Government cuts have been swift and vast over the past few weeks. They’ve impacted thousands of employees across agencies at all levels of rank and file. And it could just be the beginning.
The Trump administration has ramped up its efforts to slash 20,000 government jobs across the board. The most recent and jarring wave — which some are calling a “Valentine’s Day massacre” — has begun to reveal how the cuts will impact healthcare agencies.
What started with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, informally led by billionaire Elon Musk, dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development and its broad swath of global health initiatives is now hitting closer to home for the healthcare sector.
Around 1,900 probationary employees have been fired from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, NIH and FDA, according to The New York Times.
The cuts, which hit both regulatory and scientific roles, were designed to “ensure that HHS better serves the American people at the highest and most efficient standard,” an agency spokesperson told several news outlets.
Yet, many of the cuts to HHS impacted roles related to safety.
A group of CDC scientists who track potential infectious disease outbreaks were initially let go, but then their positions were reinstated after a backlash from fellow agency employees.
At least 20 FDA staffers who review drug safety for pets and livestock were fired, NPR reported. The FDA’s head of medical device safety also lost his job in the purge.
And FDA staffers involved in emerging tech were on the chopping block, according to STAT, including some who worked with AI-enabled imaging devices.
Earlier this week, the CEO of the medical devices trade group AdvaMed, Scott Whitaker, said the job cuts could have a “negative impact on patient care in this country” in a letter to the Trump administration
“Device review times were already too long, though they were improving as the result of our latest user-fee agreement. FDA was already struggling to keep pace with our industry’s tens of thousands of new medical technology applications every year,” Whitaker wrote. “Unfortunately, as a result of these reductions, FDA will lose hundreds of new employees, the best and most innovative hires under our most recent agreement.”
Concerns have also cropped up about the potential of Musk getting a personal boost from the slashed roles.
Several positions in FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health were nixed, including employees overseeing clinical trials for the brain implant company run by Musk called Neuralink, Reuters reported.
Many more jobs could still be in the administration’s crosshairs. Before the mass firings over the weekend, the Associated Press reported that audio from an NIH meeting revealed HHS’ plans to fire about 5,200 probationary employees, far more than the 1,900 who were recently given notice.
HHS has not released official numbers with regard to the cuts nor responded to a request for comment. Most of the estimates for the impact on health agencies were provided to news outlets from sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution.
