Experts from everything, from mine security to smoking and infertility have been struck by mass layoffs After the secretary of the Ministry of Health and Social Services (HHS), Robert F Kennedy JR, to reduce the size of almost a quarter of the workforce by 82,000 people took effect.
Even if the sprawling nature of layoffs became apparent on Tuesday, full accounting was elusive. The layoffs were undertaken with few public details, even legislators of the apoplectic congress left in the dark.
The result was a day of desperate crowdsourcing because the employees themselves and the experts outside the government became aware of the programs and positions eliminated – then treated how it would ultimately affect American life.
The dismissal notices began to go down earlier in the day, embodied by staff lines wrapping the sidewalk of the Parklawn building in Maryland – while waiting to see if their badges still operated, and employees in the construction elevators carrying boxes of personal goods.
But the cuts have moved away from the DC zone. In a single example in Morgantown, in Virginia -Western, the secretary’s cuts have emptied the respiratory division which protects charcoal minors from pneumoconiosis, a familiar disease known as “black lung” – and a condition that has increased astronomical in young charcoal minors in the appearances.
HHS cuts come to the safety of mines and Health Administration, a separate government division which monitors the safety conditions of mine, hosted at the Ministry of Labor.
“I am not sure they realize that the elimination of these jobs within (the National Institute of Health and Safety at Work) and these offices will affect minors from these offices,” said Erin Bates, spokesperson for the United Mine Workers International.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the cuts struck an entire branch devoted to infertility – a cause that Donald Trump had defended a few days earlier, calling himself “Chairman of fertilizationยป.
“After today’s layoffs at the CDC, there will be no infertility experts who will be able to shed light on public policies, brief members of the congress, publish articles and reports and advance public awareness of the causes and treatments for infertility,” said Barbara Collura, president of Resolve: the National Incrtility Association, in a press release.
The loss was held alongside the division of science and environmental health practice of the CDC (DEHSP), “planned to be eliminated in its entirety”, according to an internal email by the Center director, Ari Bernstein, obtained by E & E Politico News.
The division is responsible for preventing exposures with harmful environmental risks and responding to the climate crisis. It also oversees the climate health activities of the CDC and its branches on lead poisoning, asthma and air quality, water, emerging risks and monitoring of environmental public health.
Among the losses at Food and Drug Administration (FDA), there was the division devoted to the development of tobacco policy. Taxpayers will not save any money – it has been paid by the tobacco companies themselves.
“These cuts come into conflict with the commitments repeatedly declared by President Trump and secretary Kennedy to reduce chronic diseases and protect the health of children,” said Yolonda C Richardson, president and chief executive officer for tobacco-free children, who declared in a statement that smoking was still responsible for 30% of all deaths against cancer in the United States. “We cannot achieve these objectives and make America healthy if our nation holds its efforts to reduce tobacco consumption.”
The director of the center for FDA tobacco products, Brian King, told staff in an email that he had been on administrative leave on the same day: “It was with a heavy heart and a deep disappointment that I share, I was placed on administrative leave”, the ” Associated Press reported.
Meanwhile, the administration of community life (ACL) in the health department was struck by important cuts, the dismantling of the teams focused on disabled services and the elderly.
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Autism Society of America has opposed this reduction as well as those of the administration of drug addiction and mental health services as decisions that could reduce bipartisan support to Americans disabled.
Former CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden, said the cuts, especially for global smoking and health programs, would not “cut fat” – they will know our ability to prevent death from tobacco and disease epidemics. “
Several FDA communications teams have also been reduced, including the entire media affairs division and most of the communication team of the FDA medication and research center, around 50 people, according to sources NBC News. This team was responsible for the management of public databases on drug approvals, which include public information on the potential risks of drugs approved by the FDA, as well as the management of the drug transmission database.
Kennedy announced 10,000 jobs would be cut off from the Ministry of Health and Social Services Thursday afternoon-offering few details beyond the promise that the cuts “would rationalize our agency”. The cuts are aggravated by losses already made by the “Department of Effective Government” (DOGE) managed by billionaire Elon Musk. All in all that the 1.7 TN health service should lose up to 20,000 people, a quarter of its workforce by 82,000 people.
Monday, nearly 2,000 members of the National Science, Engineering and Medicine Academies published an open letter to warn Americans of the Administration Assault against science.
While the cuts concentrated, the former HHS leaders were impressed by their great range.
“The FDA, as we know, it is finished with most managers with institutional knowledge and an in -depth understanding of the development and safety of products that are no longer used,” said the former FDA commissioner Robert Califf said Mass deviceThe appellant “a dark day for public health”.