On Tuesday, the Ministry of Health and Social Services reintegrated 328 federal employees who faced redundancies, including those involved in Screening of “black pulmonary” diseases in coal minors And for health problems in the first stakeholders on September 11.
Resturbed employees are part of the National Occupational Safety and Health Institute (Niosh), a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention division which focuses on prevention and response to work -related diseases.
The Trump administration previously aimed at Eliminate the majority of more than 1,300 Niosh employeespart of a wider plan to reduce the federal workforce.
Hundreds of staff members Niosh Received of the letters of termination in April and MayAlthough some have been temporarily brought back to perform certain tasks, while their endings remained in force for June. The director of HHS in chief human capital, Tom Nagy, told certain employees on Tuesday that their layoffs were “revoked by this”, according to a note obtained by NBC News.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmed during a hearing on the House budget on Wednesday morning that 328 Niosh employees had been recalled. About a third of them work in an installation in Morgantown, Virginia-Western, he said, and another third work in Cincinnati, where Niosh operates two facilities.
“Secretary Kennedy has worked hard to ensure that Niosh’s critical functions remain intact,” said a CDC spokesperson in a statement. “The Trump administration is committed to supporting coal minors and firefighters, and under the direction of the secretary, the essential services of Niosh will continue as HHS will ration its operations. Ensure the health and safety of our workforce remain an absolute priority for the department. ”
The installation of Morgantown is home to the Niosh respiratory health division, which oversees a program that offers free radiographs to identify the “black lung” in minors or pulmonary scars caused by the continuous inhalation of coal dust. An American district judge in Virginia-Western ordered the HHS on Tuesday to restore the division And continue his health surveillance in coal minors. Representative Riley Moore, RW.VA., said at the Chamber’s budget hearing that 111 Niosh employees in Morgantown had been reinstated this week.
As part of the 328 reinstated, HHS Brought back 15 employees to the World Trade Center Health Programwhich covers the treatment of cancer, asthma, post-traumatic stress disorder and other diseases linked to 9/11. The fate of the program has been seen in recent months when the Trump administration has dismissed and rebuilt staff members, which makes it more difficult to register members or confirms that their treatments were covered by federal funding.
“Our agency was invited to make very, very serious budget cuts which were going to be painful. Some of them should not have been made, and it was not one should have, and I reversed him,” said Kennedy during a budgetary hearing of the Senate on Wednesday afternoon.
The program started to deal with registrations on May 1, according to an internal email shared with NBC News from Citizens for the extension of the James Zadroga law, a defenders’ defense group who supports responders and survivors of September 11. But the group’s executive director, Benjamin Chevat, asks for more certainty.
“Given the history of the last months … We must finally obtain public insurance from the secretary that this will not happen again and that the work of the World Trade Center health program will no longer be affected,” said Chevat in an email.
In an email at the agency’s scale sent Tuesday afternoon and obtained by NBC News, the director of Niosh, John Howard, noted that certain institute positions were still being eliminated.
“While we celebrate with those who have received a HHS recidivism letter, I am aware that the others have not done so,” wrote Howard. “I hope we can continue to plead to restore everyone to Niosh.”
Howard himself received a notice of dismissal in early April, but returned to his post after Bipartite opposition of Congress members concerning his dismissal. Fifty-six posts in the Office of the Director of Niosh were brought back on Tuesday, according to an internal distribution of the reinstated visualized by NBC News.
Niosh original dismissals were part of a massive restructuring which aimed to consolidate the agency, among others, in a new division known as the administration of a healthy America. Kennedy said on Wednesday morning that he could not offer more details on the restructuring due to a court order and that it was temporarily prohibited to plan a new planning. An American district judge in San Francisco ordered the Trump administration last week suspend his redesignnoting that changes probably require the authorization of the congress.