Trump’s 10 000 job cuts spark chaos in US health services
BMJ 2025; 389 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r682 (Published 04 April 2025) Cite this as: BMJ 2025;389:r682
- Mun-Keat Looi
- The BMJ
On 27 March the US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, abruptly announced the termination of 10 000 jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with 10 000 more cut through early retirement and buyouts.1 The repercussions became clearer this week as employees received their notice on 1 April—or turned up to work to find their security passes had been deactivated.
Kennedy said that HHS was being “recalibrated to emphasize prevention, not just sick care.” On X he wrote, “The reality is clear: what we’ve been doing isn’t working.2
Two senators, Bill Cassidy and Bernie Sanders, invited Kennedy to a 10 April hearing to explain the restructuring. A HHS spokesperson told Politico that Kennedy had yet to accept the invitation.
Senior figures reassigned and relocated
As employees were served notice by email early on 1 April, many staff in high ranking posts found themselves reassigned and facing relocation or put on administrative leave.
Science reported that at least five directors of 27 institutes and centres of the National Institutes of Health had been told they were being reassigned. Several centre directors at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were also removed. The deputy director and scientific director of the National Institute on Ageing and extramural division directors at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases were also told they’d been put on leave.
Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the allergy and infectious diseases institute, is among several staff reassigned to the Indian Health Service, the HHS division that provides medical care for US recognised tribes and Alaska Native people. Insiders told the online health news website Stat that, although this service did need more staff, vacancies were largely for physicians and …
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