The National Firefighter Registry for Cancer, a congressionally mandated effort to better understand the relationship between several types of firefighting and cancer, has been shut down “indefinitely.”
The move comes in the wake of massive Trump administration layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services, the parent agency of the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which runs the program.
In an email to the Mountain West News Bureau, NIOSH confirmed reporting by the news service Fire Rescue 1 that the NFR was offline.
“We sincerely apologize, but due to widespread staffing cuts within NIOSH, the NFR enrollment system is down indefinitely,” the email read. “Access to the data is currently restricted. Data are not able to be analyzed at this time.”
A high-level CDC official familiar with the NFR who spoke with the bureau called the program’s indefinite suspension “devastating.”
“It's also just devastating for the fire service and for the almost 24,000 firefighters who have already taken time to enroll in the registry,” said the official, who spoke on the condition that they not be named due to fear of retaliation. “I just keep thinking that all the incredible data we’ve already collected, everything we've learned up to this point. We've learned a lot over the last decade or more – about firefighters' exposures. If anything, what we’re finding is that it’s even worse than what we thought, at least in terms of the exposures.”
The official added that “it would be a travesty for that data to just sit there, and for no one to analyze it.”
“I think it would be a travesty for the NFR to stop enrolling firefighters,” the official said.
Recent research found that wildland firefighters are exposed to 31 carcinogens on the fireline. Researchers have also found higher rates of several cancers across the firefighting profession and, in 2022, a group at the World Health Organization even classified the work as “carcinogenic to humans … on the basis of sufficient evidence for cancer in humans.”
In response to a request for comment, a Health and Human Services official told the Mountain West News Bureau that the “CDC is actively working to ensure continuity of operations during the reorganization period and remains committed to ensuring critical programs and surveys continue.”
They did not immediately respond to follow up questions about when the registration portal may be back online, or when data analysis could resume. As of early Friday afternoon, attempting to visit the portal resulted in a “Service Unavailable” error.
The CDC official told the bureau that the shut down was “primarily due to the fact that all our IT professionals were laid off, and so we don't have IT professionals available to manage, monitor and maintain the NFR enrollment system.”
A program dashboard shows that just over 23,800 current and former firefighters – including this reporter – had registered as of the end of March. The vast majority – 88.4% – had experience as structure firefighters, and 17.5% had experience as wildland firefighters, a subset of the firefighting workforce where the cancer risk is likely least understood, according to the CDC official.
“I think the NFR was positioned to really help bridge that gap and improve our understanding of all firefighters' risk of cancer, but I think especially for wildland firefighters,” they said. “We know so little, and I think we could have learned a lot, and still can if the NFR is restored.”
Dr. Jeff Burgess, a professor at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health who is not directly involved with the NFR, has studied health risks among firefighters for several decades. He called the registry the “largest study of firefighter cancer” and the “best way to improve our overall understanding of cancer risks across the entire fire service.”
“That information could be used for identifying interventions to reduce cancer risk,” he said, adding, “My hope is that they will find a way to continue to fund the program and the individuals that support it.”
The CDC official said that the NFR was just one of several efforts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health intended to improve safety for firefighters and others in dangerous professions.
“Cutting NIOSH personnel to the present level jeopardizes all those programs,” they said. “This increases the risk to firefighters and other first responders, and it also increases the risk to the general population who rely on first responders within their communities.”
“Without NIOSH moving forward, it begs the question, ‘Who is gonna take (this work) on?’” they asked. “And if no one takes it on, what are the consequences?”
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
