‘9/11 Was One Day, But for So Many of Us, It’s Every Day’: Fox News’ Eric Shawn on the Health Toll 25 Years Later

Sharing his story with SurvivorNet, Shawn — who will be contributing coverage for FOX News Media live from downtown Manhattan on the 25th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks — reminds us that 9/11 didn’t end that day.

“When you think of 9/11, people think of the attack. They think of national security; they think of those issues. I’m trying to raise awareness about the tens of thousands who are suffering and are ill,” Shawn says. “You have more than 150,000 people registered with the World Trade Health Center program. Tens of thousands have now been diagnosed with cancers. People, friends of mine, have died from 9/11 related illnesses.”

‘The Impact Continues’

After noting how his former colleague, NYPD detective and FOX 5 NY reporter Mike Sheehan, passed away from prostate cancer, Shawn continued, “I just feel that I want to bring awareness to the fact 9/11 was one day, but for so many of us, it’s every day. It continues. The impact continues. It continues with me now.”

Shawn, who is undergoing active surveillance for prostate cancer and has been diagnosed with skin cancer, recounts the first plane going over his head on his morning walk to work.

“We did 12-hour shifts and the dust was so thick. It was a toxic haze. It was just the acrid metal smell from the burning metal; it just completely enveloped you,” he recalls. “By November, I had an uncontrollable cough.”

He went to get checked, and the doctor said, “‘Oh, you’ve got the World Trade Center cough’ … and what that really is is acute chronic bronchitis. And I’ve suffered from that since then. It comes and goes,” Shawn adds.

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Shawn’s respiratory symptoms flare up periodically, sometimes requiring multiple medications and prednisone shots. His pulmonologist has told him he shows asthma-like symptoms, despite not having a formal asthma diagnosis.

“There are 70 cancers and the impact of illnesses is so varied and widespread and unexplainable,” Shawn continues. “How can you say that I have all the earmarks of asthma, but I don’t have asthma? That’s one of the impacts of 9/11.”

He also developed gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD. “I had that. It felt like sometimes there’s a golf ball in my throat,” he shares, noting that it has thankfully “subsided somewhat.”

Shawn Urges Men to Get PSA Checked

Out of all he has experienced, one of the most important things Shawn wants to tell other men is to get their PSA levels checked. “I had a routine annual physical and my PSA was high, very high. It was a seven. It should be a two or a three. They thought it was a fluke,” he said, adding that the number kept rising.

“They tested me again, it was a nine. Then they tested me again, it was an 11. That’s a sign — an accelerating PSA is a sign of aggressive prostate cancer,” he added.

His PSA eventually hit 20 and he needed to have biopsies taken. “You have a 75% [chance] of prostate cancer with a 20 PSA,” Shawn said. “They’ve been doing biopsies on me. They found the highest probability of cancer cells.”

Shawn is now in active surveillance, undergoing regular monitoring every three months. “I go in every three months to be checked — a blood test, I have MRIs, CAT scans, something called Exacto scan,” he said. “And then I’m waiting to see — the next biopsy is December.”

He added, “And then finally skin cancer. I’ve been diagnosed with skin cancer because that’s from the dust. They say the exposure to the dust has caused skin cancer.”

‘Exposure to Dust’ and Skin Cancer

It’s important to note that non-melanoma skin cancer is the most commonly diagnosed 9/11-related cancer and accounts for the largest number of cases.

Dr. Michael A. Crane, Medical Director of the WTC Health Program Clinical Center of Excellence at Mount Sinai, who was serving as the medical director for Con Edison during 9/11, tells SurvivorNet, “Skin cancers are probably the greatest number as I recall. And there’s an obvious reason for that. If it’s warm, you have a short-sleeve shirt on, and your arms are exposed, your head is exposed, and the toxic materials were landing on your skin.

Exposure didn’t stop at the skin, Dr. Crane explained. “Also, you were ingesting them, and some of those compounds, you eat them and swallow them, and there’s no problem, but they are associated with skin cancers, or they’re one of these sensitizers.”

That sensitivity, Dr. Crane said, can make sun exposure afterward more dangerous. “So if you go out in the sun again, the sun’s effect is even more powerful.”

His bottom-line message is that many of the substances people were exposed to were pure carcinogens, and anything that lands on your skin needs to be washed off immediately.

