On April 1, the Trump administration snuck up behind the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and murdered the agency in cold blood. NIOSH staff — as well as the millions of American workers whose health and lives depend on the small agency’s work — are going through the various stages of grief watching this important agency die.
But maybe it’s not all bad news; a temporary recall of some NIOSH staff working on black lung (and possibly firefighter safety) has provided a small glimmers of hope that the activism of workers, unions, public health advocates and politicians — even a couple of Republicans — may be having some small impact with the on the Trump regime’s pillaging of health protections for American workers.
Or maybe we’re just seeing some temporary cosmetic “concessions.”
Time — and organizing — will tell.
To summarize, the Trump administration effectively eliminated NIOSH last month, laying off three-quarters of its staff that ran the agency’s various programs. The tiny agency suffered almost 10% of the total cuts imposed on the giant Department of Health and Human Services.
When it comes to workplace safety and health, NIOSH is one of the most important agencies that few people have ever heard of. The agency conducts research that forms the scientific basis for workplace safety and health standards, monitors and conducts hazard investigations on exposures like asbestos, coal dust, lead and other toxins, develops methods to protect workers against heat, oversees medical examinations for miners, 9/11 responders and nuclear workers during the Cold War, and other workers.
Lost are NIOSH programs that certify respirators and research hazards and solutions for miners, firefighters, farmworkers, and workers in the fishing, construction, and oil and gas industries. NIOSH also funds Education and Resource Centers that form the pipeline for future occupational safety and health professionals in the U.S. They conduct Health Hazard Evaluations that help employees, unions, and employers learn whether health hazards are present at their workplace and recommends ways to reduce hazards and prevent work-related illness, as well as general research, training and the many other programs that the agency conducted to protect workers.
Bottom line: Robert F. Kennedy’s “Make America Health Again” and his newly formed “Administration for a Healthy America” is killing American workers.
Just a few of the major programs that are saving workers’ lives include
Mine Safety and Health
Much of the attention and alarm about the demise of NIOSH has focused on the its black lung program that diagnoses, monitors and treats miners with black lung disease. One in 5 longtime coal miners in Central Appalachia has black lung — the highest level recorded in 25 years. And its getting worse. More miners are getting black lung, it’s a much more severe form of the disease, and it’s hitting younger miners much faster.
Bottom line: Robert F. Kennedy’s “Make America Health Again” and his newly formed “Administration for a Healthy America” is killing American workers.
NIOSH’s Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program (CWHSP) provides free black lung screenings for coal miners is gone, leaving no staff to run the screening program in the Morgantown, West Virginia, NIOSH office.
The 55 year old program was created by the 1969 Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act during the Nixon administration.
Under the landmark law, miners can receive free and confidential chest X-rays to determine whether their lung tissue is damaged. Those who are diagnosed with black lung can transfer to a less dusty part of the mine without a pay cut, and they can apply for federal compensation for medical treatments and prescription drugs.
The screening program offers contracts to radiologists across the country who are certified to evaluate X-rays for black lung. It also employs epidemiologists who recently concluded that one in five longtime coal miners in Central Appalachia has black lung — the highest level recorded in 25 years.
The impact of Trump’s war on coal miners will be felt immediately:
There are no epidemiologists left to analyze the data on the region’s black lung epidemic. No IT staff to process the X-rays. No mail room employees to send letters to miners and their doctors. No procurement staff to renew expired contracts with radiologists. And certainly no one to drive the mobile unit.
“There is no way to provide these resources to these coal miners, which I will mention are congressionally authorized,” said Scott Laney, who led research for the screening program until April 1, when he was placed on administrative leave and told of his termination effective June 2.
“The entire program has gone through all of the stages of grief five times already,” he added. “We don’t know what we’re going to do with 750,000 X-rays and whether they’re just going to be thrown in the trash.”
Richard Miller, retired labor policy director for the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce, called the closure of NIOSH “Ignorance on steroids.”
