Historical Context - 9/11 Health (2024)

FAQs

How did the 9 11 affect health? ›

Asthma and PTSD Impact on Gastroesophageal Reflux Symptoms (GERS) Increased rates of GERS, asthma, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been frequently reported in those exposed to 9/11. Few studies have explored the interrelationships among these three conditions.

Two aircraft crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, a third crashes into The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and a fourth into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 2007 – Russia tests the largest conventional weapon ever, the Father of All Bombs.

Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are the most common health effect of the 9/11 attacks. Up to 20% of adults directly exposed to the disaster or injured in the attack had PTSD symptoms five to six years after the attack; this is four times the rate in the general population.

On September 11, 2001, terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people and injured more than 6,000 others in the worst attack against the homeland in our nation's history.

For 20 years, the medical examiner's office has quietly conducted the largest missing persons investigation ever undertaken in the nation — testing and retesting the 22,000 body parts painstakingly recovered from wreckage after the attacks.

Upon exiting the subway the first thing that struck me was the smell. The cloying smell of burning rubble and steel but mixed with the very pungent smell of nearly 3,000 decaying bodies.

On Nov. 9, 1989, communist East Germany threw open its borders, allowing citizens to travel freely to the West for the first time in decades; joyous Germans danced atop the Berlin Wall. On this date: In 1620, the passengers and crew of the Mayflower sighted Cape Cod.

September 11, 1937 (Saturday)

President Roosevelt gave a press conference in New York vowing he would do everything possible "to keep us out of war." Bette Cooper of New Jersey won the 11th Miss America beauty pageant.

By this approach, the immediate impact of the 9/11 attack was to reduce real GDP growth in 2001 by 0.5%, and to increase the unemployment rate by 0.11% (reduce employment by 598,000 jobs.)

How did 9 11 affect travel in the US? ›

The attacks induced substitution away from air travel generally and caused a shift in the preferences of travelers for particular destinations. The United States in particular experienced an immediate and precipitous drop in arrivals of international visitors, particularly from those flying in from overseas.

In the days following September 11th, President Bush assessed the damage in Washington and New York, directed military and civilian response efforts, acknowledged the work of first responders, and comforted a grieving nation.

September 11, 2001 thrust the United States into a new era: the War on Terror. The attack was not a bolt from the blue; it sprang from a destabilized Afghanistan and the rise of Al-Qaeda. The day proved a stunning turning point, triggering the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and, later, Iraq.

In a coordinated attack that turned the planes into weapons, the terrorists intentionally flew two of the planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, a global business complex in New York City, causing the towers to collapse.

In Lower Manhattan, the plane crashes—which resulted in the collapse of the Twin Towers—created massive dust clouds that filled the air and left hundreds of highly populated city blocks covered with ash, debris, and harmful particles, including asbestos, silica, metals, concrete, and glass.

Physical and Mental Health Impacts From 9/11

Chronic rhinosinusitis — or chronic inflamed sinuses — tops the list of reported illnesses with almost 33,000 current cases among first responders and survivors. Gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, is the second-most commonly diagnosed illness with over 29,000 cases.

Leukemia, prostate cancers, and thyroid cancers were some of the first forms of 9/11-related cancer to be diagnosed and connected to toxic dust exposure after September 11, 2001, as they have relatively low latency times.

The process of cleanup and recovery at Ground Zero took a total of eight months, with rescue and recovery workers working 24 hours a day. The remains of all the other buildings in the World Trade Center were demolished. And finally, by the end of May, the last piece of steel was ceremonially removed.

U.S. airlines lost $8 billion in 2001. The industry wasn't profitable again until 2006. Losses topped $60 billion over that five-year period and airlines again lost money in 2008 during the Great Recession. Job cuts in the wake of 9/11 were in the tens of thousands and workers faced massive pay cuts.