NEW YORK (AP) — Ground zero residents and first responders sick with cancer will continue to be excluded from receiving help from the federal government program created to aid victims of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center terror attacks until at least 2012.

A federal review of scientific evidence, required under law and published Tuesday, supports keeping cancer off a list of Sept. 11 health problems including asthma, interstitial lung disease and mental illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Some first responders and people who lived near the lower Manhattan site on Sept. 11, 2001, believe their cancer is connected to the cloud of toxins that bloomed from the destruction of the 110-story WTC twin towers. But the review, by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, determined that "very little" evidence had been reported on the link between the massive toxic cloud and cancer.