Mount Sinai researchers to study how to care for aging 9/11 first responders

Researchers at Mount Sinai have received a $2.4 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study how best to care for aging 9/11 first responders, whose median age will be 65 by 2030, officials said.

The lead principal investigator and associate professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Fred Ko, said in a statement Thursday the funding would help the medical community deal with a range of issues currently affecting responders and which could affect them moving forward. These include a bevy of aging-related conditions and consequences from the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and the cleanup that followed.

"Because World Trade Center responders were exposed to high level of toxicants and intense psychological trauma — hazards that can accelerate the aging process — during the emergency response and cleanup following the 2001 disaster, they are likely at increased risk for premature aging and associated age-related syndromes, such as functional decline and fall risk," Ko said.

The World Trade Center Health Program Clinical Center of Excellence cares for more than 22,000 responders at its locations in Manhattan, Staten Island and Yonkers.

And Stony Brook University World Trade Center Health and Wellness Program relations ambassador Phil Alvarez estimates there are more than 13,000 NYPD, FDNY, Port Authority and Nassau and Suffolk police officers, as well as local firefighters, EMS, EMT and other responders on Long Island. Which is why Alvarez, whose brother, former NYPD Det. Luis Alvarez, died of 9/11-related cancer in 2019, called the federal funding of such studies "imperative."

 Studies have already found while the average age for onset of cognitive dementia in the general population is 65, in the 9/11 first-responder community it is seen at age 55, he said.

"It's imperative we continue to get the funding to study the effects of Ground Zero toxins on first responders," Alvarez said. "That community continues to be decimated as time goes on … And, science tells us that while the first 20 years have been bad, it's the second 20 years that are going to devastate this community. We have to keep studying, we have to keep researching." 

Suffolk County Fire Rescue deputy coordinator Jamie Atkinson was a 19-year-old volunteer with Sayville Ambulance when he spent weeks working cleanup detail at Ground Zero in 2001.

He has a 9/11-related cancer, has had multiple surgeries and rounds of chemotherapy, Atkinson said. He was at Mount Sinai for his three-month checkup Wednesday when he was asked to join the new study being funded by the CDC grant. He said yes.

"I look at COVID and what we've learned since the start of the pandemic and it's the same thing here," said Atkinson, who was one of the youngest responders at Ground Zero. "If it's going to help somebody who is currently sick, I'm all for it. If it helps someone in the future, I'm all for it. And if another 9/11 were to happen tomorrow and there's information that can help treat people because of studies like that, I'm all for that too."

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”