ICYMI: Murray, Former Health Department Leaders Sound Alarm on Trump and RFK Jr. Gutting HHS
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released the following statement on the evisceration of the HHS Region 10 Office in Seattle and the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Spokane Research Laboratory.
Today, the Trump administration began suddenly firingmost—if not all—workers at the HHS Region 10 office in Seattle—around 2oo people—as well as at the NIOSH Spokane Research Laboratory—an estimated 90 employees. The future of both offices remains deeply unclear. The HHS Region 10 office is based in Seattle but covers all of Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Oregon; Region 10 also has the greatest number of federally recognized Tribes—272—of all HHS regions.
“It is infuriating and downright reckless for the Trump administration to have fired nearly everyone at the HHS Regional office in Seattle and the CDC’s NIOSH Spokane Research Laboratory—all but decimating these offices, though they are still outright refusing to answer basic questions about their evisceration of HHS and the future of these critical offices.
“Closing the Seattle Region 10 office will mean a drastically diminished HHS presence on the ground in our communities, no one to help seniors, families, and providers with Medicare and Medicaid issues or conduct site visits in the community, little-to-no collaboration with local and regional health leaders on emerging public health issues—and so much else.
“And the Trump administration’s mass firings of people researching how to better protect American workers’ safety on the job is a disaster waiting to happen. Those firings included nearly all of the researchers at the Spokane NIOSH Research Laboratory, who are doing critical and time-sensitive work studying how to protect workers’ health and safety on the job in dangerous fields like mining, firefighting, and the maritime industry.
“These dangerous, thoughtless, and callous cuts will jeopardize Americans’ health and safety today, tomorrow, and years down the line—and I will not stop sounding the alarm and doing everything I possibly can to hold this lawless administration to account.”
###
