For most of us, it is a foregone conclusion that you will go to work and come home safely at the end of the day. If there is a hazard in your workplace, and the odds are good there is one, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health tries to identify it, understand it and help prevent it from hurting you and other workers.
Or rather, we were until April 1, when hundreds of agency scientists, support staff and civil service employees were placed on administrative leave, or terminated, via an early morning e-mail carrying out President Trump’s Executive Order 14210. I am one of those scientists. What the administration has done doesn’t just affect us. Without NIOSH, workplaces will become more dangerous, and more workers will die.
In my home state of West Virginia, the consensus a half-century ago was that if you were a miner, it would probably kill you. Mine explosions, collapses, machinery failure, floods and poor ventilation that resulted in buildup of toxic gas threatened miners every day. If you survived all that, there was a good chance you’d develop black lung disease, or pneumoconiosis. Nearly one third of coal miners died of black lung disease until the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 declared that they, not the coal they mined, were the industry’s most precious resource.
On supporting science journalism
If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
With the act came a new priority to identify threats to workers and a need to understand occupational hazards and risks. In 1970 NIOSH was established to work hand in hand with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Where OSHA functions as enforcement, NIOSH is tasked with performing research, providing education and making recommendations concerning occupational health and safety standards. As the institute has grown and evolved, its scientists now research construction, oil and gas extraction, firefighting, law enforcement and service work. NIOSH research programs have examined mine safety, mask and respirator efficacy, cancer prevention in firefighters, hearing loss prevention and any number of other threats to America’s 164 million workers.
I worked at NIOSH for almost four years, building my career as a scientist. Our laboratory team studied occupational allergy and microbial triggers of disease. We examined how bodies respond to inhaling mold, using collective knowledge and equipment that exists nowhere else in the world. We worked with other teams to understand the effects of on-the-job exposure to cannabis, coal mine dust, metal working fluid and more. With my Ph.D., I could have moved away from my home state and gone to work at a biotech company. I chose to stay in West Virginia because I wanted to work at NIOSH and do the science that would improve people’s lives.
But that dream is gone. NIOSH is effectively gone.
The administration claims the cuts are intended to reduce redundancy and inefficiency. They claim the cuts have no direct effect on ongoing science and studies, but that is a lie. Without warning, our research and ongoing studies were halted. We have not been allowed back to finish experiments, complete analyses, or collect data for publication. There are freezers full of samples we cannot analyze. We have lost years of scientific effort, with no option to wrap things up.
The hypocrisy in saying that functionally eliminating NIOSH will “Make America Healthy Again” cannot go unchecked. We were the only ones performing research with worker safety at the heart of our interest. We don’t do the research to benefit a company’s bottom line; we do it for the American people. As new technologies and industries emerge, so do new threats to health and safety. We publish publicly accessible data that are used by enforcement agencies like the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and OSHA to keep you safe at work. Now there will be no one to find answers when the workforce calls for help. Already MSHA has paused enforcement of a rule regarding silica exposure, specifically citing the upheaval at NIOSH. Who, if not NIOSH, will investigate the country’s next epidemic like black lung was investigated? Who, if not NIOSH, will perform research to identify safe chemical exposure levels?
I think a lot of people imagine scientists as apolitical, unopinionated and reserved—a stereotyped caricature of lab coats, quietly crunching numbers in spreadsheets, adjusting glasses perched on noses. We are more than that.
Last week, as we were allowed to enter our buildings to gather our belongings, the emotion in the building was palpable. We were sad, scared and angry, yes for ourselves and our livelihoods but also for much more than that. The reason we have chosen to work for NIOSH, and for the American people, is because we care. We tried to find out what will happen to our studies, we asked each other and our leadership what will happen to our data, data that belong in the hands of Americans. No one had answers. We have no idea if we will ever get any.
Even with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s claims that “mistakes” will happen and will be rectified, I doubt I will get the option to return to NIOSH in the near future. This was not a mistake. This was an intentional destruction of the only entity in the country dedicated to researching occupational safety and employee well-being, with the specific purpose of making it easier to abuse an already struggling workforce. They expect us to quietly go away, fade into the ether, accept whatever fate they assign.
We will not give them the satisfaction. There have been days of anger and confusion, after months of frustration, just trying to do our jobs while the administration made it harder every day. We have been angry, and we have grieved. Now we fight. We fight for you and your safety. Will you fight with us? Will you fight for us? Tell Congress to stop cuts to NIOSH, and tell them to reinstate workers.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.