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Forbes Breaking News
  • 8 months ago
At a Senate Health Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) questioned HHS Sec. RFK Jr. about cuts made to 9/11 firefighter programs.
Transcript
00:00Senator Kim. Thank You Chairman, Secretary. I wanted to just relay I had a
00:06town hall I had a fire captain show up to this town hall as somebody who worked
00:11at Ground Zero and he is somebody who said he was diagnosed with cancer he
00:17said he's on borrowed time and he was livid absolutely livid about what he
00:24said the administration gutting the World Trade Center health program and
00:28we've talked through some of these cuts that have happened before some staff
00:32cuts some may be brought back on the administrator cut I just need to hear
00:37from you I promise this fire captain I'd ask you about this and what in the world
00:42happened why was the staff cut for this program what are we to expect going
00:48forward I restored the staff to the program why was it cut to start with it
00:55was you know it was part of the overall budget cuts our agency was asked to
01:04make very very serious budget cuts that were going to be painful and and some of
01:12them should not have been made and that was one that should not have and I
01:16reversed it were you unaware or were you aware that the decision to cut NIOSH staff
01:24would cut that World Trade Center health program well you know my my agency is the
01:30biggest agency in government it's twice the size of the Pentagon it's represents
01:34about 20 percent of the US economy we have hundreds of institutes and sub
01:39agencies we try to be as careful as we can about what we cut and we didn't we
01:45made a couple of mistakes I don't we're trying to be as careful as you can I mean
01:48that's the problem that we've seen by rushing these decisions you know this
01:53was I know in your time there Senator I understand I understand that if you look
02:00at this from a distance you'd say why don't you just do this surgically and
02:03cut one person at a time the we have this agency has grown so big so fast and
02:12every putt buddy who comes in says I'm going to cut it down and nobody's been
02:16able to do it and there was there was an understanding that the longer that you
02:22wait the more of the inertia kicks in and we had to act quickly so that we can do
02:28something for the American people that is lasting and we understood that there
02:33would be some mistakes made and that we would go back and reverse them when they
02:38are made but it was a more important to do decisive action quickly that could
02:44eliminate the the masticizing of this agency to you know which was growing and
02:50growing growing as our health declined so where is this going to land now can
02:54you tell us right now that the world health central health program will go
02:59back to where was before you became secretary that program will continue there
03:04will be continuity in that program continue yes but at full strength of where
03:08was before you were secretary the program itself will continue well look the
03:13fire captain always also raised this issue about the National Firefighter
03:17Cancer Registry also something I promised him I'd ask you about why was that
03:24shut down cancer I don't know about that you don't know about this no okay well
03:31look what I'll just tell you is I'm happy to work with you on it there's a
03:34National Firefighter Cancer Registry and this is something that's part of NIOSH and
03:40because of the cuts when I go to the website as I am right now it says the
03:45information on this page is not currently being updated and access to tool is
03:49limited firefighters can no longer enroll in the National Firefighter
03:53Registry for cancer so I just raises because this is incredibly important not
03:57just for those that were at ground zero but just writ large across our nation to try to help our firefighters so can you
04:03promise me that we will work together and try to get this back up and running as
04:07soon as I will work with you on this issue senator yeah look I understand what
04:12you were saying when it comes to your prioritization but I will tell you it is
04:15sending an absolutely disastrous message especially to our firefighters I mean I
04:20hope that on the list of things in this Congress that we think are
04:25bipartisan are unanimous it should be about supporting our heroes at the World Trade
04:30Center especially when we have more firefighters who have died since 9-11
04:34because of medical issues that they had working there at ground zero then those
04:39number of firefighters that died on September 11th and so if we can't even
04:44agree on that if that is not seen as a high enough priority to try to protect
04:49then I am worried about everything else that is more controversial has less
04:54unanimity so secretary I will follow up with you on the National Registry and I do
04:59want a firm answer on you on what is the final staffing at the World Trade Center
05:04health program and with that I'll yield back thank you
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