Federal health agencies including CDC, NIH, and FDA take stock of layoffs : Shots

The Trump administration was announced verbally, and the closing letters landed in mailboxes of hundreds of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health over the weekend.

That’s according to more than half a dozen current staff members who requested anonymity because they were not allowed to speak publicly.

The number of employees who lost their jobs at NIH and CDC was lower than initially expected. The CDC says current staff have not yet been told that more cuts could come.

Among staff members caught up in the first wave of layoffs, PHD-trained scientists tasked with helping local and state officials respond to the outbreak. Employees are safe to secure medical equipment for cancer and diabetics. And public health workers stationed at international airports that implement regulations to prevent animals carrying rabies and other infectious diseases from entering the United States.

Overall, around 750 CDC employees received termination letters, according to current CDC staff receiving calls with agency leadership and another CDC staff who reviewed the internal memo.

On Friday, CDC leadership told staff they were informed that 10% of the agency’s workforce (about 1,300 employees) have been lost.

“I’m planning on working tomorrow and I don’t know who’s employed,” said one CDC staff member who has not officially notified exactly which employees in the department have lost their jobs.

At the National Institutes of Health, between 1,000 and 1,200 employees received notifications on Saturday night that they were being cut, two staff members with knowledge of the situation told NPR. This is a few hundred less than expected.

Authorities were able to save several jobs as certain positions were deemed essential, such as those working in NIH clinical centers.

The cuts at the FDA hit people doing research and approval on the medical devices side of the agency, according to fired FDA employees who were afraid of the outcome of their remarks.

Current FDA employees told NPR that staff working on drug approvals were temporarily spared.

The HHS, CDC, FDA, and NIH did not respond to NPR’s request for comment.

“Performance” cited as the cause of the cut

NPR has confirmed cancellation letters sent to CDC, NIH and FDA staff.

They all used similar languages ​​and cited poor performance as a reason for their termination, but the employees NPR spoke to had a great job record.

“Unfortunately, agents are discovering that your abilities, knowledge and skills are not suitable for continuous employment as they do not meet the agency’s current needs. The Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, the state, said. It’s there.

This character sets the end date on March 14th, 2025.

In all three agencies, most people who lost most of their jobs were probationary staff. This is a 1-2 year long trial for new employees or those who have moved to a new position within the agency, with less worker protection.

“It’s been a very short-sighted decision to sweep people regardless of whether they play a key role in the organization or how well they are working,” said Dr. Steve Monroe, a former CDC employee. “I called it.

Some employees were confused about their job situation and what to expect in the next few days.

For example, some people who were explicitly told they would end up have not yet received the letter, including a crew of famous CDC. Trend Information Serviceswhat is called “sick detectives,” a premier training program for staff dispatched to deal with outbreaks.

Current CDC staff want to know that the cohort was last-minute spanned given the mass shootings over the weekend, but were not necessarily “optimistic.”

Which positions have been lost?

The cuts in jobs have hit several key functions of the federal health agency.

We heard from several FDA staff who spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation for Spoint Up, as they are working on reviewing devices that detect cancer and help people with diabetes. They say they are afraid that they don’t work or have dangerous devices from the market and that reducing their rank could be dangerous to consumers.

At NIH, the offices involved in reviewing and managing grants to non-institutional researchers such as universities and medical centers, said one staff member with knowledge of the situation. The NIH spends most of the agency’s annual budget on researching this type of “foreigner” to find new treatments for cancer, heart disease and other diseases.

“Our country cannot afford to send our research and public health assets,” Mary Woolley, president and CEO of Research, advocacy group, said in a statement. “The patient is waiting. His life is at stake.”

The CDC has reduced the number of fellows responding to disease outbreaks from at least two well-known CDC training programs. 20 friends Laboratory Leadership Services I received the termination letter on Saturday. They “help to develop new and emerging disease tests,” explains one peer. People in the program have PhDs and are often co-developed with fad information services fellows for trend responses.

All of the lab fellowship cohort received a letter and performance review that proved the quality of their work a few weeks ago. The Fellow said: . ”

Monroe, a former CDC employee, worries that these cuts will “hobra” the country’s ability to respond to the outbreak. “Losing them today means we’re not able to support the state tomorrow if we need to investigate an outbreak,” he says.

In the long term, reductions could result in fewer people being trained or opting to work in public health. “A year from now, we loosened them, so no one has a year and a half experience,” he says.

The Public Health Associates Program rank was also wrong due to layoffs. The fellowship will embed recent university and master’s level alumni in state and local health departments and serve as a pathway for public health careers, says current CDC staff who are familiar with the program.

CDC employees charged with preventing the introduction of animal bone disease (patients jumping from animals to humans) say they are safe from layoffs as their work is related to national security and border control. I was expecting it. They recently received the CDC Award for Excellence.

It also says it’s not clear how shootings will save government money. Patty Zettlera law professor at Ohio State University and served as assistant advisor to HHS, which covers the FDA until January.

For example, FDA user fees paid by drug and device manufacturers began in the 1990s to speed up drug and device approvals and more. In exchange for fees, agents are committed to hiring more staff and reviewing new product applications more quickly.

“When I think about all the layoffs across HHS, I’m not going to save taxpayers money in the long run,” she says. “It’s particularly clear that firing FDA staff, funded by user fees, doesn’t save taxpayers money. Taxpayers aren’t paying these employees.”

In response to requests for comment on the cut when their words came out on Friday: Andrew Nixon, communications director at HHS, wrote an email to NPR. It’s about restructuring and streamlining the federal government.

Is there any information you would like to share about the ongoing changes across the federal government? Please contact these authors via encrypted communication: Will Stone @wstonereports.95, Pien Huang @Pienhuang.88 and Rob Stein @Robstein.22.

Rob Stein and Sidney Lupkin contributed to this report.