The Trump administration announced Thursday that it was firing 10,000 Health and Human Services Department employees as part of a broad restructuring that reflects health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s priorities and White House drive priorities to reduce government.
The layoffs are a dramatic cuts for health department officials who have employed around 82,000 people through medical, food and drug surveillance and have been exposed to the lives of all Americans.
Layoffs and reorganizations will be particularly deeply reduced at Kennedy's tourist attractions, two agencies: the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These agencies are expected to lose about 20% of their staff on the latest cuts alone.
With previous acquisitions and early retirements spurred by Trump administration policies, the move will keep the health sector at around 62,000 employees, the agency said.
The restructuring is intended to directly bring communication and other functions under Kennedy. And it includes the creation of a new division called the administration for a healthy America.
“We're going to do more with less,” Kennedy said, even if he admitted it would be a “hard time for HHS.”
Kennedy said the proportion of chronic illnesses increased under the Biden administration as the government grew. He proposed changes as a way to refocus on the institutions on American health, but did not outline details about how to reduce the rate of diabetes, heart disease, or other conditions.
Within the affected institutions, stubborn employees struggled to absorb the news. Democrats and outside experts said the move would destroy institutions charged with protecting the health and safety of Americans, and deprive them of the scientific expertise needed to respond to current and future biological threats.
“In the midst of the worsening national outbreak of avian flu and measles, not to mention the fentanyl epidemic, Trump is destroying key health agencies in Chinese shops with bull accuracy.”
She called for comments on doing more with Kennedy's “absurd proposal” to “ignor common sense.” Her feelings were reflected by several agency employees who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation.
They said they were worried not for themselves, but for the country. He expressed concern about what layoffs mean to public health and whether Americans really wanted to put safety at risk.
Under the plan, the CDC, which handles a wide range of health issues, including HIV/AIDS, tobacco control, maternal health and the distribution of vaccines in children, will return to the “core mission” of infectious diseases.
“If we convert the CDC into an infectious disease-focused agency, we can return to 1948 in 2025 without realizing that non-communicable disease is the main cause of death,” said Dr. Anand Parev, who worked for the Health Department during the Obama administration and is currently a leading health advisor at Washington's Dual Party Policy Center.
The CDC will cut its workforce with approximately 2,400 employees and focus on “preparing and responding to epidemics and outbreaks,” the HHS fact sheet states. But it also absorbs the health department's management for strategic preparation and response, which has 1,000 employees and has been promoted to its own separate institutions under the Biden administration during the coronavirus pandemic.
The reorganization cuts 3,500 jobs from the FDA, which approves and oversees the safety of the vast strips of medicines and food that people rely on for their diet and well-being, the fact sheet said. Although reductions are said to be managers, part of the role supports research and monitoring food and drug safety and purity, as well as travel planning for inspectors looking into food and drug facilities overseas.
The National Institutes of Health is expected to lose 1,200 staff, while the institutions that manage Medicare and Medicaid are expected to lose 300.
All of these agencies tend to operate under their own authority, and Kennedy is at odds with all of them. Kennedy attacked them and other parts of the department with a YouTube video.
“When I arrived, I found out that more than half of our employees didn't even come to work,” he insisted. “HHS has over 100 telecom offices, over 40 IT departments, dozens of procurement offices and nine HR departments. In many cases, they don't even talk to each other. They are primarily run on silos.”
Kennedy's move to control health communication is important. Currently, agents, including the CDC, NIH and FDA, manage their own communications between the media and the public.
During the first Trump administration, the CDC clashed with the White House. The White House silenced agency scientists and controlled public outreach on Covid-19. The agency's chief spokesman left his grievance last week, saying the CDC has been at the gun since January when Trump took office.
The 28 departments of the Department of Health and Human Services will be consolidated into 15 new divisions, according to a statement issued by the department. Kennedy announced changes to his video. Staff cuts previously reported by the Wall Street Journal are created in line with President Trump's orders to carry out the Department of Government Efficiency to reduce the federal workforce.
The plan also includes collapse of 10 regional HHS offices into five.
The department emailed federal leaders about the “power reduction,” known as the federal term “RIF.” A message obtained by The New York Times said the layoffs are likely to come into effect on May 27th, saying they “aim primarily for managers in HR, information technology, procurement and finance.”
Democrats, including Murray, responded to the cut with anger. Virginia leader Gerald E. Connolly, a top Democrat on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the cuts were troubling amid the rise in avian flu outbreaks and measles cases.
“This is a serious mistake,” Connolly said in a statement.
Republicans seemed to be waiting more. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, and the chairman of the committee overseeing health, said he had breakfast with Kennedy on Thursday. Cassidy suggested that it was open to reorganization, but as its effectiveness became clearer, he predicted that he would “have more conversations” about two “more conversations” specific reductions.
Doreen Greenwald, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, representing 18,500 HHS staff across the country, issued a statement that “swears to pursue every opportunity to fight back on behalf of these dedicated civil servants.”
“The administration's claim that such deep cuts in the Food and Drug Administration and other important HHS offices are not harmful is ridiculous,” Greenwald said.
Xavier Becerra, who served as health secretary under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., issued a statement that in addition to preparing for the health crisis, Cut is most likely to downgrade services to seniors and disabled people.
“It's a man-made disaster,” he said on social media.
Kennedy suggested in the video that the change would help his team gain more access to data. Given Kennedy's long history, the outlook was bothering his critics.
“In one case, the rebellious bureaucrats did not prevent them from accessing the secretary's office to a closely guarded database that could reveal the risks of certain drugs and medical interventions,” he said.
Kennedy said the new division he is creating, the healthy American administration, will combine a number of agencies focused on substance abuse treatment and chemical safety with agencies that govern courts that handle federal claims more than vaccine injuries.
“We're going to consolidate all these departments and hold you accountable to you, the American taxpayers and American patients,” he said. “These goals respect the aspirations of the majority of existing HHS employees who are actually eager to make America healthy.”
Michael Gold Reports of contributions.
