Overnight on April 1, 2025, Musk and his DOGE team eliminated more than 85% of NIOSH.
This gutting of the agency makes up a massive 10% of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) staff cuts, even though this highly efficient and specialized agency is only a tiny part of the HHS budget.
DOGE has made the Trump administration think the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and NIOSH serve the same function and therefore are redundant, which is entirely incorrect. Statutory authorities created OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) under the Department of Labor (DOL) and NIOSH under HHS for specific reasons. These agencies were directed to collaborate and coordinate, but NIOSH was created as a separate and independent agency to ensure that the research and recommendations were based only on the science and not other policy or political considerations.
Without NIOSH staff, the U.S. government will no longer be able to certify respirators that protect workers and the public from a wide variety of deadly exposures, investigate emerging workplace hazards and technologies for industries, and research serious health and safety concerns for employers in coal mining, firefighting, commercial fishing, oil and gas extraction construction, health care and beyond.
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