Lingering legacy of Sept. 11, 2001, on firefighters’ health

Nearly all of New York City’s 11,000 firefighters worked at the World Trade Center towers after the terrorist attack there. Researchers report in the Sept. 12 New England Journal of Medicine that about 10,000 firefighters developed coughs in the days and weeks following the attack, and 332 developed a persistent cough severe enough to require medical leave for at least 4 weeks.