9/11 coverage may be extended to cancer

NEW YORK – People who were stricken with cancer after being exposed to the toxic ash that exploded over Manhattan when the World Trade Center collapsed would qualify for free treatment of the disease and potentially hefty compensation payments under a rule proposed Friday by federal health officials.

After months of study, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said in an administrative filing that it favored a major expansion of an existing $4.3 billion 9/11 health program to include people with 50 types of cancer, covering 14 broad categories of the disease.

People with any of the cancers on the list could qualify for treatments and payments as long as they and their doctors make a plausible case that the disease was connected to the caustic dust.

The decision followed years of emotional lobbying by construction workers, firefighters, police officers, office cleaners and many other people who fell ill in the decade after the terror attack and were sure it had something to do with the many days they spent toiling in the gray soot.

NIOSH, which oversees the 9/11 health program, acted after an advisory committee made up of doctors, union officials and community advocates recommended that cancer be added. Previously, the aid effort has only covered people with mostly less-serious ailments, including asthma, acid reflux disease and chronic sinus irritation.

The expansion proposal isn’t final yet. The rule will be open for public comment for several weeks, or up to two months, before being finalized. It will still be open to revisions, or even outright abandonment, during that time.