The Trump administration’s funding shell game over the health program that treats 9/11 first responders with Ground Zero-related illnesses continued this weekend with a fresh round of layoffs — and New York’s Senate delegation is calling on their Republican colleagues to step up and save the program.
Friday’s mass layoffs at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health became the latest blow to the World Trade Center Health Program, which is caught in a back-and-forth funding drama as Trump and Heath and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. take a buzzsaw to key health and research programs.
“Basically, the president and the administration and RFK are just lying,” Sen. Chuck Schumer said at a press event Sunday in Manhattan alongside Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. “They said they don’t want to touch the program, and then they fire 16 people as they did late Friday night.
“This is not a ‘Never forget,’ this is just, ‘We’re screwing the WTC victims. We don’t care about them,’” he added. “This is not how we treat our 9/11 heroes.”
Kennedy has moved to wipe out NIOSH, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with an April 1 wave of layoffs, and on Friday, nearly all of the remaining staff was let go. That included nurses, scientists and other administrative staff at the World Trade Center Health Program, CBS reported.
“He’s firing the people who actually administer the program, actually do the work,” Gillibrand said. “It’s an outrage what President Trump and Elon Musk and the DOGE boys are doing to a bipartisan, common-sense program that keeps our 9/11 heroes and family members alive. It is a disgrace. It’s outrageous, it’s un-American.”
Schumer and Gillibrand are calling on GOP legislators to use their votes on Trump’s budget to pressure the administration into restoring the program, and are demanding that those fired be reinstated.
“We all know now that chaos has swirled for weeks regarding the World Trade Center program. We hear people are being fired then we hear they’re being restored,” Schumer said.
“The truth of it is, the administration, Donald Trump and RFK revealed their true intentions Friday night when they fired another 16 [staffers]. Not only did they not restore those who our Republican colleagues … promised were going to restore, but then they fired new people.”
Representatives of the Centers for Disease Control did not immediately return a message seeking comment Sunday.
“What’s worse is of course the help that our first responders will not get. But almost as bad is the meanness, the cruelty to these employees who for years dedicated their lives to helping those who rushed to the towers and then they’re just told in an email when they get home Friday night, you’re fired. No explanation,” Schumer said.
Earlier this week, the Daily News reported that the health program has started resuming enrollment of new participants and approving treatments for ailing patients after on-again, off-again Trump administration cuts had hobbled the program for weeks.
A Department of Health and Human Services official informed doctors and administrators in the World Trade Center Health Program that all services could resume, according to an email obtained by The News.
That came after a News story revealing that the status of the program’s director, Dr. James Howard, was left in limbo for weeks, and that new participants were not being enrolled in the program and treatment plans were not being approved. Last week, three FDNY employees were unable to get treatment plans approved for recent cancer diagnosis.
As of last week, Howard has been told by HHS officials that he is fully reinstated to his post and given authority to certify illnesses and approve treatment plans.
But Schumer said Sunday his status remains unclear.
“They’ve told him he’s gone by June 2, but they don’t know what his status is now, what he can do and cannot do,” Schumer said.
Said Gillibrand, “We need Republicans to stand up to President Trump, to fight back, and to demand that these individuals are not only reinstated — including Dr. Howard, who still hasn’t been fully reinstated, and keep this program whole.”
Schumer and Gillibrand were standing alongside Mariama James, 53, a longtime Sept. 11 survivors advocate who lived downtown when the twin towers fell and was nine months pregnant as her apartment was surrounded by dust from Ground Zero.
“I’ve lost both my parents to 9/11 health issues, to cancer. Me and my three children are all in the program, including the one who was born in October 2001, meaning she was in utero at the time of 9/11,” she said. “We’re being lied to constantly. The Trump administration, RFK Jr., they lie.”
Originally Published: May 4, 2025 at 12:59 PM EDT
