Thousands of workers from the country’s health agencies are preparing for mass layoffs

By Amanda Seitz and Matthew Perrone

Washington (AP) – While they were preparing to leave work on Monday, some Food and Drug Administration workers were invited to pack their laptops and prepare for the possibility that they will not return, according to an e -mail obtained by the Associated Press.

Nervous employees – approximately 82,000 people through the country’s public health agencies – waited to see if the pink shifts would arrive in their reception boxes. Mass layoffs have been expected since secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced last week a massive reorganization which will lead to 20,000 less jobs at the Ministry of Health and Social Services. About 10,000 will be eliminated by layoffs.

The email sent to some of the FDA said that staff members should check their email for a possible notice that their job would be eliminated, which would also stop their access to government buildings. An FDA employee shared the email with anonymity, as he was not authorized to disclose internal agency issues.

Kennedy criticized the department he supervises as a “sprawling bureaucracy” and said that the annual budget of 1.7 billion of dollars from the ministry “failed to improve the health of the Americans”. It plans to rationalize operations and fold entire agencies – such as the administration of drug addiction and mental health services – in a new administration for healthy America.

Friday, dozens of federal health workers working to prevent infectious diseases from spreading were put on leave.

Several current and ancient federal officials have declared to the AP that the office of infectious diseases and HIV / AIDS policy had been dug that night. Some employees posted on LinkedIn on the emptying of the office. And an expert in HIV and public health who works directly with the office was sent by e-mail to an opinion saying that all the staff had been invited to leave. The expert spoke at an anonymity on the cover of anonymity on fears of losing future work on the issue.

Several of the office advisory committees – including the national advisory committee for vaccines and others who advise the response of HIV / AIDS – have canceled their meetings.

“This puts a number of significant efforts to improve the health of Americans in danger,” said Dr. Robert H. Hopkins Jr., former president of the National Vaccine Consultative Committee, an office advisory committee.

An HHS official said that the office was not closed, but that the ministry seeks to consolidate work and reduce redundancies.

In addition, from Monday, a website for the minority health office was disabled, with an error message saying that the page “does not exist”.

Beyond the dismissals in federal health agencies, the cuts started in the health services of states and premises following a move to the HHS last week to withdraw more than $ 11 billion in funds linked to COVID-19.

Local health and state officials are still evaluating the impact, but some health services have already identified hundreds of jobs that are to be eliminated due to the loss of funding, “some of them overnight, some of them have already disappeared,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, director general of the National Association of Health Managers of the County and the City.

The writer Associated Press Carla K. Johnson in Seattle contributed the reports.

Originally published: March 31, 2025 at 4:05 p.m.