The closure of NIOSH is “ignorance on steroids.” — Richard Miller
Not only ignorance, but illegal as well.
In Miller’s view, what’s problematic about the cuts to the unit is that its function, to oversee the health of the country’s miners, is congressionally mandated.
“These are mandatory programs, meaning the statute says NIOSH shall have a mining research program for mining safety and health,” he said. “NIOSH shall provide health screening through the 1969 Coal Act. So what you’ve got is a whole series of mandatory obligations that are written into law, not as a discretion, but as a mandate.”
Miller said that if the Trump administration wanted to eliminate the unit and other parts of coal worker research, it should go through Congress to repeal it. He added that a class-action lawsuit in West Virginia is already underway to reinstate the unit’s employees.
Meanwhile, back at the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), which enforces mine safety and health regulations, Elon Musk’s DOGE has scheduled the closure of 30 MSHA offices and MSHA has suspended the enforcement of its new silica standard that was issued during the Biden administration to protect miners from a particularly virulent form of black lung disease that hits miners quickly and young. The reason enforcement was suspended? The elimination of NIOSH’s respirator certification program.
The closure of NIOSH’s mine safety program is “Ignorance on Steroids.” — Richard Miller
Respirator Program
The assault on miners’ health has been getting the most media and Congressional attention, but mine safety and health is only one part of the contributions that NIOSH makes to protecting workers.
Respirators are often necessary to protect workers against toxic chemicals like pesticides and solvents, deadly dusts like asbestos and silica, and infectious diseases like COVID-19, tuberculosis and bird flu. NIOSH certifies all worker respirators used in the United States, and employers must use NIOSH certified respirators to be OSHA and EPA compliant. NIOSH makes sure that respirators actually protect workers, and that workers don’t use ineffective counterfeits.
According to Rich Metzler, former director of the institute’s National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh.
Counterfeits are an issue, Metzler said, even now. Just before workers at the Pittsburgh lab were told to stop work last week, he said they’d been testing cartridges sold online that attach to the front of respirators to protect against gases or particulates.
“They found out that none of them met the standard,” Metzler said, while “all of the cartridges that they purchased that were on approved respirators passed.”
Agricultural Workers
NIOSH supports 12 regional Agricultural Safety and Health Centers. Agricultural, fishing and forestry workers experience the highest fatal injury rate of all industries, with more than 18.6 deaths occurring per 100,000 full-time workers in 2022, according to NIOSH’s website. Experts there help farmers retrofit decades-old tractors with rollover structures, help farmworkers prevent Lyme disease and Avian Flu and educate farmers about the dangers of heat exposure and other hazards fire emergencies, grain bins, farm machinery or confined spaces. The agricultural education program is particularly important because farms are one of the few hazardous workplaces where young children are allowed to work. In addition, due to Congressional language on OSHA appropriations bills, OSHA is not allowed to investigate or cite any injuries or deaths on small farms.
World Trade Center Health Program
The World Trade Center Health Program (WTC) provides medical screening and health care for 137,000 survivors and first responders who were exposed to toxic dust working recovery operations after the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centers in New York City. Many on the WTC staff were laid off last month, along with NIOSH Director John Howard. The Department of Health and Human Services later announced that the program was still in operation and that Dr. Howard would be rehired to run the program, but WTC health program staffers have been told their jobs have been eliminated and some — including Dr. Howard’s — have not been restored, despite claims they would all be rehired.
“It’s a shell game they’re playing,” said Dr. David Prezant, chief medical officer of the FDNY. “They fired a bunch of people, rehired a few of them and now many of them have been told they do not have a job.”
“They keep apologizing for their mistakes but they don’t fix them,” said Ben Chevat of Citizens for the Extension of the James Zadroga Act, a 9/11 advocacy group. “People are clearly not getting services that they need.”
Just this week, three FDNY employees who have been diagnosed with cancers believed to be related to their service at Ground Zero were not able to get approved for treatment.
