September 11th Families Association

Brian Fay, 58, died of World Trade Center-related illness in October, 2022, after struggling to receive care. He was a Massachusetts-based expert in environmental issues and worked at disaster sites.

His site-related respiratory issues began in 2017 and culminated in a double lung transplant. Throughout all stages of his illness, he has had difficulty with the World Trade Center Health Program that was supposed to help him. Much of Fay’s final months were spent on the phone trying to get treatments and medications approved.

“…[T]he main problem was that it took so long to get each appointment approved (by insurance),” his wife Michele Fay told Mary Whitfill of The Patriot Ledger. “He was so positive and never complained, but he spent the last few months of his life just fighting for care. It was a constant struggle.”

“When you hear the World Trade Center (program) is going to start covering your health care, you think, ‘Oh, that’s great,’ but it isn’t what it seems.”