Senators rip Kennedy for problems afflicting WTC Health Program

Staffing shortages and associated administrative issues at the World Trade Center Health Program are compromising the care sought and needed by survivors of the 9/11 terror attacks, according to U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer. 

The New York Democrats urged Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to immediately resolve what they say are escalating issues with the program, which they said are causing “confusion and concern” among program enrollees, clinicians and administrators. 

“We are committed to ensuring that the responders and survivors of the 9/11 attacks who were exposed to toxic chemicals from the World Trade Center disaster, or the Pentagon and Shanksville crash site, continue to receive the health care and medical monitoring that they deserve and expect,” the senators wrote Kennedy earlier this week. 

Among the lawmakers' concerns are an ongoing “temporary” communications blackout and travel restrictions affecting program staff, and the of halting vital research gatherings, steering committee meetings and community outreach efforts. “The normal interactions of the program with the 9/11 community that provide information and feedback to the program are not taking place. Is this temporary ban now becoming permanent?” the senators wrote.

Gillibrand and Schumer said there was increased confusion among stakeholders about how the program will operate as processes slow or stall. “These last few months have clearly demonstrated that adequate staffing levels are critical to preventing significant treatment delays. Individuals with 9/11-related conditions should not have to rely on repeated uproars from the public and the media to obtain the care they are owed under the law and so desperately need,” they wrote Kennedy. 

Although the senators noted that program-affiliated staff fired earlier this year have been reinstated, a government-wide hiring freeze has compromised the ability of remaining staff to provide care and support to a growing number of enrollees, they said. 

Program enrollment, they said, grew by 10,000 new members in 2024, the most since its inception in 2011, and another 10,000 are expected to have enrolled by the end of this year.

But the program has been hobbled by uncertainty and chaos since even prior to the start of the second Trump administration. 

Although the WTC Health Program itself has been authorized by Congress through 2090, its full funding is secured only through 2027. It faces increasing funding shortfalls after that. A permanent funding mechanism included in an end-of-year budget bill last December was scrapped after President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk objected to the larger bill.

The day after Kennedy was confirmed as Health and Human Services secretary, he fired all of the department’s probationary workers, which included about 20 percent of the WTC Health Program’s staff. Following bipartisan objections, staffers were reinstated soon afterward.

But thousands more HHS employees were fired about six weeks later, among them Dr. John Howard, the program's administrator and the director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Another uproar followed and Howard was eventually brought back. 

Yet another round of layoffs, this time of 16 program staffers, followed in early May, but they too were reinstated. 

In response to questioning by New Jersey Senator Andy Kim during a May 14 hearing of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Kennedy said the cuts to the health program “should not have” been made.  “We try to be as careful as we can about what we cut and what we didn't. We made a couple of mistakes,” he said. 

Kim then asked Kennedy what the expectations for the program were and whether it would continue “at full strength.” Kennedy hedged. “We're continuing that program,” the secretary said. “The program itself will continue.”

But the resulting turmoil has held back approvals, with hundreds of treatment approvals and new enrollments delayed. 

“These last few months have clearly demonstrated that adequate staffing levels are critical to preventing significant treatment delays. Individuals with 9/11-related conditions should not have to rely on repeated uproars from the public and the media to obtain the care they are owed under the law and so desperately need,” Gillibrand and Schumer wrote to Kennedy. 

Firefighters beneath the destroyed the vertical struts of the World Trade Center in New York on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.

Mark Lennihan/AP Photo

Want staffing restored

While the program has an authorized staffing level of 138, it currently counts just 80 people providing support, they said. They called on Kennedy to restore staffing levels across all essential roles.

“The program needs to hire more doctors and other specialized staff to allow the program’s functions to continue at peak efficiency. Without adequate supervisory staff, activities will fall short of what is required because proper oversight cannot be provided,” Gillibrand and Schumer wrote. 

In a brief response to a request for comment regarding the senators’ concerns, a HHS spokesperson said only that the program continues to meet its mandate. “The World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program’s Clinical Centers of Excellence and Nationwide Provider Network are continuing to provide services to program members at this time,” the spokesperson said. “The Program continues to accept and review new enrollment applications and certification requests.”

Benjamin Chevat, the executive director of 911 Health Watch, said that though there are enough clinicians associated with the program to ensure continued care for enrollees, short staffing in other titles is resulting in administrative bottlenecks, slowing intake for the increasing number of people seeking to enroll in the program. 

Just as critically, the administration’s communication ban is keeping crucial information from not just the public but from key stakeholders, among them health experts and union officials, Chevat said. “You can't talk to anyone, which is intentional, so that you can't find out what they're doing,” Chevat said Friday. “So if you were to talk to one of the doctors, as I have, they'll say things are slower.” 

The communication ban also leaves stakeholders in the dark about expiring agreements with critical contracted collaborators, including New York City-area clinics and the National Provider Network, which extends the program’s reach outside the metropolitan region. 

“Secretary Kennedy and his press people continue not to answer questions about the World Trade center program. And at some point they're going to be held accountable for that,” Chevat said. 

richardk@thechiefleader.com