| Attorney Michael Barasch is heading to Washington this week with survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with a simple ask for lawmakers: Reverse the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal World Trade Center Health Program. The WTC Health Program was set up by Congress to help cover health-care costs for people who breathed toxic air in the aftermath of the attacks and developed cancer years later. It was among the public programs the Trump administration decided to cut in its ongoing effort to slash federal workers and spending. “It is not hyperbole to say people are going to die because of these cuts,” says Barasch, who represents thousands of 9/11 survivors. The program is housed in the US Centers for Disease Control, and specifically within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The administration walked back an earlier cut to the program in February. But Barasch said 16 workers from the program have since been terminated, from a total of 88. The people cut include doctors and nurses who help certify whether people’s cancers are linked to toxic exposures in the months following the attacks in Lower Manhattan and at the Pentagon. That certification qualifies people for financial assistance and medical care. Representatives from the CDC and the Health and Human Services Department didn’t respond to requests for comment. The cuts, Barasch says, risk delaying appointments for people with newly diagnosed illnesses who might qualify for support from the program and funding from a separate victim compensation fund. Barasch himself fled from a smoke-filled lobby on Park Place the day of the attacks, blocks from the Twin Towers. His own prostate cancer, certified through the program as linked to the exposure, was detected early. “I’m doing great,” he says. But he’s concerned that cuts to the program may harm others who could qualify for aid. He told me there’s currently no doctor able to sign certification letters, so no new illnesses can be certified. The program serves more than 125,000 people. Barasch’s clients include firefighters, cops and construction workers exposed at the site, as well as hundreds of Wall Street workers who fled the attacks. The program was created after years of research linked cancer to toxins unleashed in the conflagration. The law authorizing it was signed by Barack Obama in 2011 and extended under Donald Trump’s first presidency. It’s one small corner of the federal government. In terms of the impact, it’s likely smaller than the sweeping cuts to foreign aid programs that endanger countless lives overseas. But the plight of 9/11 victims and responders occupies an outsized space in the story America tells about itself. People old enough to remember the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will recall the sense of American unity that day and in the months that followed. The people harmed by the toxic dust, and doctors treating them, spent years making their case in Washington that the US owed them its support. That feels like a different country. The current Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., weighed in on a conspiracy theory involving the Saudis by posting in July that “I won’t take sides on 9/11,” whatever that means. Barasch is heading to Washington, hoping that Congress will take a side. — John Tozzi | 
