Scott Smith, whose testing in East Palestine, Ohio, has been sited in a petition by the Government; Accountability Project, tests sediment in Sulphur Run near the 2023 Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio on Wednesday, June 12, 2024. The National Transportation Safety Board’s daylong hearing on what caused the East Palestine derailment and how to prevent similar disasters gave the community, railroads and policymakers plenty to think about. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

EAST PALESTINE — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday a “multi-disciplinary, community-focused series of studies” to better understand the implications of the 2023 Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical release on public health in East Palestine and surrounding communities.

According to an HHS press release, the National Institutes of Health launched a $10 million research initiative to assess and address the long-term health outcomes stemming from the derailment at the urging of Vice President JD Vance and under the leadership of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“NIH is working to ensure that the people of East Palestine and the surrounding communities are listened to, cared for, and get the answers they deserve,” NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya said. “This multidisciplinary research program will focus on public health tracking and surveillance of the community’s health conditions to support health care decisions and preventive measures.”

The release said the studies, which will be funded over five years, will focus on:

– Longitudinal epidemiological research to understand the health impacts of exposures on short- and long-term health outcomes, including relevant biological markers of risk.

– Public health tracking and surveillance of the community’s health conditions to support health care decisions and preventive measures.

– Extensive, well-coordinated communications among researchers, study participants, community stakeholders, health care providers, government officials and others to establish a comprehensive approach to address the affected communities’ health concerns.

Kennedy called the studies the “first large-scale, coordinated, multi-year federal study dedicated to the long-term health effects” of the disaster, adding that “the people of East Palestine have a right to clear, science-backed answers about the impact on their health.”

Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio at the time of the derailment, again took aim at the Biden administration’s handling of the disaster.

“As a senator, it was incredibly frustrating watching the Biden administration refuse to examine the potentially dangerous health impacts on the people of East Palestine following the train derailment,” he said. “I’m proud that we finally have a new president that takes the concerns of everyday, working-class people seriously. This historic research initiative will finally result in answers that this community deserves, and I’m grateful for the work of Secretary Kennedy and Director Bhattacharya on these efforts.”

U.S. Rep. Michael Rulli and U.S. Sens. Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted, all Ohio Republicans, also used Thursday’s announcement to blast Biden’s derailment response. Rulli accused Biden of “trying to sweep under the rug the catastrophic negligence and long-term health consequences of the East Palestine disaster.” Moreno said Biden “abandoned East Palestine and left a community of working Americans behind when they needed him most,” and Husted thanked the Trump Administration for the “reassurance that comes with transparency that East Palestine deserves.”

While it took Biden over a year to visit East Palestine, he did award six NIH grants to universities in February of 2024 to study both the environmental and epidemiological impacts of the derailment.

Those studies include medical monitoring, biospecimen collections, surveys, cataloging symptoms, studying the impacts the mix of toxins spilled may have had and continue to have on the communities and tracking liver health in and around East Palestine following the release of vinyl chloride. In total, the 2024 NIH funding for those grants was about $1.3 million.

Thursday’s announcement means another $2 million annually will go toward understanding the health impacts of the derailment. Like Biden’s grants, the Trump administration initiative will be funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

HHS said a series of grants will be issued to analyze various types of studies and community activities. The deadline to submit research proposals is July 21, with projects to start this fall. Gov. Mike DeWine welcomed the news of additional NIH grants.

“This funding will enable the people of East Palestine to have the peace of mind that comes from knowing that any potential for long-term health effects will be studied by the scientists at the National Institutes of Health,” he said.

The NIH has been engaged with the East Palestine community since the derailment. In the summer of 2023, Dr. Aubrey Miller, NIH Disaster Research Response Program director, took part in a community informational session on public health and, in November of 2023, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a virtual public workshop series to determine the health research and surveillance priorities related to derailment. Last summer, the NIH used the OH/PA University Research Consortium at East Palestine High School as an outreach for community participation in the studies funded by the first six NIH grants.