He added, “Thank God they’re [the most commonly diagnosed 9/11-related skin cancers] not melanomas, a really deadly cancer. Most of them are these kinds of basal cell cancers, which are annoying and they have to be taken out, but most likely they’re not going to kill you.”

Finding Care Through the WTC Health Program

Dr. Crane recommends the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)’s World Trade Center website, which provides reliable, up-to-date cancer statistics and information on people affected by the 9/11 attacks.

Additionally, the WTC Health Program is a federal program that provides medical monitoring and treatment for 9/11-related health conditions to those directly affected by the attacks in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It also funds research into the physical and mental health effects of 9/11 exposures.

Dr. Crane advises that the WTC Health Program is especially important for people who lived or worked in the area after 9/11, and encourages survivors to take advantage of the program and seek ongoing care.

“The responders, I think we have a pretty good handle on the care and the care they need. This survivor population has really, really got to get into care for this. Take advantage of that survivor program. It’s excellent, and it will be worth the while.”

For survivors wondering how to get accepted into the program, Dr. Crane said the requirements are less demanding than many people assume. “Proof of living or arrangement or school or whatever it was that brought you down there. What was the address of your business, that type of stuff,” he said. “But people probably remember that. You remember the address you used to work at? A lot of people are still working down there.”

There is paperwork involved, but Dr. Crane stressed the process itself isn’t a barrier. “There are, of course, forms to fill out, but basically it really is fairly straightforward to get into the program,” he said. “It is not at all demanding and it will really offer excellent care and an excellent kind of resource for the concerns of the people, which are now growing again.”

Dr. Crane then points to the survivor community — people who lived or worked in the area but weren’t first responders — as a group that has often felt overlooked. “There is a survivor community population, and they always have felt that they got kind of short shrift because the cleanup wasn’t done properly and stuff like that,” he said. “This is the opportunity for them to step back up, get the care, and talk to those providers.”

He also noted a broader payoff: since the program’s doctors are affiliated with academic medical centers, patient cases can feed directly into research. “Those providers will then be able — because they’re all pretty high-quality medical, very high-quality physicians, and they’re with academic medical school centers — that will go into research papers and they’ll get published,” he explained.

“So those concerns will be in the medical literature where really minds that are much better than mine can look at them, analyze them, and offer proposals to help straighten out any toxicity issues or any ongoing cleanup issues that need to be taken care of, even though that’s 20-plus years ago now.”

But Dr. Crane says that kind of progress depends on participation, adding, “It can’t happen unless a good number of people, a good number of people get in the program. I mean, it’s happening. It has started to go up again, and I’m very grateful for that, but I think that whole population, 400,000, should be in there.”

Dr. Crane also explains how the WTC Health Program works. “It’s basically an examination program for workers, for mental health and physical health,” he said, describing monitoring exams every 12 to 18 months that cover physical health, breathing, and mental health.

Under the Zadroga Act, certain conditions — including asthma, sinusitis, and gastroesophageal reflux, among the most common — can be certified as related to 9/11 exposure.

Currently, approximately 152,500 people are enrolled in the program, including 94,500 responders and 59,000 survivors, according to WTC Health Program statistics.

Who May Qualify for WTC Health Program Care

Under the WTC Health Program’s eligibility guidelines, you don’t need permanent residency in Lower Manhattan to qualify as a survivor. What matters instead is whether you spent enough time in the designated NYC Disaster Area — Lower Manhattan south of Houston Street, along with parts of Brooklyn — during specific timeframes following the attacks.

You may qualify if you meet any of the following:

• You were caught in the dust cloud on September 11, 2001
• You worked, lived, or attended school in the area for at least 4 days between September 11, 2001 and January 10, 2002
• You worked, lived, or attended school in the area for at least 30 days between September 11, 2001 and July 31, 2002

“When they have them and we diagnose them, that treatment for that condition is certified then as related to World Trade Center exposure,” Dr. Crane said, and once certified, all treatment is covered free of charge, including hospitalization. He also praised the program’s mental health resources, calling them “excellent.”

He concluded with a personal reflection on how surreal the work still feels decades later, saying, “I still think most of them, I include myself, most of them really can’t believe this happened, that this really happened. I’ve been doing this for years and years and I still have to get up in the morning and say, ‘Yes, this really happened… here’s what we’re doing today.’ But you have to orient yourself because it’s still so unbelievable to me that this occurred.”