One New York City emergency medical technician was told he has pancreatic cancer this week.
It used to take a day or two for the WTC health program officials to approve a treatment plan for such a fast-spreading illness. Now there is no telling if or when he will be able to start life-extending chemotherapy.
“It’s having a real impact on people,” Prezant said
Pushback
Congressional Action
115 House Democrats sent a letter to Trump and HHS Secretary Kennedy last month calling on them to reverse the NIOSH terminations.
The work of these employees and contractors plays a critical role in worker safety and has enormous economic impacts in communities across the country. If this decision stands, millions of workers across the country will face greater risks to job injury, illness, and death – including firefighters, whom NIOSH plays a critical role in protecting.
No Republicans signed onto the letter, despite the fact that even Republican Senators and House members are supposed to represent their constituents who voted for them. One Republican Senator and (so far) one Republican Congressman are speaking up. West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito, seemingly the only Republicans Senator that has concerns about the demise of NIOSH, sent a letter and has had phone conversations with HHS Secretary Kennedy about the importance of the NIOSH’s black lung program for her constituents. West Virginia has a lot of miners and an increasing number of those miners depend on the NIOSH for diagnosis and treatment of black lung disease. West Virginia Representative Riley Moore sent a similar letter to HHS last week.
Capito chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. This is one of the most powerful positions in the Senate. Appropriators provide the budget for Cabinet agencies and normally Cabinet heads (and other Senators) listen very closely to the opinions of those who provide their budgets.
But these are not normal times.
“I’m going to keep pushing,” Capito said. “I mean, we have to have this function for the safety and health of our coal miners.”
The initial response from HHS was not encouraging. In an email response to Capito, an HHS official said that:
“The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, along with its critical programs, will join the Administration for a Healthy America alongside multiple agencies to improve coordination of health resources for Americans.”
West Virginia’s other Senator is not so concerned:
Sen. Jim Justice, whose family owns numerous coal companies, praised Kennedy for slashing the staff and budgets of U.S. health agencies. “I am in favor of cuts to waste across the federal government, and I’m sure Secretary Kennedy understands how important coal miner health programs run by the department are to West Virginia,” Justice said in a statement.
Meanwhile, almost nothing has been heard from West Virginia Congresspersons, nor Republican Senators or Representatives from other coal states like Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania or Wyoming.
Even some Trump backers are having second thoughts. One West Virginia miner with black lung disease who voted for Trump expressed confidence that the cuts would be restored. Asked what he’d think if Trump did not resurrect the agency, he responded “I messed up.”
Kennedy Hearing
Meanwhile HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee on May 14. I’m sure the hearing will be educational, not just for Senators and the nation’s workers, but also for Secretary Kennedy himself who has admitted that he was not familiar with the catastrophic cuts at the department he is supposed to be running. Kennedy assured CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook that most of the HHS firings were “DEI cuts” and falsely promised that no important functions were lost; they were just reorganized into other programs.
Kennedy admitted that some of the HHS cuts may be mistakes. Asked if it might be better to analyze the importance of programs before firing people instead of after their gone, he admitted that that might be “another approach,” but it “takes too long” and you “lose political momentum.”
Labor and Public Health Organizations
The AFL-CIO and 27 labor unions sent a letter to members of Congress this morning calling for the destruction of NIOSH to be “immediately reversed as it will take working conditions back centuries, when chronic occupational diseases and fatalities skyrocketed with no government agency to help identify causes and research interventions.” The unions called on Congressional members to demand that the White House reverse course: “The cost of inaction will be severe and excruciating for individuals and society. Safe jobs are a fundamental right for every worker in America and NIOSH is necessary to make this right a reality.”
West Virginia lawyer Sam Petsonk has filed a lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of coal miners over the suspension of the black lung screening program. The suit accuses the Trump administration of violating the 1969 Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, and it seeks the immediate reinstatement of the fired NIOSH employees.
