Stunned HHS Employees Reel From Massive Job Cuts

Politico: RFK Jr.’s Massive Cuts Stun Staff, Leave Senior Employees Scrambling
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s move to gut and reorganize the federal health department shocked many people tasked with making it happen, and left others fearful that everything from the safety of the nation’s drug supply to disease response could be at risk. The disaster preparedness agency in the Department of Health and Human Services has just two days to prepare a plan to fold itself into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to an HHS official, granted anonymity for fear of retribution. (Cancryn, Cirruzzo, Reader, Lim, Gardner and King, 3/27)

Stat: HHS Cuts To Include 3,500 FDA Layoffs, Workers To Be Notified Friday
Around 3,500 employees are on the chopping block at the Food and Drug Administration, but they don’t yet know who they are. The Health and Human Services Department on Thursday announced a sweeping plan to cut 10,000 jobs and consolidate operations across its sub-agencies. FDA drug, medical device, or food reviewers and inspectors will not be among those fired, according to an HHS fact sheet. (Lawrence, Todd and Herper, 3/27)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: The Ax Falls At HHS
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has announced a proposed reorganization for the department — which, counting those who already have left the agency, amounts to about a 25% cut in its workforce. And its planned “Administration for a Healthy America” will collapse several existing HHS agencies into one. Meanwhile, the department continues to cut billions in health spending while the nation faces measles outbreaks in several states and the continuing possibility of another pandemic, such as bird flu. (Rovner, 3/27)

MedPage Today: RFK Jr.'s Mass Layoffs: How Many Jobs Top Health Agencies Will Lose
HHS will slash 10,000 full-time employees, which combined with its previous buyout and early retirement initiatives, will take the agency down from 82,000 to 62,000 workers. It will also create a new "Administration for a Healthy America," or AHA, that will combine five independent agencies into one. Shedding 10,000 employees will save the government $1.8 billion per year, the agency said. It announced the changes in a press release and a fact sheet on Thursday morning, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. simultaneously posted a video to X. (Fiore, 3/27)

Stat: HHS Cuts Met With Anger By Democrats, Shrugs From GOP
News of massive layoffs at the Health and Human Services Department was met with anger and predictions of lawsuits by Democratic lawmakers, and with a shrug by Republicans. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a department-wide reorganization on Thursday that calls for laying off about 10,000 employees. Combined with other Trump administration efforts, including early retirement and buyout offers, HHS will lose about 20,000 employees, one-quarter of its staff. (Wilkerson, 3/27)

More from the FDA —

Stat: At FDA Two Top Cancer Regulators To Depart 
Both deputy directors at the key Food and Drug Administration center that oversees the regulation of cancer drugs plan on departing the agency, sources told STAT Thursday, highlighting the drain on talent at the FDA created by layoffs, uncertainty, and shifts in policy at the agency even as it is set to lay off thousands more people. (Herper, 3/27)

Roll Call: Targeting FDA User Fees Would Leave Agency Gutted, Experts Say 
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his allies rallied around removing industry influence from the Food and Drug Administration as part of their quest to Make America Healthy Again, which Kennedy has used in his early days in office to sound the alarm over food industry lobbying and pharma’s influence in D.C. But they’ve also, less explicitly, suggested plans to target a more unassuming but long-standing program that funds nearly half of the FDA’s budget: the user fees that industry pays to the FDA in exchange for reviewing their product applications. (DeGroot, 3/27)

Also —

MedPage Today: Patient Safety Research May Be Imperiled If AHRQ Is Downsized, Experts Warn
The Trump administration's efforts to downsize the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) are causing alarm among public health workers as well as researchers who study patient safety and diagnostic errors. "Words like 'catastrophic' come to mind," David Newman-Toker, MD, PhD, director of the Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said in a phone interview Wednesday. "From the perspective of diagnostic safety and quality and diagnostic excellence, AHRQ is really the only substantive funder of this work. It is a tiny investment for the return." (Frieden, 3/27)

NPR: Mental Health And Addiction Funding On The Federal Chopping Block
State and county public health departments and nonprofit groups are reeling after the Trump administration announced abrupt cancellation and revocation of roughly $11.4 billion in COVID-era funding for grants linked to addiction, mental health and other programs. "This is chopping things off in the middle while people are actually doing the work," said Keith Humphreys, an addiction policy researcher at Stanford University, who also volunteers doing harm reduction work with people in addiction. He warned the move could trigger layoffs and treatment disruptions. (Mann, 3/27)

Politico: Fearing Trump Cuts, California Democrat Proposes Creating State’s Own NIH 
An ambitious California Democrat wants the world’s fifth-largest economy to create its own National Institutes of Health and vaccine program, saying the state can’t rely on the Trump administration to support research and science. A bill introduced in the California Senate on Thursday, shared first with POLITICO, would create a new state agency to fund the scientific research being slashed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency as well as bolster the vaccine access being questioned by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Bluth, 3/27)

Modern Healthcare: HHS Launches DEI Investigation Into California Medical School
The Health and Human Services Department's Office for Civil Rights is investigating an unnamed California medical school following allegations of discrimination in its admission practices. The agency said Thursday it received information that the school was allegedly admitting students based on race, color or national origin. The complaints, if affirmed, would violate an executive order President Donald Trump signed Jan. 21, his second day in office. (DeSilva, 3/27)