Paduda: The Gutting of NIOSH

Friday, May 30, 2025 | 0

It's really easy to miss important news these days. Here’s an item that, in normal times, would be headline news in the work comp industry.

Joe Paduda

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is the research arm of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Founded 55 years ago, the agency’s proposed fiscal 2025 budget of $363 million is minuscule, yet the work it does has saved hundreds of thousands of lives:

• Evaluating fire stations to come up with ways to control vehicle exhaust and reduce cancer risk.
• Identifying factors leading to higher cancer rates in shift workers, especially those in health care.
• Protecting workers in cannabis production facilities who are exposed to cannabis dust.
• Protecting miners by reducing exposure to dusts, pollutants, heat, noise and repetitive motion; preventing injury/death from machinery, rock falls, material handling and improving the likelihood of rescue and miner survival if disaster strikes.
• Reducing construction injuries by preventing accidents related to falls and struck-by incidents, addressing outcomes related to mental health and substance use disorders, reducing exposure to respiratory hazards and excessive noise, and lowering musculoskeletal injuries and disorders.
• Identifying and reducing factors related to cancer, cardiovascular and other chronic diseases associated with worksites.
• PFAS chemicals.

Two months ago, 400 people at NIOSH's Morgantown, West Virginia, office; 390 in the Pittsburgh office; 414 in Cincinnati; 89 in Spokane, Washington; about 30 in Denver; and about 40 in Atlanta received layoff notices.

All but two NIOSH programs were cut — “one dealing with [exposures at] the World Trade Center, that's going to go forward, and the other is compensation of radiation-exposed workers."

About a third of the layoffs were rescinded, but that still leaves more than 600 NIOSH workers on the street — and their work in the trash. The work is grounded in an evidence-based approach to ensure that investing taxpayers’ funds in workers' safety produces a significant, measurable return.

What does this mean for you?

More injuries, more occupational diseases, more sick and hurt workers, more families with parents out of work.

Joseph Paduda is the principal of Health Strategy Associates, a consulting firm focused on improving medical management programs in workers’ compensation. This column is republished with his permission from his Managed Care Matters blog.