The survivors of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s mass firings are taking stock of the damage and trying to figure out what remains of their agencies.
Kennedy hasn’t released an accounting of the purge. Amid an information blackout from the administration, workers are tallying the losses in shared Google documents, spreadsheets, and notes. They say middle managers have shared some information in hastily scheduled meetings but are hesitant to put anything in writing. Unions representing workers have requested, but not received, an official count. They are trying to cobble together estimates by crowdsourcing, but remain largely in the dark about the scope of the cuts.
Workers say the process has been jarring and speaks to the unprecedented nature of the administration’s move. In past agency downsizings, affected employees received months of notice, allowing them to finish projects or hand them off to others. The way Kennedy did it, said one Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staffer granted anonymity for fear of retaliation, “reveals an intention to create chaos and misery.”
At the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, “they wiped out our chain of command in one fell swoop,” said Micah Niemeier-Walsh, the vice president of a local union affiliate that represents workers in the agency’s Cincinnati’s office. “It’s not just an attack on NIOSH employees — it’s a direct attack on all workers.”
At the CDC, employees are working together to figure out who lost their jobs and circulating lists of which offices were terminated, according to screenshots shared with POLITICO by another employee granted anonymity for fear of retribution.
Adding to the confusion is that some people don’t know for sure if they were fired. Some never received a notice that their positions were terminated, but found themselves locked out of their HHS accounts, devices and office buildings. Others were told they would be cut, only to receive no official notice. Kennedy also said on Thursday he plans to reinstate a fifth of the workers who were told they were being let go.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment. An HHS memo sent to lawmakers obtained by POLITICO said 10,000 were cut in an effort to reduce bureaucratic redundancies, scale back a budget that ballooned during the Biden administration and align agency resources with Kennedy's desire to better combat chronic diseases. The memo did not provide details on where the cuts fell.
Even employees protected from the cuts — such as enlisted members of the U.S. Public Health Service Corps — feel adrift. They were told by their managers on Monday and again on Thursday that they will receive reassignments, but have yet to learn their fates.
As they await further reductions, staff are trying to figure out how to keep performing their work, approving drugs and medical devices, offering guidance on outbreaks and advising providers on how to give the best possible care to patients.
“I really don’t know what’s going to happen to FDA with all of this,” said a Food and Drug Administration worker granted anonymity for fear of being fired. “There will be no operations. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
The FDA, which reviews drugs and medical devices, is grappling with how to keep up basic activities and meetings with industry stakeholders, the worker said.
Remaining FDA staff compiled a list of fired colleagues at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and found roughly 800 were dismissed. They learned that the agency’s library staff was also terminated when they read it on an internal webpage. Otherwise, they say they’re relying on the media.
“[W]e’re often finding higher quality information from news reporting than anything internal,” an FDA employee, granted anonymity to speak freely, told POLITICO.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Niemeier-Walsh’s employer, was among the health agency divisions hardest hit this week — with hundreds of employees in Washington and satellite offices in Morgantown, West Virginia; Spokane, Washington; and Cincinnati either put on administrative leave, terminated, or told they would lose their jobs in the next few months.
The cuts have ground to halt a number of projects — some required by Congress — that support workers’ health, including the Firefighter Registry for Cancer, the Firefighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program and the mobile clinic run by the Coal Workers' Health Surveillance Program.
Edward Kelly, general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, a labor union, sent POLITICO a statement on Thursday after meeting with White House officials who informed him that the cuts would be reversed.
“The Trump Administration assured me that fire fighter safety remains a priority, and the White House is actively working to restore these critical HHS programs,” he said.
Also part of this week’s purge were NIOSH staff who run the World Trade Center Health Program, which researches and treats cancers and other health problems caused by the terrorist attack.
Michael Barasch, the leading attorney and advocate for survivors of 9/11 and their families and a cancer survivor himself, said even if Kennedy reverses the cuts, he expects many doctors and other staff in the program to quit rather than continue to work in an uncertain environment.
“They feel like they’re at a tennis match — it's back and forth and back and forth,” he said. “It’s already a six-month wait now [for an appointment in the program], which could even become longer depending on how many doctors leave, how many nurses leave.”
Niemeier-Walsh said her team remains in the dark about the promised reinstatements.
“I've heard nothing from the White House, CDC, or whoever is left at NIOSH,” she said.
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