Mass layoffs begin at US health agencies as Trump reshapes workforce

File Photo of demonstrators protestiong CDC layoffs in front of the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.

The Trump administration has started firing staff at major US health agencies including the CDC and FDA as part of its plan to cut 10,000 government health jobs, reported Reuters, quoting sources and a health official.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has described the cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration as essential to streamlining a bloated bureaucracy.

However the cuts - including earlier dismissals - have led to the departures of top scientists at key agencies for public health, cancer research and drug oversight, raising concerns about how the U.S. will safely oversee the health sector and respond to emergencies.

At the National Institutes of Health, the world's leading health and medical agency, the layoffs occurred as its new director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, began his first day of work.

Kennedy Jr. announced a plan last week to remake the department, which, through its agencies, is responsible for tracking health trends and disease outbreaks, conducting and funding medical research, and monitoring the safety of food and medicine, as well as for administering health insurance programs for nearly half of the country.

The plan would consolidate agencies that oversee billions of dollars for addiction services and community health centres under a new office called the Administration for a Healthy America.

The layoffs are expected to shrink HHS to 62,000 positions, lopping off nearly a quarter of its staff — 10,000 jobs through layoffs and another 10,000 workers who took early retirement and voluntary separation offers.

At the NIH, the cuts included at least four directors of the NIH's 27 institutes and centres who were put on administrative leave, and nearly entire communications staffs were terminated, according to an agency senior leader, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.