A coalition of labor organizations, non-profit groups, and cities and counties in California, Illinois, Maryland, Texas, and Washington filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s unlawful reorganization of the federal government public health institutions that is being conducted legislative authority.
The American Industrial Hygiene Association has launched a campaign to save NIOSH and the The American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP) issued a statement urging the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate to carefully review this decision and take appropriate action to preserve NIOSH’s critical role in safeguarding the health and safety of American workers.
Saving Money? Not So Much
One thing that Senator Justice, DOGE and others fail to understand (or admit) is that the NIOSH cuts will ultimately cost more money than they save:
In their own conversations with Trump officials, advocates have started making a new argument: These health and safety programs save taxpayers money in the long term. They note that while NIOSH’s black lung screening program had a budget last year of $466,000, the initiative prevented dozens of miners from seeking federal compensation for lung transplants, which can each cost more than $1 million.
“This all puts a finer point on the questions, ‘What’s the value of a human life? What’s the value of an Appalachian life?’” Laney, the fired NIOSH worker, said. “And unfortunately, it’s pretty clear to me that there’s a differential there.”
And a RAND corporation analysis found that between 2013 and 2017, NIOSH research helped companies avoid between $4 million and $7 million per year in workers’ compensation costs and between nearly $700,000 and $16 million per year in uncompensated wage losses.
“You want to talk about something that’s expensive? Orphans. Orphans are really expensive.” Julie Sorenson, Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety
Former NIOSH official Greg Wagner estimates that the cost of the agency amounts to roughly $2 per U.S. worker per year. “This is chump change,” he said.
Wagner cited three emergencies in which the agency’s experts provided crucial expertise. Immediately after 9/11, they helped figure out what kind of protections emergency response workers needed; during the anthrax scare at the Capitol in October 2001, they assessed biologic agents and advised on how to protect people; and during COVID, they helped figure out how to improve ventilation around patients’ beds in order to protect health care workers. “We don’t know what the next emergency is going to be,” said Wagner, “but the country is going to be poorer for not having these dedicated people.”
Julie Sorenson runs the Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety, one of 12 regional Agricultural Safety and Health Centers that NIOSH supports. The Center provide education for farmworkers and conducts research into agricultural safety and health.
“You want to talk about something that’s expensive? Orphans. Orphans are really expensive.”
“What’s really wasteful is for the federal government to pay for these studies that sometimes take years to accumulate data and then to shut it off before you actually get those results. [Sorenson] said she understands the sentiment of wanting to be more thoughtful about how taxpayer money is spent, she added that NIOSH does a lot of work despite having a relatively small budget for a federal agency. Collecting data and doing research that could save lives has a lot of value — for both employers and the families of the people who work for them, she said.
Sorensen said if NIOSH is shuttered, “we will live to regret the decision.” Workers and their families, she warned, will bear the brunt of the impact.
“You want to talk about something that’s expensive? Orphans. Orphans are really expensive.”
Results?
Capito’s actions, media attention and the lobbying of public health organizations may be having some limited effect. Or maybe not.
Yesterday, the Trump administration temporarily recalled dozens of fired federal workers who work on the black lung program and had been put on Administrative leave until their termination in June. According to Capito, 30 and 40 fired NIOSH employees would be temporarily brought back to the agency. Although the Washington Post stated that the workers were “reinstated,” that’s not really accurate: they are still scheduled to be terminated next month.
And why are they being called back? Is the Trump administration bending to pressure from Capito and the media? Are they trying to distract the media from their mistake?
Or are they just letting NIOSH staff come back to finish shutting down their programs and dig their own graves before being permanently terminated?
And what of the other essential non-coal NIOSH programs that have been eliminated, but may not be receiving as much attention — especially from Republicans?
This good(ish) news still leaves NIOSH staff in limbo:
Noemi Hall, a worker in the screening program who is on administrative leave, said she was at her child’s soccer practice Monday night when she received a call from a boss saying she would be reinstated until June 2. She said she had mixed feelings about the development.
