Children of 9/11 to finally get a major health study

People walk through the September 11 Memorial site a day before commemorations to mark the day of the attacks on Sept 10.

When hijacked planes brought down the World Trade Center’s twin towers on Sept 11, 2001, roughly 25,000 children were living or attending school nearby in lower Manhattan, and thousands more were in surrounding neighbourhoods. Some were infants and toddlers, while others were still in the womb.

Even though they were exposed to the massive toxic cloud and settling dust containing pulverised concrete, glass fibres, asbestos, and other pollutants in the days and weeks after the towers fell, very few of these children were enrolled in the government-funded follow-up health studies of 9/11 survivors. Those were mainly for first responders and other adults.

As a result, there was no means of tracking chronic illnesses, including cancers, cardiovascular diseases and reproductive health outcomes, that may only now be emerging as those children reach their 30s and early 40s, scientists say.

Major questions remain about whether exposure to the toxins and the trauma on 9/11 and afterward increased their long-term health risks, according to scientists.

To address these gaps, the US Congress announced in 2022 that it would fund a study of these individuals to be conducted with US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention oversight.

In August, the CDC said it will be seeking applications from researchers to set up the World Trade Center Youth Research Coordinating Center and identify and track a Youth Research Cohort.

The agency has specified that study participants will have been 21 years old or younger, or in utero, and living below 14th Street in Manhattan or anywhere in Brooklyn on and after 9/11.

A cohort of similarly aged but unexposed individuals will be recruited for comparison.

It is not clear how many participants the CDC hopes to recruit, but an agency spokesperson said it expects to spend up to US$50 million (S$63.41 million) in total programme funding. The estimated start date for the project is July 1, 2027, the spokesperson said.

Members of the public can sign up online for updates and register to be notified when enrolment opens to those who are qualified.

The CDC’s World Trade Center Health Program and the New York City Department of Health’s World Trade Center Health Registry both offered services for children in the early years after the attacks.

But most affected youngsters sought care from their own paediatricians, whereas many adult survivors were uninsured and needed the programmes’ services, recalled lung specialist Joan Reibman of NYU Langone Medical Center.

In adult survivors and first responders, dozens of types of cancers and other health issues related to their exposure have been identified. But data on the effects of childhood exposure has so far come only from small studies.

Reibman, the founder of the World Trade Center Environmental Health Center, said gathering participants will require a great deal of community support.

“These people are spread across the United States right now. They’re all older. They may not necessarily want to go back to that period of time,” she said. “There’s going to have to be a lot of work with community groups to try to recruit them.”

Reibman and Leigh Wilson, the current medical director of the World Trade Center Environmental Health Center, both acknowledged that children in war zones today may face some of the same long-term consequences as the children of 9/11.

“I would love to prevent every and any adverse effect in these children,” Wilson said.

Studying the children of 9/11 may shed light on preventive and mitigating measures and resources that could be put in place, Wilson added.

“You have to identify and start studying all exposed populations immediately, whether they’re adults or children,” Reibman said, and “unfortunately we haven’t learnt it from the World Trade Center disaster.” REUTERS