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Keep America's Promise to Every 9/11 Responder and Survivor
Final signature count: 388
388 signatures toward our 30,000 goal
Sponsor: The Veterans Site
Thousands who survived 9/11 are still getting sick — and the program built to help them is failing.
After the September 11 attacks, the country made a promise to the people who ran toward the destruction — and to those who had no choice but to stay.
More than two decades later, thousands of them are still getting sick, and the federal program created to treat them has been undermined by staffing cuts, bureaucratic delays, and a covered conditions list that hasn't kept pace with the science.
A Growing Health Crisis
The toxic cloud that engulfed Lower Manhattan after the towers collapsed contained asbestos, heavy metals, pulverized concrete, and combustion byproducts. The consequences have been severe. Responders and survivors face significantly elevated rates of multiple myeloma, thyroid cancer, prostate cancer, and other malignancies — with new cases continuing to emerge years after exposure.1 Research has documented elevated cancer incidence across more than two dozen cancer types among those who were there.3 And the toll keeps rising as more latent diseases surface.
Now, the FDNY and medical advocates are pushing federal health officials to recognize cardiac disease and cognitive decline — including dementia — as certified 9/11-related conditions. The scientific evidence linking Ground Zero exposure to these illnesses is growing, but without official certification, affected members cannot access federal coverage for them.7
The Program in Peril
The World Trade Center Health Program (WTCHP) was built to monitor and treat eligible responders and survivors — covering medical monitoring, illness treatment, and prescriptions at no cost to participants. For years it served that purpose. Then came the cuts.
In early 2025, federal workforce reductions created serious uncertainty about the program's ability to function at all. Administrative capacity strained as enrollment demand remained high.4 Certification processing stalled, leaving critically ill people with potentially qualifying conditions locked out of the care they needed.2
Congress acted, securing permanent funding for the WTCHP in early 2026.5 That was a necessary step. But a funding authorization does not deliver care on its own. Staffing shortfalls continue to threaten the program's operational capacity — the people and infrastructure required to actually process certifications and serve members.6
What Still Needs to Happen
Full staffing must be restored to the World Trade Center Health Program. The backlog in certification processing must be cleared so that critically ill people are not left waiting. And the list of covered conditions must expand to reflect what exposure to that toxic cloud has done to human health — including the cardiac and cognitive conditions the evidence now supports.
The people this program serves are aging. Many are seriously ill. They were told their country would not abandon them. Some have already died waiting for care they qualified for. The promise made to them was not conditional.
Sign the petition now to call on Congress and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to guarantee fully funded, uninterrupted federal medical care for every eligible 9/11 responder and survivor — without delay.