“My RIF notice means that on June 2, I will be fired — that still hasn’t changed,” Hall said. “I want to be cautiously optimistic, but I also know that there have been a lot of broken promises.”
Scott Laney, another employee in the screening program, said he was still processing the news and weighing his career prospects.
“At some point I have to give up this noble fight to save this program and go find a job,” he said. “The prospects are daunting, and they’re becoming ever more so. So I don’t know how to feel about any of this right now.”
But as Cathy Tinney-Zara, president of AFGE Local 3430 in Morgantown, notes, the recalls only apply to the coal mining programs that are “currently in the media spotlight” leaving numerous other programs and initiatives undertaken by NIOSH still inoperable.
“These are undoubtedly vital initiatives, but they are only a portion of the comprehensive, nationwide worker protection mission NIOSH fulfills,” Tinney-Zara said. “From construction sites to health care facilities, from transportation hubs to agricultural fields, NIOSH’s work touches nearly every corner of the American labor force.”
There are also reports that HHS will also restore NIOSH’s Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program and the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer. International Association of Firefighters President Ed Kelley announced that he had talked to HHS Secretary Kennedy who assured him that the layoffs in the programs were a mistake made by “mid-level bureaucrats.” Kennedy tweeted that “Firefighters are among the most courageous and selfless people in our society. They stand as a living testament to the principle that public service is the highest calling. Firefighter health and safety programs remain a top priority.”
Like the Teamsters, the Firefighters union made no Presidential endorsement in the 2024 election.
Stay tuned.
Media
Happily, there has been a lot of media attention to what’s happening to NIOSH, especially the attack on the black lung program. Tune in to MSNBC tonight at 9:00pm ET when Jacob Soboroff reviews Trump’s first 100 days and interviews fired federal employees. Scott Laney, a respiratory health specialist working with NIOSH’s Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program, will be on the program.
A few other reports:
CDC reinstates workers who screen coal miners for black lung disease, Washington Post
In coal country, Trump’s cuts to health programs put miners in danger, Washington Post
‘Insane’: Workers who protect coal miners face termination thanks to DOGE, MSNBC
NIOSH firefighter programs to be temporarily restored following ‘misinterpreted executive order,’ Firefigher1
Coal miners face health risks amid federal program cuts, ABC News
Video by Rick Neitzel, professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and director of the Center for Occupational Health and Safety Engineering.
RFK Jr. & HHS: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO
Trump administration cuts threaten federal farm safety efforts, Agripulse
RFK Jr.’s layoffs expected to gut worker safety agency NIOSH, officials say, CBS News
As black lung increases in Wyoming, some worry federal cuts will hinder detection, Wyoming Public Radio
Thousands of Urine and Tissue Samples Are in Danger of Rotting After Staff Cuts at a CDC Laboratory, Wired
NIOSH cuts threaten worker health and safety, say experts, Harvard T Chan School of Public Health
Trump Guts Agency Critical to Worker Safety as Temperatures Rise, Inside Climate News
‘A huge impact on worker safety’: Protection for miners, firefighters in jeopardy after CDC cuts, CNN
The CDC’s critical occupational safety institute has been virtually wiped out, Stat News
Laid-off NIOSH workers continue protests for jobs and safety of U.S. workers, WBOY
Black lung researchers among hundreds laid off from federal health agency, Kentucky Public Radio
Government layoffs threaten US firefighter cancer registry, mine research and mask lab, New York Post
I support the efforts to reinstate NIOSH
Programs. We must emphasize that the O sequences of eliminating these programs will be dramatic increase of work related illnesses that will cost our government and working people far more monies than cutting tjlhe programs will save
Dr Peter Schnall
Director, center for Social Epidemiolgy
Co- Director Healthy Work Program
Heartbreaking.
The Trump administration is littered with ignorant buffoons who have no idea what they’re doing to America.