Thousands of federal health workers are losing their jobs in the US
1 min read
Summary
As many as 4,000 CDC employees are facing the axe as part of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting measures, with top officials also facing the axe, reassignment or being placed on administrative leave.
The restructuring is also seeing the loss of thousands of jobs at the FDA and other agencies under the Department of Health and Human Services.
Drastic reductions in HIV, sexually transmitted disease, respiratory disease and food safety programmes are expected, with one expert warning that the changes will result in “unnecessary, preventable death”.
HHS claims the changes will save $1.8bn annually, while HHS secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaxxer, said “bureaucracies… become wasteful and inefficient”.
The director of the FDA’s vaccines department has also resigned, with an expert claiming that the FDA “as we’ve known it is finished”.