- Hundreds of federal health workers were laid off as part of a major restructuring
- Staff reductions hit CDC, FDA, and NIH amid health crises
- Lawmakers criticize cuts, and 23 states sue over funding losses
On Tuesday morning, hundreds of federal health workers discovered that their jobs had been eliminated, with many turned away at the doors of their office buildings, as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) began implementing its sweeping restructuring plan.
The layoffs affected several high-ranking officials and agencies responsible for overseeing critical areas like food and drug safety and disease prevention.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had announced the previous week that 10,000 jobs would be cut, with the federal workforce shrinking from 80,000 to 60,000 through a combination of layoffs and voluntary departures.
Since taking office, President Donald Trump has been working with adviser Elon Musk to reduce the federal payroll, a process that has included significant cuts across various agencies.
The White House revealed plans to cut 3,500 positions at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and 2,400 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Additionally, 1,200 jobs were being eliminated at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Starting at 5:00 AM EDT (10:00 BST) on Tuesday, health workers were informed they were being let go.
Preston Burt, a communications specialist at the CDC for the past decade, received an email early in the morning informing him that his entire division, which worked with state health departments on environmental health issues, had been laid off. Burt’s division had been responsible for providing crucial public health information on hazards like mercury and radon poisoning.
Despite participating in a nuclear disaster preparedness exercise just two weeks earlier, Burt and his colleagues were told they no longer had a job. “Now if there’s a nuclear disaster, who are they going to call on as experts?” he wondered.
While Burt wasn’t surprised by the news, other workers learned they were fired when they arrived at their offices and found they couldn’t access the building. Chaos ensued as employees waited in long lines outside in an effort to get clearance.
HHS, which has a $1.8 trillion budget and oversees 13 agencies including the CDC, FDA, and Medicare & Medicaid Services, also laid off top officials. Jeanne Marrazzo, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was among those affected. Marrazzo, who succeeded Dr. Anthony Fauci, had been at the forefront of the U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to reports, Marrazzo and several other directors were reassigned to the HHS’s Indian Health Service, with a deadline to decide whether they would accept the new roles by Wednesday.
The administration also dismissed FDA staff involved in the federal response to bird flu, which has contributed to soaring egg prices and raised public health concerns over outbreaks in cows and humans.
The layoffs come amid one of the worst measles outbreaks in the U.S. in a decade.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, still a powerful figure in the House, condemned the cuts on social media, warning that they would “directly harm our most vulnerable communities and make America sicker.” She vowed to collaborate with her colleagues in Congress to oppose these “shortsighted and irresponsible cuts.”
As part of the restructuring, HHS is also consolidating its 28 divisions into 15 new ones, including a new “Administration for a Healthy America,” aimed at advancing Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Kennedy justified the changes by describing HHS as “inefficient” and argued that the restructuring would eliminate “bureaucratic sprawl.”
HHS has said the cuts will save taxpayers around $1.8 billion annually.
In addition to personnel reductions, HHS has scaled back public health funding, including a recent decision to withdraw $11 billion in Covid-19-era funding from state and local health departments, which had been used for mental health services, addiction treatment, and addressing disease outbreaks like measles and bird flu.
In response, Washington, D.C., and 23 states filed a lawsuit against the government over the funding cuts.
Senators Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), who co-chair the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, have requested that Kennedy testify at an April 10 hearing to explain his proposed reorganization of HHS.
