FDA, HHS Workers Brace for Layoffs     04/01 06:06

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- As they readied to leave work Monday, some workers at the 
Food and Drug Administration were told to pack their laptops and prepare for 
the possibility that they wouldn't be back, according to an email obtained by 
The Associated Press.

   Nervous employees -- roughly 82,000 across the nation's public health 
agencies -- waited to see whether pink slips would arrive in their inboxes. The 
mass dismissals have been expected since Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 
announced last week a massive reorganization that will result in 20,000 fewer 
jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services. About 10,000 will be 
eliminated through layoffs.

   The email sent to some at the FDA said staffers should check their email for 
a possible notice that their jobs would be eliminated, which would also halt 
their access to government buildings. An FDA employee shared the email with AP 
on condition of anonymity, because they weren't authorized to disclose internal 
agency matters.

   Kennedy has criticized the department he oversees as an inefficient 
"sprawling bureaucracy" and said the department's $1.7 trillion yearly budget 
"has failed to improve the health of Americans." He plans to streamline 
operations and fold entire agencies -- such as the Substance Abuse and Mental 
Health Services Administration -- into a new Administration for a Healthy 
America.

   Anand Parekh, who worked worked at the department during the Bush and Obama 
administrations and is now the chief medical adviser at the Bipartisan Policy 
Center, wonders what kind of analysis Kennedy has done to arrive at job cuts. 
He questioned how closely Kennedy could examine each of the agencies after 
spending just over a month as health secretary.

   "One would hope that as they made these cuts, they really did a deep dive," 
Parekh said. "It's not quite clear from a transparency perspective how they got 
from where they were to here."

   On Friday, dozens of federal health employees working to stop infectious 
diseases from spreading were told they'd be put on leave.

   Several current and former federal officials told the AP that the Office of 
Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy was hollowed out that night. Some 
employees posted on LinkedIn about the office emptying. And an HIV and public 
health expert who works directly with the office was emailed a notice saying 
that all staff had been asked to leave. The expert spoke to the AP on condition 
of anonymity over fears of losing future work on the issue.

   Several of the office's advisory committees -- including the National 
Vaccine Advisory Committee and others that advise on HIV/AIDs response -- have 
had their meetings canceled.

   "It puts a number of important efforts to improve the health of Americans at 
risk," said Dr. Robert H. Hopkins Jr., the former chair of the National Vaccine 
Advisory Committee, an advisory committee of the office.

   An HHS official said the office is not being closed but that the department 
is seeking to consolidate the work and reduce redundancies.

   Also, as of Monday, a website for the Office of Minority Health was 
disabled, with an error message saying the page "does not exist."

   Beyond layoffs at federal health agencies, cuts have begun at state and 
local health departments as a result of an HHS move last week to pull back more 
than $11 billion in COVID-19-related funds.

   Local and state health officials are still assessing the impact, but some 
health departments have already identified hundreds of jobs that stand to be 
eliminated because of lost funding, "some of them overnight, some of them are 
already gone," said Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive of the National 
Association of County and City Health Officials.