Senior Correspondent Eric Shawn said exposure to dust and smoke from the Sept. 11 attacks left him with skin cancer found earlier in 2025. He said the diagnosis came after years of reporting from Ground Zero, where he has returned every Sept. 11.
Shawn is one of 190,000 people registered in the World Trade Center Health Program, which provides medical monitoring and treatment for conditions tied to the attacks in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. He said he will keep broadcasting from Ground Zero in 2026, when the attacks reach their 25th anniversary.
Sept. 11 in Manhattan
Shawn said he was commuting to work on Sept. 11, 2001, when he saw American Airlines Flight 11 flying low over Manhattan. He thought the plane might hit 2 Penn Plaza before he learned, after speaking with TV crews outside the Women’s National Republican Club in midtown, that it had struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
He then went on the air with Jon Scott as United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower. Shawn described downtown Manhattan after the attacks as “Horror.” He also said the former World Trade Center towers were “Those gleaming, beautiful towers” that were “just reduced to rubble.”
Smoke, dust and symptoms
Shawn said the air carried “an acrid, bitter metal taste like you're eating metal.” He said dust covered everything and was kicked up when emergency vehicles drove by. He first used a painter's mask bought from a local store, then received professional masks after a few days.
By November 2001, Shawn said he began to uncontrollably cough. Doctors later diagnosed him with acute, chronic bronchitis. He was also diagnosed with gastroesophageal acid reflux, which later resolved on its own, and doctors told him he had the markings of someone with asthma even though he had never been formally diagnosed before.
Ground Zero in 2026
In 2025, Shawn said on Fox and Friends that his exposure to dust and smoke left him with skin cancer. He said, “At the time, you know it's not healthy for you,” and added, “But you don't really think about it.”
The diagnosis adds to the long record of health problems he has linked to the aftermath of the attacks. Shawn said he will continue his Sept. 11 broadcasts from Ground Zero next year, carrying the same reporting tradition into the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
