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NIOSH

Anita Wolfe, a retired public health analyst with the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), flips through a memory book of the late Chester Fike at Scott Laney's home on April 14, 2025, in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. Laney is a research epidemiologist for the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program who recently was placed on administrative leave with his job ending on June 2 because of the DOGE cuts. Laney went to several coal mines and offered mobile screening for black lung disease to coal miners. Chester Fike was a 60-year-old coal miner who died from black lung disease shortly after a double lung transplant.

News

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Environment & Health

A Coal Miner’s Daughter Takes On DOGE Amid Rising Cases of Black Lung Disease

Researchers working to prevent deaths from the disease, which has killed over 75,000 miners, received layoff notices.

By: Meg Duff ,; Capital&Main

June 21, 2025

Scott Laney stands outside the Iron Senergy coal mine plant on April 16, 2025, in Kirby, Pennsylvania. Laney is a research epidemiologist for the Coal Worker's Health Surveillance Program at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health who was recently placed on administrative leave with his job set to end June 2 due to DOGE cuts.

Op-Ed

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Economy & Labor

NIOSH Upheld Workplace Safety for Millions in the US. Trump Is Dismembering It.

Trump is destroying the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, sacrificing workers on industry’s altar.

By: Sasha Abramsky ,; Truthout

May 4, 2025

A firefighter fights the flames from the Palisades Fire during a powerful windstorm on January 8, 2025, in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.

News

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Environment & Health

Trump Slashed Team That Investigates Line-of-Duty Fire Deaths

The cuts will also halt a first-of-its-kind study of the causes of thousands of firefighters’ cancer cases.

By: Mark Olalde ,; ProPublica

April 21, 2025