plus relevant endnotes) for this month’s gathering. $5.

7pm-9pm

The Nature of Our Times

Poets House, 10 River Terrace

Poetry reading and exhibit launch featuring contributors to the new anthology The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders. The exhibit of poetry and images at Poets House explores how nature shapes our lives, and how we can shape nature’s future. Free.

7pm

Studio Sips & Steps

Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre, 412 Broadway, 2nd floor

Wander through an exhibition of performances previewing the company’s work. Performance will include wine and nibbles as well as participatory dance activities. $30+.

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November 2016 © Robert Simko

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