Given the sheer volume of indiscriminate firings and funding cuts under the Trump administration, it's understandable that one such outrage would slip by us with little media attention.
Yet, if the number of messages I've received from members of the first responder community are any indication, one particularly callous cut last week did not escape the attention of police officers, firefighters and federal agents who worked the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack sites in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.
The Trump administration recently fired the head of the World Trade Center Health Program, and dismissed two-thirds of the entire staff at the program's parent agency, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
The dismissals leave in doubt the future of the initiative that administers health care support for those who developed 9/11-related cancers, respiratory ailments and other medical issues.
Under the direction of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Dr. John Howard, administrator of the WTC Health Program, was let go. So too were more than 800 doctors, epidemiologists and staffers throughout NIOSH whom the WTC team relies on to research, identify and address the myriad health issues related to the rescue, recovery and evidence collection efforts at the toxic 9/11 sites.
When law enforcement and rescue workers develop cancers that may stem from those efforts, the WTC unit must first certify that the illness is 9/11-related before those patients can start to receive care under the program. While the 86 members of the WTC unit appear to remain employed, their essential support network at NIOSH is mostly gone, and officials and advocates assert these cuts will cripple the program.
Read Frank Figliuzzi's full column here.
