When hijacked planes brought down the World Trade Center’s twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, roughly 25,000 children were living or attending school nearby in lower Manhattan, and thousands more were in surrounding neighborhoods. Some were infants and toddlers, while others were still in the womb. Even though they were exposed to the massive toxic cloud and settling dust containing pulverized concrete, glass fibers, asbestos, and other pollutants in the days and weeks after the towers fell, very few of these children were enrolled in the government-funded follow-up health studies of WTC survivors.
Those were mainly for first responders and other adults. As a result, there was no means of tracking chronic illnesses, including cancers, cardiovascular diseases and reproductive health outcomes, that may only now be emerging as those children reach their 30s and early 40s, scientists say.
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