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Employees across the massive U.S. Health and Human Services Department began receiving notices of dismissal Tuesday in�an overhaul�ultimately expected to lay off up to 10,000 people. The cuts include researchers, scientists, doctors, support staff and senior leaders, leaving the federal government without many of the key experts who have long guided U.S. decisions on medical research, drug approvals and other issues. 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. The revolution begins today! Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on social media as he celebrated the swearing-in of his latest hires: Bhattacharya and Martin Makary, the new Food and Drug Administration commissioner. Kennedy’s post came just hours after employees began receiving emailed layoff notices. Kennedy 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 the country. The plan would consolidate agencies that oversee billions of dollars for addiction services and community health centers 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. Many of the jobs are based in the Washington area, but also in Atlanta, where the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is based, and in smaller offices throughout the country. HHS said the layoffs are expected to save $1.8 billion annually from the departments $1.7 trillion budget, most of which is spent on Medicare and Medicaid health insurance coverage for millions of Americans. Some staffers began getting lay off notices in their work inboxes at 5 a.m., while others found out their job had been eliminated after standing in long lines outside offices in Washington, Maryland and Atlanta to see if their badges still worked. Some gathered at local coffee shops and lunch spots after being turned away, finding out they had been eliminated after decades of service. One wondered aloud if it was a cruel April Fools’ Day joke. At the NIH, the cuts included at least four directors of the NIHs 27 institutes and centers who were put on administrative leave, and nearly entire communications staffs were terminated, according to an agency senior leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. An email viewed by The Associated Press shows some senior-level employees of the Bethesda, Maryland, campus who were placed on leave were offered a possible transfer to the Indian Health Service in locations including Alaska and given until the end of Wednesday to respond. At the FDA, dozens of staffers who regulate drugs, food, medical devices and tobacco products received notices, including the entire office responsible for drafting new regulations for electronic cigarettes and other tobacco products. The notices came as the FDAs tobacco chief was removed from his position. Elsewhere at the agency, more than a dozen press officers and communications supervisors were notified that their jobs would be eliminated. The FDA as weve known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed,” said former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf in an online post. Califf stepped down at the end of the Biden administration. The layoff notices came just days after President Donald Trump moved to strip workers of their�collective bargaining rights�at HHS and other agencies throughout the government. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington predicted the cuts will have ramifications when natural disasters strike or infectious diseases, like the ongoing measles outbreak, spread. They may as well be renaming it the Department of Disease because their plan is putting lives in serious jeopardy, Murray said Friday. The CDC has not provided a breakdown of cuts, but employees in different parts of the organization described to the AP extensive layoffs in programs that track asthma, air pollution, smoking, gun violence, reproductive health, climate change and other health threats. The intent seems to be to create a much smaller, infectious disease agency, but it is destroying a wide array of work and collaborations that have enabled local and national governments to be able to prevent deaths and respond to emergencies, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDCs director during President Barack Obama’s administration, said he is particularly concerned about cuts to the CDCs Office on Smoking and Health and the agencys Global Health Center. Weakening tobacco prevention is a gift to Big Tobacco that would guarantee more addiction, disease, and death, Frieden said, while cuts to the CDCs global disease detection work will cost lives. Among the hardest-hit centers was the CDCs National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, with more than 1,000 employees. NIOSH is based in Cincinnati but also has people in Pittsburgh; Spokane, Washington; and Morgantown, West Virginia. Cuts were less drastic at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where Trump’s Republican administration wants to avoid the appearance of debilitating the health insurance programs that cover roughly half of Americans, many of them poor, disabled and elderly. But the impact will still be felt, with the department slashing much of the workforce at the Office of Minority Health, which no longer has a functioning webpage. Jeffrey Grant, a former CMS deputy director, said the office is not part of a diversity, equity and inclusion program, the kind Trump’s Republican administration has sought to end. This is not a DEI initiative. This is meeting people where they are and meeting their specific health needs, said Grant, who resigned last month and now helps place laid-off CMS employees into new jobs. The Office of Program Operations & Local Engagement, which does local outreach for CMS operations, was also gutted, Grant said. Beyond layoffs at federal health