MedPage Today story.
Thousands of employees of federal health agencies have been let go in a chaotic and slow-rolling Trump administration purge over the holiday weekend.
While the total number of dismissed employees appears to be smaller than originally expected, the changes sowed confusion as some staffers received termination notices over the weekend, while others waited for expected firings that never came. This includes members of CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, a 2-year fellowship program that trains the next generation of “disease detectives.”
One employee from an agency within HHS who asked to remain anonymous described “chaos and confusion” as leadership “tries to sort this all out.”
Initial reports suggested about 5,200 employees across HHS agencies — among about 80,000 total employees — would be let go, but on Tuesday the totals were unclear. The focus was on “probationary” employees, or those generally within the first year of their employment.
MedPage Today has summarized the terminations at each agency below.
The medical and public health communities blasted the move, which was led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Eight recent former leaders of federal health agencies under the Biden administration — including former NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli, MD; former CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure; former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, MD; and former CDC Director Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH — signed a letter in support of the fired employees.
“The Trump Administration now has begun arbitrarily removing HHS staff from their positions, leaving no doubt that the health and well-being of families and communities across the country will suffer as a result,” the former leaders wrote in the letter.
“These individuals are not numbers on a spreadsheet,” the letter continued. “They are dedicated and passionate public servants who have committed their careers to working on behalf of the American people.”
“We owe them a debt of gratitude, not a pink slip,” the letter concluded.
Jeff Nesbit, former assistant secretary for public affairs at HHS, shared a “thank you” letter signed by 140 former political appointees who worked alongside civil servants at HHS during the Obama and Biden administrations, including former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.
“Please know that the time and energy that you have invested in your work does not go unrecognized,” the letter stated. “We appreciate all your efforts, especially your focus on providing care to those who are struggling. You embody the mission and vision of the Department of Health and Human Services.”
Robert Steinbrook, MD, director of the health research group at Public Citizen, which has long been a thorn in the side of federal agencies — particularly the FDA — called the terminations “a disaster for public health.”
“There’s no upside to this,” Steinbrook told MedPage Today. “From the outside, it seems senseless.”
“Staff need to be reduced from time to time for budgetary reasons in many organizations, and there are ways to do that carefully and with consideration of individuals and organizational needs — and there are ways not to do that,” Steinbrook said. “And this is exactly the way not to do it.”
Here’s a look at the impact on individual agencies:
CDC
While reports originally stated that around 1,300 probationary employees — about 10% of CDC’s workforce — would be cut, the number has come down to around 750, according to NPR.
While fellows from the agency’s Epidemic Intelligence Service were originally told they would be let go, as of Tuesday they still had not received emails informing them of their termination, multiple sources at the CDC told MedPage Today.
All fellows from CDC’s Laboratory Leadership Service (LLS), however, were fired on Friday and Saturday, those sources said. The LLS was created about a decade ago, in the wake of a series of lab failures. LLS fellows help the CDC and state labs improve testing and meet federal standards, according to the Associated Press
FDA
Around 700 FDA staffers were let go, according to the Associated Press. This included employees in centers that run food, medical devices, and tobacco products.
Ross Segan, MD, MBA, the head of medical device safety, was also terminated, STAT reported. Segan had only started his job in September so he was caught up in a 2-year probationary period within the agency.
A significant number of employees were terminated from the agency’s devices division, which STAT noted has a strained relationship with Elon Musk’s company Neuralink.
Finally, Jim Jones, FDA’s deputy commissioner for human foods, resigned after 89 people in his department lost their jobs, according to the Washington Post.
“I was looking forward to working to pursue the Department’s agenda of improving the health of Americans by reducing diet-related chronic disease and risks from chemicals in food,” Jones wrote in his resignation letter, according to the Post. “It has been increasingly clear that with the Trump Administration’s disdain for the very people necessary to implement your agenda, however, it would have been fruitless for me to continue in this role.”
NIH
Between 1,000 and 1,200 NIH employees were terminated on Saturday, according to NPR — a few hundred less than the 1,500 initially expected.
CMS
Politico reported that employees working for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) were let go, along with employees in the CMS office that oversees the Affordable Care Act.
Arielle Kane, who was fired from CMMI, posted on X that she and her colleagues who were terminated were “working on improving maternal health outcomes at lower costs so that less pregnant women would die in this country. I thought that would fit nicely into your agenda?”
Other Agencies
It’s not clear how many people were fired from the HHS parent organization. Reports suggested that cuts were made to the Administration for Children and Families, as well as the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
Renee Wegrzyn, PhD, the inaugural director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which was created in 2022, announced on LinkedIn that she “no longer [has] the opportunity to serve” as its director. It’s not clear how many employees were fired from ARPA-H.
Also, while the Indian Health Service initially was going to lay off some 950 employees, newly confirmed HHS director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly rescinded those terminations.
And while it’s not an HHS agency, many healthcare professionals work for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA issued a press release on Feb. 13 announcing that it dismissed more than 1,000 employees, mainly in their probationary period.
