Massive layoffs begin at top US health agency

Hundreds of federal health workers early on Tuesday learned their jobs had been cut, with many turned away at their office building doors, as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) plunged ahead on a mass restructuring.

Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr announced last week that 10,000 employees would be let go, and about a third are expected to be cut from the agency overseeing food and drug safety.

Tuesday's layoffs included several top officials within HHS, which will also use voluntary resignations to reduce its ranks from 80,000 to 60,000 employees.

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk have sought to slash the federal payroll.

The White House said last week that it planned to cut 3,500 full-time employees at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and 2,400 workers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Health workers began hearing as early as 5:00 EDT (10:00 BST) that they were being laid off on Tuesday.

While some expected the announcements, others were surprised by the news.

Some learned they had been fired when they showed up to their offices and were unable to scan their badges to enter, according to the BBC's US partner CBS News.

Employees waited in long lines outside to access the buildings during the confusion and chaos.

HHS is a department with a $1.8 trillion (£1.39 trillion) budget that oversees 13 agencies, including the CDC, the FDA and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The top officials laid off in the restructuring, included the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Jeanne Marrazzo. She succeeded Anthony Fauci in directing the agency that had led the US fight against Covid-19.

Marrazzo - and several other directors - were notified that they were being reassigned to HHS's Indian Health Service division in other locations, according to media reports. They were asked to decide by Wednesday whether they planned to accept the new roles.

The administration has said it is cutting 1,200 employees from the National Institutes of Health agency as a whole.

As a part of Kennedy's broader restructuring, HHS is also consolidating its 28 agency divisions into 15 new ones, including a new Administration for a Healthy America, to help carry out Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again agenda.

In announcing the changes, Kennedy said HHS was "inefficient as a whole" and that the cuts would remove "bureaucratic sprawl".

In a statement, HHS has said the cuts will save taxpayers an estimated $1.8b per year.

HHS has made cuts to public health funding, too. Last month, the administration announced it was pulling back $11b in Covid-19-era funding that states and local health departments were using for other purposes, including mental health and addiction as well as infectious disease outbreaks like measles and bird flu.

Washington, DC, and 23 states on Tuesday sued the US government for slashing the funding.