Firing the Scientists Who Make Working Safe Is Foolish

Black lungs are Cruel diseaseIncurable, it hurts scars and hard lungs, breathing and leads to tuberculosis, heart disease and cancer. still A recurring threat To Iconicit Can be stopped By Control exposure For dust in mines. We know that thanks to federal scientists, Trump administration now The purpose is to eraseThis is a mistake that threatens everyone.

in MarchHealth and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Junior, Some was restructured 20,000 agency workersThose who do everything Food check To investigate HIV outbreakAmong them were in April 873 out of about 1,300 people Planned by the National Institute of Vocational Safety and Health, $ 363 million agency Which ensures the trust fighter respirators, surgical gear and reliableness of construction-site safety monitor and oversees every other aspect of workplace security.

NIOSH decides to set fire to scientists – such talent as well as cuts as a bite. Lead poisoning prevention office In CDC and Forced to resign FDA’s Trusted chief vaccine security officerPoints for a fundamental blind place of Trump administration: People will not work in mines or fight fire or run a car or take new drugs, if they are revealed, if they Don’t believe that they are safeAnd they won’t be safe in Trump’s “Golden Age“Economy, because scientists test their workplaces and equipment.

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Niosh is best known, to the extent that it is all known, as an institute Rated mask performance In Kovid epidemic. But some 50 million American workers wear some types of respiratory fans on jobs, Came McKay, president of the International Safety Equipment Association, says all were tested and Certified by niosh,

“Many people have never heard about this agency and so it can assume that it does nothing valuable. But in fact, the opposite is true,” McKay says. “It works perfectly that no one else does and perhaps no other institution will do. The tragic reality is without NIOSH, the workers are going to get sick. And the workers are about to die.”

Some? NIOSH job cuts 210 Its Morgantown, W. Wa., Landed in the lab, Which started In 1967, as the Appalachian laboratory for professional respiratory disease, black lung disease is studied such as coalfields demand for treatment A protest movementLab goes Free black lung screening For miners, which are mandatory by the 1969 law, but now appear in danger.

One of the Morgantown scientists who lost his job is Catherine Blackwell, who was placed on administrative leave from his research status. She studies what happens with people’s immune systems when they face molds and other contaminants in buildings, in closure of cannabis or ganja dust, in the facilities, wildfire smokes that take fire to fire, and coal dust.

She tells scientific American That his entire branch was closed. As a young researcher, he chose government science because the work he would do will benefit everyone.

“Workers are going to be less safe immediately,” she says, if no one is testing masks and respirators.

In other places, the institute conducts a fire fighter ambush check ProgramWhich investigates deaths and issues security recommendations. This funded a study in view of the rates of cancer among firefighters, which led to a change in the security protocol around smoke, smoke and soot. Now they save firefighters about $ 71 million per year in medical cost and lost work, and more importantly they save 15 to 45 lives per year, according to A. 2017 rand studyThe economic benefits of only six NIOSH programs alone, including fire fighter cancer studies, are more than the institute’s entire research budget, noted A 2023 American Journal of Industrial Medicine Report,

Another Niosh case study Saw limiting rules Solid Dust from asphalt milling machines on the roads, which are associated with lung cancer. He saved the lives of hundreds of people, in which economic gain ranged from $ 304 million to $ 1.1 billion per year. Highway construction is already Happily dangerousAdding the risk of any cancer is just cruel to overpass and road construction.

Without NIOSH, the private industry simply will not pick up its work so that the safety equipment is safe. We know this from epidemic, when NIOSH tested imported N95 and KN95 masks which were suddenly seen in the market in 2020 and found. About 60 percent failed tests. “Businesses have to earn money, and such research costs money,” says Marki. “That is that the government is for doing such research.”

The epidemic also taught us a deep lesson about safety and trust that Trump and his colleagues are gradually botting, not only with NIOSH Le-off. RFK, JRHealth journalist Maggi Fox wrote in November scientific AmericanPutting life at risk due to re -decline Texas measles outbreak, Notwithstanding A recent POSSupport t MMR vaccineBy Remove Peter MarxFDA vaccine officer who did the most difficult job Ensure scientific confidence In hasty vaccines developed in operation warp speed, Kennedy has also established us to hesitate to hesitate extensive vaccine in the next epidemic. for an example, Consider Poor epidemic demonstration Of Vladimir Putin’s RussiaGovernment Trump feels Most want to simulateDespite Russia released the first Covid vaccine in 2020, Only 19 percent A year later the population was vaccinated. that’s because Nobody trusts A vaccine pushed them Pluralistic serials falseThis is something to keep in mind for Trump.

RFK, Junior has suggested that about 20 percent of HHS workers will get their jobs back, “Because we make mistakes“It is either an open entry of disability or, as reported by Politico, DishonestyRegardless, he is planning to turn a negative Niosh in a small administration for a healthy America, not with workplace security Its listed prioritiesWhy does someone want this man to run lemonade, very little A $ 1.8 trillion federal agencyThere is a mystery.

Security equipment official McKay says, no one wants whatever he wants is wearing a breathing in a burning building, which they do not trust. “Our promise for workers is that we will give you a fair living wage and ensure that you can go to a safe house for your loved ones at the end of the day. And, and this is the challenge. The workers are the ones who are losing.”

Finally, some 125 million US workers use individual protective gear On the job, from nurses to construction workers from sprayer paint. And due to the cut in NIOSH, McKay said, “They are going to be at risk and it is going to keep people away from manufacturing jobs, it is going to make manufacturing jobs more dangerous.”

So More accidents And the disease, medical cost will increase with the cost of compensation of the workers, which will reduce productivity. Business save moneyAnd for safety rules, from making drugs to the construction of roads, industries have been allowed, From pharmaceuticals For construction, to grow so large in the first place. People like their medicines, and their jobs, to be safe.

Until they left, very little is not considered, agencies like NIOSH are glue that keeps the economy simultaneously. From Net food and medicine act Of 1906, due to which the FDA happened, Federal coal mine health and safety act Passed under pressure from 1969 Black lung movementLaws that make health agencies are now facing serious cuts or lump sum abolition It is said that he wants to flourish,

“This is the risk here,” says McKay. This will actually put a sponge on any type of manufacturing renaissance. ,

This is an opinion and analysis article, and views expressed by writers or writers are not necessary scientific American.