Layoffs threaten US firefighter cancer registry, mine research and mask
lab
[April 07, 2025]
By MIKE STOBBE
NEW YORK (AP) — Government staffing cuts have gutted a small U.S. health
agency that aims to protect workers — drawing rebukes from firefighters,
coal miners, medical equipment manufacturers and a range of others.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a
Cincinnati-based agency that is part of the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, is losing about 850 of its approximately 1,000
employees, according to estimates from a union and affected employees.
Among those ousted were its director, Dr. John Howard, who had been in
the job through three previous presidential administrations.
The layoffs are stalling — and perhaps ending — many programs, including
a firefighter cancer registry and a lab that is key to certifying
respirators for many industries.
The cuts are “a very pointed attack on workers in this country,” said
Micah Niemeier-Walsh, vice president of the union local representing
NIOSH employees in Cincinnati.
Unions that represent miners, nurses, flight attendants and other
professions have criticized the cuts, saying it will slow the
identification and prevention of workplace dangers. Rallies in
Cincinnati and other cities drew not only fired CDC employees but also
members of unions representing teachers, postal workers and bricklayers,
Niemeier-Walsh said.
NIOSH doctors review and certify that 9/11 first responders who
developed chronic illnesses could qualify for care under the federal
government’s World Trade Center Health Program, noted Andrew Ansbro,
president of a union that represents New York City firefighters.
“Dismantling NIOSH dishonors the memory of our fallen brothers and
sisters and abandons those still battling 9/11-related illnesses,”
Ansbro said in a statement.
Agency investigates workplace hazards
NIOSH was created under a 1970 law signed by President Richard Nixon. It
started operations the following year and grew to have offices and labs
in eight cities, including Cincinnati; Pittsburgh; Spokane, Washington;
and Morgantown, West Virginia.
In the more than 50 years since, it has done pioneering research on
indoor air quality in office buildings, workplace violence and
occupational exposures to bloodborne infections.
NIOSH investigators identified a new lung disease in workers at
factories that made microwave popcorn, and helped assess what went wrong
during the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster. It was recently involved
in the CDC's response to measles, advising on measures to stop spread
within hospitals.
Some of its best-known work is related to mining. It trains and
certifies doctors in how to test for black lung disease, and the agency
conducts its own mobile screenings of miners. For years, NIOSH owned an
experimental mine in Pennsylvania and two years ago announced it was
developing a replacement research facility near Mace, West Virginia,
that would feature tunnels and other mine structures.
Its research and recommendations have served as the foundation for
Department of Labor rules for worker protection, including one issued
last year for coal miners that cuts by half the permissible exposures to
poisonous silica dust.
Studies have concluded NIOSH research helps the nation save millions of
dollars each year in avoided workers’ compensation and other costs.
“Any stoppage to this type of research and recommendations can impact
all segments of the workforce,” said Tessa Bonney, who teaches about
occupational health at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Impact of deep staff cuts are unclear
NIOSH was swept up in the massive upheaval at the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services that includes about 10,000 layoffs, an
anticipated reorganization and proposed budget cuts.
Nonunionized NIOSH workers — mainly supervisors — were told to clean out
their desks immediately. Bargaining unit employees got layoff notices,
and were told their terminations would happen later this year.
[to top of second column]
|
In this Sept. 11, 2001 photo, firefighters work beneath destroyed
mullions, the vertical struts which once faced the outer walls of
the World Trade Center towers, after a terrorist attack on the twin
towers in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
 “Right now we are trying to figure
out chain of command,” Niemeier-Walsh said.
An HHS spokesman, Andrew Nixon, said what’s left of NIOSH will be
moved into a newly created agency to be called the Administration
for a Healthy America.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said that 20% of the people
laid off from federal health agencies might be reinstated as the
agency tries to correct mistakes, but the department has not
detailed which parts of NIOSH were reduced or eliminated, and which
will remain open.
On Saturday, New York Republican U.S. Rep. Andrew Garbarino said in
a news release that Howard had been reinstated as administrator of
the World Trade Center Health Program after legislators urged the
White House to reverse the decision. But there was no mention of
Howard regaining his job as NIOSH director, and HHS officials did
not respond to questions Saturday.
What’s known about the cuts made so far to NIOSH was pieced together
by employees affected by the layoffs and the union that represents
them. They say almost every NIOSH program faced steep cuts or
outright elimination.
A firefighter cancer registry website went down Tuesday “because
there were no IT people left to staff the system,” Niemeier-Walsh
said.
And at least some of the hundreds of mice and rats at a NIOSH lab in
Morgantown likely will have to be destroyed because the layoffs put
an abrupt, mid-experiment end to inhalation research there, said
Cathy Tinney-Zara, a public health analyst who is president of the
union local representing employees there.
“Million of dollars of research, decades of research, is going down
the drain,” Tinney-Zara said.
Industry concerned about certification lab
Some of the outcry from unions and industry has centered on the
National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, a NIOSH office
that tests and certifies fitted masks that protect workers from
inhaling airborne dangers. (The N95 masks that became popular during
the COVID-19 outbreak are named for a NIOSH standard.)
Closing the lab gives a competitive advantage to companies in China
and other countries that send products to the U.S. without meeting
the stringent quality standards that come with certification, said
Eric Axel, executive director of the American Medical Manufacturers
Association.
“This decision effectively rewards foreign manufacturers who have
not made the same investments in quality and safety while punishing
American companies that have built their reputations on producing
reliable, high-quality protective equipment,” Axel said in a
statement.
The cuts are “really devastating,” said Rebecca Shelton, director of
policy for the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, a Kentucky-based
organization that provides legal help to ill coal miners.
“Here in central Appalachia, everybody knows somebody with black
lung disease,” she said.
It appears NIOSH programs for coal miners are being eliminated,
raising questions about who will monitor for new cases and spot
trends, Shelton said.
NIOSH staff routinely visited mines and rural communities to offer
free screenings and speak at public meetings about black lung
disease and other workplace health issues.
“These are not out-of-touch federal workers. They are very well
connected” with their communities, she said.
Many NIOSH workers come from families that have worked in
occupational health for generations. Niemeier-Walsh’s grandfather
was an agency toxicologist for 30 years.
“It was normal dinnertime conversation in our family to talk about
how you can use the power of science to protect workers,” she said.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
