WTC Health Program

Today, February 6, 2025, would have been the 67th birthday of FDNY Firefighter Raymond J. Pfeifer, a 9/11 hero and Barasch & McGarry client. Ray Pfeifer’s advocacy helped to create permanent health and compensation benefits for 9/11 community members with cancer or respiratory illness and their families. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Ray Pfeifer […]

January is National Thyroid Awareness Month. If you were there as a responder or you worked, lived, or studied in Lower Manhattan on or after 9/11, you have a higher risk of developing many respiratory illnesses and 69 different types of cancer resulting from exposure to Ground Zero toxins, including thyroid cancer. Within days of 9/11, the […]

Today, January 2, marks the fourteenth anniversary of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010, named in honor of hero NYPD Detective James Zadroga, a Barasch & McGarry client. The act established the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program and reactivated the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund (VCF), providing free health care and compensation to responders and survivors who […]

Recently-released data from the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program reveals an exceptionally high rate of breast cancers in the 9/11 community compared with the general population. In women, the ratio can be as high as 87.04 to 1 compared to the general U.S. population, and in men the ratio is an astounding 92.30 to […]

November is Stomach Cancer Awareness Month. Anyone who worked, lived, or studied in Lower Manhattan on or after 9/11 has a higher risk of many serious respiratory illnesses and 69 different types of cancer, including stomach cancer. Barasch & McGarry represents more than 200 members of the 9/11 community who have been diagnosed with stomach cancer. […]

Michael O’Connell joined the FDNY on May 5, 2001, as a Probationary Firefighter assigned to Engine 273 / Ladder 129 in Flushing. Only four months later, he deployed to Lower Manhattan on the morning of September 11, immediately after the terrorist attack on World Trade Center. For several weeks, he never went home, rotating between […]