Trump administration begins mass layoffs at US health agencies

Washington — The Trump administration began mass layoffs of 10,000 staffers at US health agencies on Tuesday, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation, with security guards barring entry to some employees just hours after they received dismissal notices.

The cuts, which affect several high-profile agencies under the department of health & human services, including the FDA, CDC and the National Institutes of Health, are part of a broad plan by President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk to shrink the federal government and slash spending.

Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jnr has described the cuts as essential to streamlining a bloated bureaucracy.

However, they have included the ouster of top scientists overseeing public health, cancer research and vaccine and drug approvals, raising concerns about how the US will respond to health emergencies, such as the ongoing measles outbreak and spreading bird flu.

Departures at the Food and Drug Administration, considered the world’s top drugs regulator, included Peter Stein, the director of the Office of New Drugs in its Centre for Drug Evaluation and Research division. He resigned on Tuesday when faced with being fired, according to one source familiar with the matter.

Brian King, the head of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products division, was fired, according to an email sent by King to FDA staff seen by Reuters. That followed the ouster of Peter Marks, the FDA’s highly regarded top vaccine official.

Staff have also been leaving and some employees reviewing products say they are struggling to meet their deadlines.

“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,” former commissioner Robert Califf wrote in a LinkedIn post.

“I believe that history will see this as a huge mistake,” he wrote. “It will be interesting to hear from the new leadership how they plan to put ‘Humpty Dumpty’ back together again.”

In downtown Washington, employees were being informed by security guards that they were fired as they attempted to get into the Mary E Switzer Memorial Building that houses several HHS offices and divisions, one employee said.

“Dozens of people have been RIF’d this way so far,” the employee said, referring to the government euphemism for firings, “reduction in force.” They included a deaf person for whom the security guard had to type on a phone the message that she had been fired.

“So now it’s fallen on the security guards to tell people they’ve lost their jobs,” said the employee.

An FDA employee said staff had to present their badges at the building entrance and those who had been fired were given a ticket and told to return home, according to one source. People waited in line for hours not knowing what would happen when they reached the front.

The ticket, seen by Reuters, listed phone numbers for 10 different departments for employees to call to retrieve their “essential” equipment.

An FDA staff member said 17 employees in the press office were let go. FDA’s chief information officer Vid Desai said he was also let go.

Fired staff received emails saying the termination did not reflect on their service, performance or conduct, according to an email seen by Reuters.

Cuts at the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products included the office of management and office of regulations in their entirety, said the centre’s former director, Mitch Zeller, citing a contact still at the centre.

“I think that this makes it virtually impossible for CTP to regulate tobacco products,” Zeller said.

A line of cars clogged the two main roads leading into the NIH’s main campus in Bethesda, Maryland, where employees had been notified early Tuesday morning that they were laid off, according to a source.

Jeanne Marrazzo, the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases director who succeeded Anthony Fauci, was fired on Tuesday, according to a source who confirmed her departure with sources inside NIH.

The cuts came on the first day on the job for FDA commissioner Marty Makary and NIH director Jay Bhattacharya, who were both confirmed by the US Senate last week.

At the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, staff who were fired had worked at the National Center for Environmental Health, Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration, and the National Center for Immunisation & Respiratory Diseases, including at least one person working on the federal response to measles outbreaks, according to another source.

“HHS touches the lives of just about every American and a reorganisation and downsizing of this size would typically take months on months of work,” said Kevin Griffis, who resigned on March 21 as CDC director of communications.

A health official said employees who worked directly for HHS also were fired. HHS officials were not immediately available for comment.

The line to get into the Rockville, Maryland HHS building stretched from the door to the parking lot, two sources told Reuters, with only two security guards on site screening everyone attempting to enter.

Reuters