Statement from Citizens for the Extension of the James Zadroga Act on the Trump Administration Cutting 20% of the CDC Staff who work at the World Trade Center Health Program and other Actions Impacting 9/11 Responders and Survivors

Citizens for the Extension of the of the James Zadroga has been informed with updated information that the Trump Administration has reportedly terminated 16 probationary staff serving World Trade Center Health Program and that with the several other staff have taken the Administration’s “buy out”, the total reduction in the CDC staff that supervise and administer the program is at least twenty percent, if not more.

These cuts, which are immediate, mean that services to 137,000 9/11 responders and survivors from the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Shanksville Crash site, who are in all 50 States and in 434 out of 435 Congressional Districts will be impacted:

• Decisions on certifications to allow for treatment of new cancers and other conditions will be delayed.
• Decisions on the pending petitions as to whether to expand coverage to include auto immune and cardiac conditions and other conditions that were supposed to be announced in March will be further delayed.
• Work by the program to supervise contractors will now be more difficult and the program will be less able to combat fraud and abuse and improve the services to this population of 9/11 responders and survivors.
• There will be many fewer staff to respond to complaints by patients and intervene when there are issues with prescriptions and treatment.

Not only have we been informed about the cuts to the staff, but we have also been told that research grants that are part of the Zadroga Act are being terminated.

For example, we have been informed that a research grant to the FDNY was terminated by the CDC just the other day. This grant funds the FDNY’s efforts to compare FDNY disease incidence rates with 3 other urban fire depts. It is the best way to definitively prove that any new conditions are WTC related and therefore should be added by the program to the covered WTC conditions. While terminating this grant does not impact the World Trade Center FDNY clinic’s care, it will severely hinder the FDNY’s effort to provide WTC exposed members with treatment coverage for new, 9/11-related health conditions, such as autoimmune diseases and cardiovascular diseases, that are increasingly affecting FDNY members.

Apparently, in response to the Trump administration’s directives to find waste, fraud and abuse, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) contract office cancelled the FDNY research grant stating, “As a result of that review, this contract was determined to be non-essential because the outputs from the contract are not statutorily required.”

Additionally, the continuing pause in all communications by CDC, including the World Trade Center Health Program staff with the public, and work on grants and contracts has impacted many of the normal functions of the program and will delay research on 9/11 conditions and improvements in program contracts to better serve the program members.

All of this comes only a few weeks after Elon Musk and then President Elect Trump effectively killed the provision in spending legislation that had been agreed to by the House and Senate to fix the upcoming deficit the program is facing and subsequent cuts to services in a few years that will be during the Trump Administration.

We cannot believe that the Trump Administration or the new HHS Secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr. intends to harm 9/11 responders and survivors in the World Trade Center Health Program, but that will be the outcome of these cuts.

We know from press reports that certain agencies, because of the critical nature of their work, have in fact been spared termination of their probationary employees.

The firing of the World Trade Center Health Program staff needs to be reversed and all positions where staff have taken the buyout need to be replaced, the communications pause with the public needs to be lifted and research grants need to be allowed to continue, so that 9/11 responders and survivors can get the care that they need and deserve without delay.