9/11 health care program: 16 more workers fired by Trump administration, Sen. Chuck Schumer says

The Trump administration has fired 16 workers from a health agency that helps people exposed to toxic air during 9/11 and its aftermath, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Sunday.

The firings are part of an overall gutting of most of the remaining staff of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They come despite assurances from the White House to New York congressional Republicans last month that the cuts to the World Trade Center Health Program would be rescinded.

Last month, Dr. John Howard, who headed the World Trade Center Health Program, and the 16 workers were notified of their pending terminations as part of 10,000 staff cuts across the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Trump administration days later said that Howard would be reinstated, but the future of his job remains unclear, and the administration last Friday reportedly issued a second notice moving forward with the layoffs to the 16 workers.

The most recent layoffs follow an initial cut of 16 probationary workers in February from the staff of 86 workers. The administration pledged to restore those positions amid public outcry.

The program has long provided health care to people who developed ailments connected to their time near Ground Zero and the other 9/11 attack sites. People sickened include first responders, workers, passersby, schoolchildren and neighbors on Sept. 11, 2001, and in the immediate aftermath — when the government insisted the lower Manhattan air was safe.

The latest cuts include scientists and nurses, as well as those who work in enrollment and services.

In an interview Sunday morning with Newsday, Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the cuts will mean that services and payments "will slow down or be even nonexistent."

"There will be people who won’t get their health benefits and should," he said. "The research as to what causes these — if there are new — cancers, that won’t be done. It puts a kibosh on the whole program, slows everything down and makes it less clear that people will even get their benefits."

At a news conference with Schumer on Sunday, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said she worries about key knowledge that may never be discovered.

"When you fire an epidemiologist, it means the person who has been doing the research over many years to assess which cancers, which diseases, are caused by 9/11, all that expertise is being lost," she said.

Mariama James, who is in the program along with her three children and has served on the program's Survivors Steering Committee, said she feels betrayed. She lost both her parents to 9/11-related ailments and said in April alone, 800 survivors and first responders couldn't get certified for treatment.

"Where are the doctors from NIOSH that were supposed to be reviewing our petitions to let us know what further conditions were gonna to be covered?" she said at the news conference.

The program is congressionally mandated, Schumer said, adding there would be fights to restore it in the courts and in Congress.

President Donald Trump said he was unaware of the cuts when asked by a Newsday reporter about them on Sunday evening.

"I was the one in my first term that helped them get money and helped them really live a much better life," Trump said from the White House South Lawn after returning from his Mar-a-Lago resort. "That was a very important thing I did in my first term, but I'm not aware of anything that may have been brought up."

Trump was referring to signing a 2019 bill into law that enshrined the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, which provides federal funding to cover medical claims filed by those who have 9/11-related sicknesses. Individuals must have their illness certified by the World Trade Center Health Program to be eligible for the funding.

Last month's promised restoration of the health program came after a pressure campaign, including from Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) and other Republicans who support Trump.

In a statement emailed Saturday by Garbarino's communications director, Kristen Cianci, Garbarino said: "Any cuts impacting the World Trade Center Health Program are indefensible. I will continue to fight tooth and nail to make sure this program keeps every bit of the staffing and resources it needs to continue its critical work."

With Laura Figueroa Hernandez

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.