NIH Plan Major Health Study Involving East Palestine, OH, Train Derailment Exposure Victims

NIH Plan Major Health Study Involving East Palestine, OH, Train Derailment Exposure Victims

Fox News host Bret Baier recently interviewed U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials Dr. Mehmet Oz, Marty Makary, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on ‘Special Report’, endeavoring to obtain more details on how they’re working to implement the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ agenda.

One of the interesting items related to this interview is focused on the East Palestine, Ohio disaster. Legal Insurrection will likely remember our coverage of the Norfolk Southern freight train derailment near the Pennsylvania border.

The accident involved 38 railcars, 11 of which were tankers carrying hazardous chemicals, including vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, and other toxic substances. The incident was triggered by a defective and overheated wheel bearing on the 23rd railcar, which failed and led to the crash and subsequent fire that caused a major explosion and released fumes that traveled across the region.

Chemicals spilled into local waterways, prompting extensive water and soil monitoring. Eventually, chemicals from the incident reached 16 states. By October 2023, more than 167,000 tons of contaminated soil and 39 million gallons of tainted water had been removed from the site.

Yet, despite the scope and scale of the environmental catastrophe, the Biden administration’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) failed to do any follow-up exposure studies.

The new NIH Director, Jay Bhattacharya, indicates that his agency is launching a health study.

“The study that most people don’t know about that the NIH has been doing… to look at a study and to find answers for people affected in East Palestine by that train disaster that happened during the Biden administration.”

“Shockingly, the NIH had not asked that question.”

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya reveals that they have been working with Vice President JD Vance to study the health impact of residents in East Palestine, Ohio, impacted by the train dis*ster in February 2023.

“The study that most people don’t know about that the NIH has been… pic.twitter.com/C5NlyQBF9g

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) May 8, 2025

Bhattacharya also mentioned he was working with Vice President JD Vance to conduct the study and find answers for the people affected by the disaster.

During the rest of the interview, Bhattacharya emphasized the importance of addressing the health questions and needs of the American people affected by the disaster through excellent, gold-standard research.

“I think the key fact I look at for NIH is that the mission of the NIH is supposed to be to do research that improves the health and longevity of the American people. And since 2012, we’ve seen no increase in life expectancy in this country. In that sense, the NIH has not done its mission over the last dozen years.

And, in fact, NIH was involved in supporting research that may have actually led to the pandemic that we all just went through.”

He also touched upon Trump’s recent executive order.

“The US is the primary state that sets the example for how to do this kind of work around the world. When the US says, ‘Look, we’re not going to allow scientists to play God, take viruses with cockamamy justifications, make them more transmissible, more deadly’-that doesn’t protect us against anybody.

And it causes tremendous risk. And what the president did by signing this order is he said, ‘No more. We’re not going to have another lab-generated pandemic on my watch.'”

More on the HHS implementation of MAGA from the show is here:

It will be interesting to see what the studies conclude. Comparing life expectancy data after the implementation of MAHA will be fascinating.

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