CANCER HAUNTS 9/11 KIDS
‘Cluster’ of cases in GZ students
At least 12 former students at schools around Ground Zero have developed cancer in their 20s and 30s — a nd t hey are now seeking help from the city, saying officials did little to protect them from toxins following the terror attacks.
Firefighters and other first responders who worked at Ground Zero aren’t the only ones suffering 16 years later from exposure to toxic debris.
At least a dozen young adults who attended schools near the World Trade Center when the towers were toppled now say they, too, are battling 9/11-related cancers and lung diseases after being exposed to toxins in and around their classrooms.
Michele Lent Hirsch, 32, was a senior at Stuyvesant HS on Chambers Street, a couple blocks from the WTC, when she saw the first tower fall from a classroom window.
In 2010, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, one of 68 cancers eligible for medical coverage through the World Trade Center Health Program.
Hirsch was only 25 when she was diagnosed.
“Cancer is so terrifying to deal with when you’re a young person,” she told The Post on Thursday.
“They sent us back to a school that was not safe. We were exposed to toxins that were physically harmful. You don’t send students back to a toxic school before it’s safe.”
Stuyvesant was used as a staging area by rescue and recovery workers after 9/11.
The elite public high school reopened a month later, on Oct. 9, amid debate about whether the building was free of contaminants.
One veteran teacher stayed away from the school, telling The Post at the time that dust-filled air in the building was making him sick.
In June 2002, the Department of Education agreed to clean up Stuyvesant’s ventilation system after finding lead concentrations 30 times higher than federal limits.
Lawyer Michael Barasch represents the 12 graduates of schools near Ground Zero who have cancer or lung diseases. Half of them attended Stuyvesant HS.
He said he expects many more students have 9/11-related illnesses and is encouraging them to get federal help from the WTC Health Program.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “I’m sure there are others who are not aware of it.”
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew agreed.
“We started seeing anecdotal evidence of members who were coming to us with specific types of cancer,” he said. “There’s now clear evidence . . . that people have been affected in very bad ways.”
Mulgrew blamed the Environmental Protection Agency for telling everyone “the air is fine.”
“That was a lie. It was an absolute lie,” he said.
The problem came to light five years after 9/11, when some former Stuy HS students came forward saying they had cancer.
Many joined a petition calling for a government-sponsored study, screening and health care for kids who attended the school in the year after the attacks.
Since then, it’s become a growing concern, as more students and teachers who attended schools in the Ground Zero area get diagnosed with serious illnesses.
“We are now seeing what doctors are not surprised at all is basically a cancer cluster,” Barasch said.
“A 28-year-old girl should not have breast cancer. A 29-year-old boy should not have colon cancer or bladder cancer. And we also represent, at this point, almost a dozen teachers.”
Hirsch, the Stuy HS alum, said she was speaking out to let people know they are eligible for government-funded health care to treat 9/11-related illnesses.
She said she hadn’t known she was eligible until a friend told her.
“It was kind of shocking to find out that other people have cancer,” she said.