Shawn says his cancer was caught early and is being monitored closely. He encourages others to get routine health checks and has volunteered with the WTC Health Program to urge more people to enroll.

“We [journalists] don’t consider ourselves first responders, although we were there. And a lot of us, you’d be surprised how many news people just didn’t even think of signing up with the WTC Health Program,” he said.

He explained further, “The WTC  Health Program is just a fabulous resource to help hundreds of thousands of people. 400,000 people plus were in the area when the attack happened, and the program is a government-funded health program for people who were affected and who were down there.

“If anyone was there at the time, it’s so important to register with the World Trade Health Center Program: A, for your own health; they monitor it. B, I think this is so important, research. They issue reports and this is how they can monitor and they can find out that there are so many cancers that are involved.”

Shawn continued, “There’s a whole community of people who have illnesses, whether it’s just breathing issues or whether it’s life-threatening cancers, and we’re all in this together. We all have this common bond, and we all share this common bond of some type of illness from that day.

“There’s just so many of us, and it’s growing, and I know the death toll is going to grow, but the WTC Health Program provides medical care and assistance and psychological care if you need it, and that’s why I think it’s such an important resource.”

Fox News launched in 1996, just five years before the September 11 attacks — a story that would go on to shape Shawn’s career for decades. Looking back on how 9/11 changed his approach to telling stories, Shawn says, “I’ve tried to stress that I always have the human story — to try to tell individual stories of how it affects people. Yes, people know the numbers or there was an attack or the airplanes at the towers, but the World Trade Center was a vibrant living place before that day.”

He cited individual acts of heroism, like firefighter Stephen Siller, who ran through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel toward the towers, and Welles Crowther, the banker known as “the man in the red bandana,” who saved lives before he was killed.

“I think that’s important to tell these individual stories,” Shawn said. “It’s the human story behind what happened. I think that is what should last and what people should know.”

FOX News Media will mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11 with wall-to-wall coverage across FNC, FOX Business, FOX Nation, Digital, Audio and Podcasts — featuring live reports from Ground Zero, the Pentagon and Shanksville, survivor and family interviews, new specials and documentaries, and reflections from officials and eyewitnesses on the day’s lasting impact. Shawn will be contributing to that coverage live from downtown Manhattan.

9/11’s Health Impact

As of June 2026, the WTC Health Program has certified more than 57,000 cancer diagnoses among its members — more than any other category of WTC-related illness, including respiratory and gastrointestinal conditions. Roughly 4 in 10 currently enrolled members have a certified cancer, and cancer certifications continue to rise, with more than 10,000 new cases certified in the past year alone.

The World Trade Center Health Registry — a separate research and tracking database, distinct from the WTC Health Program — enrolled 71,000 people who were directly exposed to the September 11, 2001 attacks during its original 2003-2004 enrollment window. It remains the largest post-disaster registry in U.S. history. The Registry is a closed cohort, meaning it no longer accepts new enrollees, and exists purely to monitor the long-term physical and mental health effects of that day.

A recent report from the CDC-administered World Trade Center Health Program shows that nearly 40% of enrolled members have been diagnosed with a certified cancer.

He Was a 9/11 Rescue Worker, He Got Cancer, And He Wouldn’t Change a Thing

The link between 9/11 and cancer traces back to the toxic cloud that engulfed Lower Manhattan after the towers fell. The collapse released a hazardous mix of airborne contaminants — pulverized concrete and building materials, jet fuel residue, and the incinerated remains of countless offices — that blanketed the area for months during the recovery effort.

“It was a perfect storm of carcinogens,” said experts from the National Cancer Institute, which has identified several substances present at Ground Zero as known cancer-causing agents. These include:

• Arsenic
• Asbestos
• Indoor emissions from household compounds
• Soot
• Secondhand tobacco smoke
• Wood dust

WATCH: Are toxins in the air making us sick?

Prolonged exposure to these toxins — especially among first responders, cleanup crews, and returning residents — has driven a surge in cancers, respiratory illness, and neurological conditions, underscoring that honoring 9/11’s victims means also confronting the health crisis still facing its survivors.

Questions To Ask Your Doctor

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WATCH: How One Cancer Survivor and Her Sister Used “My Health Questions” to Navigate Care

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Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff

Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.

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