911 Health Watch Calls On HHS Secretary Kennedy to Remove WTC Health Program Hiring Freeze, Allow Research to Continue and Finally Announce Pending Decisions to Include Cardiac, Autoimmune and Cognitive Issues to the List of Covered 9/11 Conditions
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Benjamin Chevat
Ben.Chevat@911HealthWatch.org
Today, 911 Health Watch released the following letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
In the letter, we are calling on the Secretary to:
- Remove the hiring freeze he has imposed on the World Trade Center Health Program, and allow it to bring the staff to full strength to ensure quality care and allow critically needed research to go forward;
- Lift his communications restrictions between the program and the 9/11 community; and
- Ensure that the WTC Health Program finally makes a decision on petitions that have been pending for over three years to add cardiac, autoimmune and cognitive issues to the list of covered conditions.
Fifteen years ago, on January 2, 2011, then-President Obama signed the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act into law, which created the World Trade Center Health Program.
This was the result of nearly a decade of advocacy by the 9/11 community, responders, survivors and their advocates—who had to overcome years of resistance by the Federal Government to responding to the mounting health crisis resulting from exposures to the toxins released at Ground Zero.
The World Trade Center Health Program is now caring for over 140,000 members: responders at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville crash sites, as well as workers, students, and other survivors exposed to the disaster in lower Manhattan and Western Brooklyn. They live in every state, and in 434 out of 435 Congressional districts.
Regrettably, though, the World Trade Center Health Program is at risk because of the continued chaos that Secretary Kennedy and his directives are causing.
Over the last 11 months, since Secretary Kennedy took over as Secretary of Health and Human Services, he has ignored the program’s staffing needs, resulting in disruptions to key WTC Health Program operations prescribed by Zadroga Act.
RFK, Jr. has fired program staff, then rehired them; then fired different program staff; then fired the Program Director, Dr. John Howard; then rehired some staff (but really didn’t reinstate them). Then finally he actually rehired the staff and the Program Director. When the Secretary testified before Congress and was questioned about these reckless and irrational actions, he admitted that the firings were “a mistake”.
After the dust cleared from his waves of firings and rehiring’s, the program now has fewer staff members to run the program than when he took over.
The program’s staffing level, which was 93 on inauguration day—and slated to expand to 120, as authorized by the Office of Management and Budget—now stands at 84.
That means there are 36 vacancies—more than 25% short of the minimum staff needed to ensure medical monitoring and treatment for the responders and survivors enrolled in the program.
This decline in staffing has occurred as program enrollment has continued to grow. It has grown by approximately 20,000 in the last two years and is on track to increase by another 10,000 this year— nearly 25% increase.
25% fewer staff are trying to serve 25% more members. But the program cannot hire the staff needed because of the Secretary’s ongoing CDC-wide hiring freeze.
The staff shortage has damaging effects: slower treatment approvals, backlogged research grant authorizations, and less-than-adequate supervision of the program’s vendors and contractors—especially the program’s National Provider Network (NPN) managed by MCA Sedgwick, which has had significant problems delivering services to 9/11 responders and survivors since the day it started work for the program in 2022.
You cannot run a program with more responders and survivors needing services with less staff and expect care not to suffer—especially a program that depends on so many vendors and contractors who need supervision. But that is what is happening.
There is another effect of the staff shortage. Under the Zadroga statute, the program funds research on medical conditions caused by 9/11 toxins. Earlier this year the Secretary disrupted research on 9/11 cancers—canceling, then restoring, already-approved research. This year’s research awards process, which normally would have started in March of 2025, still has not yet begun; we have only vague promises that it will be done this year, if at all.
Under the Zadroga statute, there is also a process for adding new medical conditions to coverage under the Act, provided certain requirements are met. For over three years, several petitions have been pending review cardiac conditions, autoimmune conditions, and cognitive issues.
The program had announced in December 2024 that the delayed determinations would be finally announced in March of 2025 this past year, but that did not happen. And there’s no indication when—or if—an announcement will happen, probably because of the “temporary” communications pause on staff contact with the public that Secretary Kennedy imposed when he took over. (That pause has been repeatedly denied by HHS press staff, even in the face of evidence.)
The truth is that HHS has set such limitations on the program communicating with the public that the members of the two Advisory Committees (made up of responders and survivors), which previously met nearly every month, have only been allowed to meet once.
As we approach the 25th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the Secretary must lift his hiring freeze and allow the program to hire the staff it needs to ensure quality care and allow research on 9/11 conditions to go forward.
He needs to end his communications restrictions.
Finally, the program should announce its decisions on pending petitions.
Benjamin Chevat, Executive Director of 911 Health Watch, stated:
This week, Secretary Kennedy reversed himself and has rehired hundreds of CDC staff that he fired last year.
Now he needs to allow the World Trade Center Health Program to hire the staff it needs to fill vacancies so the program can fully function. He needs to remove his restrictions on the program communicating with the 9/11 community and he needs to have the program finally make its decisions on pending petitions to determine if the program should cover cardiac , auto immune and cognitive conditions. 9/11 responders and survivors have been waiting for years to hear if the program would cover these conditions and it is long past due for a decision.
Background
911 Health Watch, Inc. was created by the unions and others who fought diligently to get health care and compensation for those impacted by the toxins at Ground Zero. We are dedicated to ensuring that the programs implemented under the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act —the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and the World Trade Center Health Program—provide the care needed for the thousands of injured and ill 9/11 responders and survivors as the law intended.
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