As the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy approaches, a newly published study offers hints of a possible link between exposure to chemicals released after New York’s World Trade Center collapsed and the development of cancer in firefighters who toiled at ground zero.

The New York Times reports that the study, released in the British medical journal The Lancet, reveals that 9/11 firefighters are 19 percent more likely to develop cancer than those who were not at the Trade Center wreckage.

Included in the toxic substances found at the site of the New York 9/11 attacks are asbestos and jet fuel, both of which can cause diseases such as mesothelioma that may take up to 50 years to develop. Given the relatively short amount of time that this study is considering, the findings are but a beginning interpretation of the actual effects.

After the Twin Towers collapsed, an area of several square miles was covered by a cloud of fine powder. As reported in a study released by the Virginia firm HP Environmental in the weeks after the terrorist attacks, the powder creating this toxic cloud contained large quantities of asbestos. In fact, the asbestos particles were so pulverized in the explosion that the majority of them were smaller than what could be detected by the EPA’s standard testing method. After adjusting the test to check smaller fiber concentrations, the study concluded that there was an “overwhelming concentration” of the ultrafine asbestos particles.

“Responders were exposed to a whole soup of carcinogens,” says Dr. Philip J. Landrigan of the 9/11 first responders, who included firefighters, police, and other emergency personnel. Dr. Landrigan is the director of environmental and occupational medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Manhattan and a leading expert on asbestos toxicity. He is also the principal investigator of a related report published inThe Lancet on the health effects of the attacks on recovery and rescue workers.

“The smaller the [asbestos] particle, the more easily it can be aerosolized. And the easier job that it has penetrating right down into the very depths of the lungs,“ Dr. Landrigan told the Times. He adds that the new findings are but a signal of the results likley  to come in the years ahead.

However, Dr. James Melius, administrator of the New York State Laborers’ Health and Safety Trust Fund and one of the peer reviewers of the firefighter study, warns that it ”would probably not be enough to persuade federal officials to include cancer as one of the diseases covered under the Zadroga Act.”

The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 (H.R. 847), called the Zadroga Act, was called into law by President Obama in 2010 and it states that those who have 9/11 related health conditions may be eligible for health care under this law.

If you believe you were exposed to asbestos at ground zero and have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, you may be entitled to financial compensation. To learn more about your legal options regarding a possible mesothelioma settlement, please contact an asbestos lawyer.