Reproductive health and mine safety programs are among those that have fallen victim to sweeping Department of Health and Human Services cuts, with thousands of federal workers laid off in the process.
The Trump administration has said that a continuous reduction in federal force – including members of HHS leadership – is necessary to help the U.S. get out of debt and save $1.8 billion annually. Meanwhile, scientists, physicians and experts argue that many of the services are critical for the American public.
“The FDA as we’ve known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed. I believe that history will see this a huge mistake. I will be glad if I’m proven wrong, but even then there is no good reason to treat people this way,” former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf said, reacting to the news.
The FDA saw its chief tobacco regulator removed, as well as senior officials who help oversee new drug reviews and vaccines.
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is moving to slash 3,500 staffers at the FDA and 10,000 across the nation’s top health agencies. That tally includes 2,400 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and 1,200 at the National Institutes of Health. The department’s 28 divisions will be consolidated to just 15.
“The revolution begins today!” Kennedy wrote on social media. When asked for an updated comment on the actions and potential impacts to public safety, the department pointed The Independent to Kennedy’s initial announcement.
“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy had said in a statement announcing the move. “This department will do more – a lot more – at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”
But, many aren’t convinced that what the department can do with a reduced workforce will help Americans, and reaction to the layoffs has been strong and swift. One high level official who was let go told Science: “I couldn’t have worked with these a*****s anyway.”
“Firing 10,000 health experts doesn’t make America healthier — it makes us sicker. This purge guts disease response, disrupts life-saving research, and leaves us vulnerable to outbreaks,” noted Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. Who benefits from weaker public health? Not the American people.”
A list of affected agencies was being shared on social media, with updates from the their employees. There were layoffs in programs tracking asthma, air pollution, smoking, gun violence and climate change.
Cuts included the Division of Reproductive Health, which addresses complications of pregnancy, infant, deaths, chronic disease prevention among women of reproductive age, reducing teenage pregnancy and more.
“Can someone explain to me how this makes America healthy again? … because it seems like to me, this isn’t about health at all—it’s dismantling the very systems that protect us,” wrote Yale School of Public Health adjunct professor and epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina.
“There is no way this makes Americans healthier. We will regret this,” said Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine physician and an associate professor at Brown University School of Public Health.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is also on the chopping block, impacting than a thousand workers. The agency and others are being stitched together under one centralized entity that HHS leadership says will “improve coordination of health resources.”
However, critics have warned that layoffs in that department could prove particularly dangerous for American workers. NIOSH oversees divisions that work to eliminate mining fatalities, injuries, and illnesses.
The United Mine Works of America said that the government had announced the potential closure of as many as 34 Mine Safety and Health Administration regional offices “with no provisions as to how the agency will be able to continue its mission of keeping miners safe on the job.”
“There is a perfect storm brewing in America’s coalfields that will have the effect of destroying thousands of coal miners’ jobs and significantly increase the risks those miners who are left will face to their health and safety on the job,” wrote union president Cecil E. Roberts.
“I do not think that these actions are being done in a coordinated way to hurt the American coal industry and those who work in it. But that is the effect,” he said.
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health employees at a facility in Pennsylvania reacted to news of the termination on Tuesday, saying that the work there was done “to keep everybody safe.”
“Even if you think the government work that’s done here doesn’t touch you, it probably does. If you’ve painted at your house, you’ve probably used a NIOSH-approved respirator. If you’ve had surgery, the medical workers and the hospital facility used NIOSH research to keep you safe and to keep themselves safe,” Suzanne Alison told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
