Legislators on both sides of the aisle outraged over drastic cuts to the agency that oversees the World Trade Center Health Program have fired off a letter to President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. demanding the pivotal services be restored.
In their letter, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-LI), Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island), and several other federal legislators voiced concerns about Kennedy’s plans to eliminate the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s entire staff “in the next few days.”
Trump and Kennedy announced Tuesday they planned to lay off two-thirds of NIOSH staffers. Kennedy also fired Dr. John Howard, the World Trade Center Health Program’s administrator. Around 873 other positions are to be culled, Kennedy said.
NIOSH doctors are responsible for certifying conditions for 9/11 first responders and survivors seeking help from the WTC Health Program, bringing the program to a virtual halt, advocates said.
“We were appalled at the recent announcement,” the lawmakers wrote about Trump’s and Kennedy’s decision. “The WTCHP relies on NIOSH staff to fulfill many of its obligations under the law, and eliminating staff that implement it, especially as more and more responders and survivors fall ill with 9/11-related conditions, will directly interfere with program operations and undermine access to the treatment these heroes have earned and deserve.”
The legislators demanded Kennedy explain why he decided to fire Dr. Howard, and provide a plan on how the WTC Health Program will keep certifying enrollees without NIOSH doctors. They’re hoping to get answers to these questions by next week.
“It’s outrageous. People will die if we don’t get this [funding] restored,” Schumer told the Daily News on Wednesday. “We fought too hard for this.”
“The Secretary needs to either answer all these questions or restore Dr. Howard and the NIOSH, CDC staff that were doing this work who were terminated,” added Benjamin Chevat, executive director of the Citizens for Extension of the James Zadroga Act. “This wasn’t a scalpel or even a chainsaw. This was bulldozer that is leveling the program.”
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
N.Y. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand speak at a news conference on the 9/11 victims fund in 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Tens of thousands of responders and survivors rely on the WTC Health Program to get treatment and medication and monitor injuries and illnesses caused by the toxins that swirled around Ground Zero during 9/11 and the weeks that followed.
Drastic cuts to the 9/11 program were reversed earlier this year after Republican lawmakers sounded the alarm. The rare reversal from Trump in February saw him restore two research grants and the jobs of 16 employees.
The program was also threatened under the last Trump administration. In 2018, the White House proposed reshuffling the agency to put it under the purview of just the CDC.
It’s estimated that more than 400,000 people were affected by the toxins swirling over Ground Zero. More than 127,000 people have been enrolled in the WTC Health Program.
Out of that number more than 81,000 have a certified 9/11 illness from their exposure during and after the terror attacks on the World Trade Center, as well as the hijacked plane crashes in Shanksville, Pa., and at the Pentagon, according to the program’s website.
