Have Any New Conditions Been Added to the WTCHP / VCF List of Covered Conditions Lately?

The WTC Health Program keeps a list of categories and diagnoses that 9/11 responders and survivors can get treatment for at no cost. Periodically, new conditions are added to this list. When those conditions are physical health conditions, they become compensable through the VCF as well. (There are rare circumstances in which conditions outside of this list are considered compensable by the VCF, but this is only in special circumstances.)

The public has the right to petition the World Trade Center Health Program to add new health issues to their list of covered conditions by filing a petition with the program administrator. The administrator and his staff then review the petition to see if there is enough medical evidence to justify adding the condition to the list. Sometimes conditions are accepted or rejected outright, but oftentimes the program will determine that the petition had insufficient evidence. That means petitioners are able to try again in the future, when more research or data is available.

Until this year, the most recent conditions to be actually added to the list were in 2016, when the program added new-onset COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and acute traumatic injury (for injuries sustained at the WTC job site) to the list.

This year, after years of advocacy from the impacted community, the program proposed a rule to add Uterine and Endometrial cancers to the list of covered conditions. We're awaiting the final rule now, but the proposed inclusion is a huge victory for the 9/11 community, particularly the women of that community who have often seen our health concerns ignored in program data focused on responders.

The program publishes their decisions about these conditions the federal register, and updates to the program’s policies are available here.