Heroes at risk
HIDDEN IN the fine print of President Trump’s latest budget proposal is a detail that could directly impact 9/11 first responders: the reorganization of the federal agency that oversees their health treatment and monitoring.
Currently, the World Trade Center Health Program is housed within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). That agency, in turn, is under the umbrella of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Under the 2019 fiscal year budget for NIOSH put forth by the White House, that agency will be carved out of the CDC and placed within the National Institutes of Health.
The WTC Health Program will remain behind — within the CDC.
Although it would appear on paper to be a simple rearrangement, lawmakers and 9/11 advocates say the impact would be dreadful for the more than 83,000 responders and survivors who rely on the WTC Health Program to receive treatments, medications and monitoring for injuries and illnesses caused by toxins at Ground Zero and other 9/11 sites.
For one thing, NIOSH and the WTC Health Program share many employees — and those workers would move with NIOSH if it gets sliced out of the CDC.
The director of NIOSH, Dr. John Howard, would also move with the agency — meaning he could no longer fulfill his current dual role as administrator of the WTC Health Program.
The potential shifting of resources and manpower will come just as several key contracts within the WTC Health Program — such as those for prescription programs — are up for five-year renewal, prompting concerns that services will be interrupted to some of those suffering from 9/11 illnesses.
That worry has led several New York members of Congress — original sponsors of James Zadroga 9/11 health legislation — to write to Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to demand the reorganization proposal be abandoned.
“We were shocked and disturbed,” the letter, signed by Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Jerrold Nadler, (DManhattan)