Legislators on each side of the aisle outraged over drastic cuts to the company that oversees the World Commerce Middle Well being Program have fired off a letter to President Trump and Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. demanding the pivotal providers be restored.
Of their letter, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Senator Majority Chief Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-LI), Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island), and a number of other different federal legislators voiced considerations about Kennedy’s plans to remove the Nationwide Institute for Occupational Security and Well being’s total workers “in the next few days.”
Trump and Kennedy introduced Tuesday they deliberate to put off two-thirds of NIOSH staffers. Kennedy additionally fired Dr. John Howard, the World Commerce Middle Well being Program’s administrator. Round 873 different positions are to be culled, Kennedy mentioned.
NIOSH medical doctors are answerable for certifying circumstances for 9/11 first responders and survivors looking for assist from the WTC Well being Program, bringing this system to a digital halt, advocates mentioned.
President Trump alongside Secretary of Well being and Human Providers Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the White Home, Feb. 25, 2025. (Photograph by JIM WATSON/AFP through Getty Pictures)
“We were appalled at the recent announcement,” the lawmakers wrote about Trump’s and Kennedy’s resolution. “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 clarify why he determined to fireside Dr. Howard, and supply a plan on how the WTC Well being Program will maintain certifying enrollees with out NIOSH medical doctors. They’re hoping to get solutions to those questions by subsequent week.
“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, government director of the Residents 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 Photograph/Andrew Harnik
N.Y. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand converse at a information convention on the 9/11 victims fund in 2019. (AP Photograph/Andrew Harnik)
Tens of hundreds of responders and survivors depend on the WTC Well being Program to get remedy and drugs and monitor accidents and diseases attributable to the toxins that swirled round Floor Zero throughout 9/11 and the weeks that adopted.
Drastic cuts to the 9/11 program had been reversed earlier this 12 months after Republican lawmakers sounded the alarm. The uncommon reversal from Trump in February noticed him restore two analysis grants and the roles of 16 staff.
This system was additionally threatened below the final Trump administration. In 2018, the White Home proposed reshuffling the company to place it below the purview of simply the CDC.
It’s estimated that greater than 400,000 individuals had been affected by the toxins swirling over Floor Zero. Greater than 127,000 individuals have been enrolled within the WTC Well being Program.
Out of that quantity greater than 81,000 have a licensed 9/11 sickness from their publicity throughout and after the phobia assaults on the World Commerce Middle, in addition to the hijacked aircraft crashes in Shanksville, Pa., and on the Pentagon, in accordance with this system’s web site.
