Nineteen States, District of Columbia Sue Over Layoffs at NIOSH, Other Health Agencies
On May 5, the attorneys general of nineteen states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., alleging that mass layoffs of HHS departmental staff have led to “severe, complicated, and potentially irreversible” consequences for the plaintiff states.
Since March 27, when Secretary Kennedy issued a directive to reduce staffing and dramatically restructure the department, HHS has fired about 10,000 employees. Another 10,000 staff members have left voluntarily, as reported by Reuters.
The legal complaint (PDF), filed in Rhode Island, asserts that due to the layoffs and reorganization, “critical offices were left unable to perform statutory functions.” These include conducting research and training, certifying personal protective equipment, processing applications, providing staff and funding to state programs, and testing for infectious diseases. The document describes how each impacted agency and program was mandated by Congress to perform necessary functions and how the loss of these functions has harmed the plaintiff states.
NIOSH was among the agencies most affected by staff firings and reorganization. More than 870 NIOSH employees, including Dr. John Howard, the agency’s director, received termination notices on April 1. Nearly all remaining staff were laid off on May 2.
“Since the mass terminations, NIOSH has immediately stopped services and closed locations,” the complaint states. “NIOSH employees confirmed to CBS News via an annotated organizational chart that NIOSH had effectively been completely dismantled.” Pages 28 through 44 of the complaint detail the impacts of the loss of a range of programs overseen or funded by NIOSH.
For example, federal regulations require NIOSH to certify respiratory equipment for use by the estimated five million American workers who use respirators for their jobs. NIOSH’s National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, the only federal facility able to issue approvals for N95 respirators, lost nearly all its employees. As of the date of the complaint’s filing, NPPTL’s website stated that no new respirator approvals could be accepted due to the reductions in force. The complaint asserts that the plaintiff states, which employ and operate healthcare facilities and other workplaces where respiratory protection is required, “are harmed by the sudden cessation of certification of respiratory equipment, which will make it more difficult to source and purchase necessary respiratory equipment for State workers and State facilities.”
The plaintiffs argue that even the few NIOSH programs expected to remain funded “will be rendered functionally ineffective and place increased financial burden on the Plaintiff States.” Among these programs, the World Trade Center Health Program is mandated by the Zadroga Act of 2010 to provide medical research, treatment, and monitoring for responders and survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The program does not employ staff physicians but has relied on NIOSH doctors to certify members with new conditions. All NIOSH doctors were placed on administrative leave on April 1, and no staff remain to certify new patients for coverage, as required by law. “The result is that more people who are eligible for such programs will not receive coverage or reimbursement for their medical needs and will therefore need to rely on coverage from Plaintiff-State health plans to pay for their costs,” the complaint states.
The complaint holds that the termination of HHS employees and “confusing” reorganization of the department “is an unlawful effort to undercut the will of Congress who ordered the agencies and programs to run.” The plaintiffs note that the congressional mandates that created each agency and program remained in force, and that Congress had invested trillions of dollars in the department every year. “Much of that investment was lost in a day through the massive firings of HHS’s leaders and staff,” the complaint asserts. “More will be lost if nothing is done.”
