The layoffs and reorganization efforts reflect the extent to which Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is willing to go to remake the country’s public health infrastructure.
Protesters rally against Department of Government Efficiency cuts Saturday in New York City.
Layoffs began widely Tuesday morning at the Department of Health and Human Services as the agency sets out to cut some 10,000 full-time jobs amid the Trump administration’s effort to drastically shrink the size of the federal government.
The “reduction in force” plan, announced Thursday and led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, aims to shrink the Health Department’s workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 across several of its agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
The notices ended several days of anxiety for many employees, some of whom said they spent the weekend consumed with worry about whether they still had jobs.
A source familiar with the matter told NBC News the notices didn’t go out as planned Friday so that “all the data could be triple checked over the weekend.”
The divisions most heavily affected by the job cuts include those tasked with tackling HIV, improving minority health and prevention from injury, such as gun violence. (As of Tuesday morning, a webpage for the Office of Minority Health displayed an error message that read “does not exist.”)
The entire team at the FDA’s Office of Media Affairs was axed, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The cuts also hit divisions overseeing the approval of new drugs, providing health insurance and responding to infectious disease outbreaks.
Some divisions, including several focused on the safety of mine workers, were cut entirely.
Employees were encouraged to take their laptops home each evening, according to a memo obtained by NBC News, in case they were terminated overnight and lost access to the campus facilities. (They would still be expected to work remotely, the memo added.)
At the FDA, some employees who hadn’t realized they’d been let go were turned away on campus by security Tuesday morning, one source said.
In total, HHS says its seeking to eliminate about 2,400 full-time jobs at the CDC, 3,500 jobs at the FDA, 1,200 jobs at the NIH and 300 jobs at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Federal health officials have said some departments that are eliminated or downsized may have their responsibilities shifted over to a newly created entity, the Administration for Healthy America, or AHA.
Among the agencies set to be folded into the AHA include the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Health Resources and Services Administration, which includes a program focused on HIV treatment.
The mass layoffs are part of a larger plan by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to reshape the federal public health infrastructure.
On Friday, Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine regulator, was ousted — a move, experts say, will only increase the growing distrust in vaccines.
Marks played a key role in authorizing and monitoring the safety of vaccines, including the first Covid vaccines in late 2020, as well as treatments like a cure for sickle cell disease that uses the gene-editing tool CRISPR.
“The dismissal of Marks, a staunch advocate of access to promising research for patients and their families, shows that not only is Kennedy indifferent to science, he apparently is indifferent to those doing their best to fight for desperately ill children and families,” said Arthur Caplan, head of the division of medical ethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City.
Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson at HHS, has said the cuts will not affect Medicare or Medicaid services, nor the FDA’s review of drugs, medical devices and foods.
As of last week, no additional job cuts were planned by the agency.
Public health advocates and some Democratic lawmakers have sharply criticized the sweeping cuts, saying they could jeopardize public health efforts.
Earlier Monday, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., former chair of a Senate health committee that oversees the agency, along with Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., sent a letter to Kennedy demanding answers about his plans to “gut” staff and reorganize HHS.
“Authoritatively stating that these drastic changes will improve the health of Americans without any explanation insults the American public and defies logic,” the lawmakers wrote. “If these actions were actually intended to improve the Department’s ability to carry out its mission to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans, you and the Department should be eager to provide additional detail and justification for them.”