agencies, cuts are beginning at state and local health departments as a result of an HHS move last week to pull back mor than $11 billion in COVID-19-related money. Some health departments have identified hundreds of jobs that stand to be eliminated, some of them overnight, some of them are already gone, said Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. A coalition of state attorneys general sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, arguing the cuts are illegal, would reverse progress on the opioid crisis and would throw mental health systems into chaos. HHS has not provided additional details or comments about Tuesdays mass firings, but on Thursday it provided a breakdown of some of the cuts. __ 3,500 jobs at the FDA, which inspects and sets safety standards for medications, medical devices and foods. __ 2,400 jobs at the CDC, which monitors for infectious disease outbreaks and works with public health agencies nationwide. __ 1,200 jobs at the NIH. __ 300 jobs at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the Affordable Care Act marketplace, Medicare and Medicaid. Carla K. Johnson, AP medical writer Associated Press writers Lauran Neergaard, Amanda Seitz and Matthew Perrone, and Mike Stobbe contributed to this report. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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E-Commerce
Reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood said on Monday the Trump administration would cut federal family planning funding as of Tuesday, affecting birth control, cancer screenings and other services for low-income people. Planned Parenthood said that nine of its affiliates received notice that funding would be withheld under a program known as Title X, which has supported healthcare services for the poor since 1970. The Wall Street Journal reported last week the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) planned an immediate freeze of $27.5 million in family planning grants for groups including Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood says more than 300 health centers are in the Title X network and Title X-funded centers received more than 1.5 million visits in 2023. It did not say how much funding would be halted by the Trump administration. HHS said in a statement it was withholding Title X payments to 16 organizations while it evaluates possible violations of their grant terms, including possibly of federal civil rights law and an executive order issued by President Donald Trump entitled, “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders.” “HHS is conducting this evaluation to ensure these entities are in full compliance with Federal law and applicable grant terms, and to ensure responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars,” the statement said. Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, predicted that cancers would go undetected, access to birth control would be severely reduced, and sexually-transmitted infections would increase as a result. “President Trump and Elon Musk are pushing their dangerous political agenda, stripping health care access from people nationwide, and not giving a second thought to the devastation they will cause,” McGill Johnson said in a statement. Trump has named billionaire Musk, who helped the president get elected, to head up an initiative to target government agencies for spending cuts. Conservatives have long sought to defund Planned Parenthood because it also provides abortions. However, U.S. government funding for nearly all abortions has been banned since 1977. Daniel Trotta, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
On Tuesday investment banking company Jefferies downgraded its rankings on Delta, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and Air Canada. That caused airline stocks to drop. American Airlines (NasdaqGS: AAL) finished the day down 2.4%, Delta (NYSE: DAL) dropped 2.7%, and Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) fell 5.9%. Even United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL), which remains the only U.S. airline Jefferies still considers a buy, is down 1.2%. �Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu wrote that corporate and consumer sentiment [are expected] to remain soft on swelling macro uncertainty. Indeed, the global business think tank, the Conference Board recently announced the latest reading for its US Consumer Expectations Index, which measures consumer expectations for business, income, and job prospects. It reached its lowest level in 12 years to 65.2 points amid Americans concerns over inflation and Trumps tariffs. Thats well below the threshold of 80, which the organization says typically signals a recession ahead. In the Conference Boards report last week, Senior Economist Stephanie Guichard said consumers optimism about future income [has] largely vanished, suggesting worries about the economy and labor market have started to spread into consumers assessments of their personal situations. One of the ways that Americans seem to be addressing these fears is by pulling back on spending, including travel expenses. Over the month of February, Bank of America reported a reduction of 7.2% in users credit and debit card spending. Airlines are not only seeing reductions in consumer travel. At a conference last month, Uniteds Chief Financial Officer Mike Leskinen, said that government travel has fallen off here post-inauguration, in part due to mass government worker layoffs by the Trump Administration. With government air travel making up around 2% of Uniteds revenue and travel from consultants and contractors making up another 2% to 3%, the airline has reportedly seen a sharp decline in revenue from these cuts.
Category:
E-Commerce
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