September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks (also referred to as 9/11) were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The attacks killed 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage. Additional people died of 9/11-related cancer and respiratory diseases in the months and years following the attacks.
Health effects arising from the September 11 attacks
By June 2007, the number of people filing claims against the city, regarding exposure to Ground Zero toxins, reached 10,000. Attorney David Worby is leading a class action lawsuit representing 8,000 people. By September 2007, the number of plaintiffs in the case reached 10,000. "I started this suit on behalf of one cop that got sick." He continued, "Nobody would touch the case with a 10-foot pole because it was considered unpatriotic to say anything against the cleanup or the EPA.In 2008, the lead researcher of a New York State Department of Health study informed "The New York Post" of a study documenting at least 204 deaths of rescue and recovery workers since September 11, 2001. The researchers for the study confirmed 98 deaths with death certificates. The researchers showed that 77 persons died of illnesses, including 55 from lung and various other cancers. Kitty Gelberg, New York state Bureau of Occupational Health's chief epidemiologist said, "We're not saying they are all World Trade Center related; we're just saying this is what people are dying from." Many of the 55 responders who died from cancer had cancer before September 11, 2001, but most of the cancer patients developed the disease afterward.