Last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a conspiracy theorist whom Republicans put in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services, left little doubt that he would soon announce mass layoffs at the federal agency. Unfortunately, as NBC News reported, he did exactly that this week.
The Trump administration carried out mass layoffs across the Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday, aiming to slash around 10,000 full-time jobs from the federal agencies long tasked with regulating food and drugs and overseeing the nation’s public health policies. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is trying to reduce HHS’ workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 across several agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Robert Califf, the former FDA commissioner, said the agency as Americans have come to know it, is now “finished.” The New York Times added that the agency has now lost nearly all of its traditionally nonpolitical experts on food, drugs, vaccines and medical devices.
NBC News’ report added that the Trump administration also made “deep and wide-ranging cuts to divisions responsible for tackling HIV, improving minority health and preventing injury, such as gun violence. Jobs were eliminated at offices overseeing the approval of new drugs, providing health insurance and responding to infectious disease outbreaks.”
The Bulwark’s Jonathan Cohn explained, “The sheer breadth of the cuts is staggering: The layoffs affected agencies that exist to fight deadly pathogens, to protect the nation’s drug supply, to finance and carry out cutting-edge research — along with countless other divisions and offices that touch everything from rural health to early childhood care.”
Wendy Armstrong, director of infectious diseases at the University of Colorado, told Cohn, in reference to the Republican administration’s layoffs and cuts, “Americans will suffer, and people will die.”
I suspect White House officials and their allies will argue that such assessments are overstated. We can all hope they’re right, but given the scope and scale of the decisions, there’s every reason to believe that there’s nothing hyperbolic about the estimations.
What’s more, for Kennedy and his radical agenda, it’s the latest in a series of related steps. Indeed, the layoffs come on the heels of free measles vaccine clinics closing in Texas — during a measles outbreak — because of Kennedy’s HHS cuts.
That came on the heels of Dr. Peter Marks, who oversaw the FDA’s vaccine division as director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, resigning at least in part because of Kennedy promoting “misinformation and lies” in his claims about vaccine safety.
Which came on the heels of RFK Jr. making a bizarre choice to oversee research on the nonexistent connection between vaccines and autism.
Which came on the heels of news of some measles patients in Texas getting worse because people followed bad advice they got from Kennedy during a Fox News interview.
Which came on the heels of Kennedy decimating the agency leading the federal response to the opioid crisis.
Which came on the heels of the CDC’s former communications director writing a Washington Post op-ed in which he explained that career infectious-disease experts have been “tasked with spending precious hours searching medical literature in vain for data to support Kennedy’s preferred treatments,” adding that Kennedy and his team are “working to bend science to fit their own narratives, rather than allowing facts to guide policy.” Which came on the heels of the CDC, falling in line with Kennedy’s agenda, burying a measles forecast that stressed the need for vaccinations. Which came on the heels of Kennedy’s department abruptly canceling “more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues.” Which came on the heels of the department also canceling funding “for dozens of studies seeking new vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 and other pathogens that may cause future pandemics.” Did I mention that these developments — literally all of them — are from just the last week? Because they are. On Tuesday, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, partnered with independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in calling Kennedy to testify about his “proposed reorganization of the Department of Health and Human Services.” That’s a worthwhile move, though I wish the hearing had been held before Kennedy started dismantling the nation’s public health infrastructure, not after.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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