Even though thyroid cancer is considered a 9/11 first responders cancer, a new study shows the increased rate of thyroid cancer among firefighters might be due to more testing instead of an increase in actual cases.

Rachel Zeig-Owens, DrPH is the lead epidemiologist at the WTC Health Program Fire Department of the City of New York and is a research assistant professor in the epidemiology and population health department at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Zeig-Owens and fellow researchers compared thyroid cancer diagnoses among 14,987 men who helped with rescue and recovery at Ground Zero between Sept. 11, 2001 and July 25, 2002. Those thyroid cancer rates were compared with rates of similarly aged men from Olmsted County, Minn.

The 9/11 first responders cancer rate among symptomatic cases was about the same as found in the Minnesota group. Still, Zeig-Owens reported there were three times as many asymptomatic cancers among the firefighters compared to the Minnesota men.

“The results of our study indicate that the high rate of thyroid cancers detected among Fire Department of the City of New York World Trade Center (WTC)-exposed rescue/recovery workers may be primarily attributable to the heightened medical surveillance they experience as compared with demographically similar non-WTC-exposed men and the general male population,” Zeig-Owens told Healio.com.

9/11 First Responders Cancer Predictions

In 2018, JAMA Oncology published research predicting that New York City Fire Department (FDNY) employees who helped with rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero would experience a higher-than-average risk of cancer through 2038, particularly prostate, thyroid, and melanoma cancers.

One study found that FDNY firefighters who toiled at Ground Zero are more apt to develop monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS), a condition recognized as a precursor to multiple myeloma, which is a cancer of the blood’s plasma cells.

David J. Prezant, MD, was a senior author of the study and is a professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College Medicine. He’s also FDNY’s chief medical officer.

“Screening for multiple myeloma risk by testing for MGUS is something we can offer these first responders, which is why this study is important,” said Dr. Prezant.

Previous research has found MGUS and eventually, multiple myeloma is more apt to develop after toxic chemical exposure. First responders were hit with unprecedented amounts of toxins after terrorists flew planes into the Twin Towers. Burning jet fuel combined with aerosolized toxins from the crumbled towers caused rescuers to breathe in asbestos, benzene, dioxins, cement particles, heavy metals, glass fibers, and dozens of other heavy clouds of poisonous mixtures.

The study found that WTC-exposed firefighters were found to have MGUS almost twice as oftenas men who had not taken part in 9/11 rescue and recovery efforts.

“We saw a significantly higher incidence of MGUS in these first responders, and they’re developing it at a young age,” said the study’s senior co-author Amit Verma, M.B.B.S., a professor of medicine and of developmental & molecular biology at Einstein and director of hematologic malignancies at the Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care. He said the early development of MGUS means the firefighters also could be at an increased risk for a sooner onset of multiple myeloma, too.

According to Scientific American, we will never know exactly what was in the dust that people were breathing in the weeks and months after 9/11, but we do know what materials were used in building the Twin Towers. Lead is used in electric cables to add flexibility and is known to be a human toxin, which is why lead paint is no longer allowed to be used inside homes. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are used in the building of electrical transformers and become more potently toxic when exposed to high flames.

The New England Journal of Medicine coined the phrase World Trade Center cough, which became a common ailment among those who worked Ground Zero. The cough is likely caused by the alkalinity of cement and drywall particles that filled the air after the skyscrapers were turned to rubble.

Despite the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) providing more than 22,000 respirators for workers by Sept. 22, 2011, few people working the scene used them. The bulkiness of the masks led to difficulty communicating with others. And even though the EPA allegedly encouraged the workers to use respirators, the EPA also declared the air was safe to breathe on Sept. 13, 2001.

Now we know the air was blanketed in toxins for months, which has led to myriad respiratory ailments and a variety of cancers among the people who worked, lived, and went to school near Ground Zero.