Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans Thursday to slash the Department of Health and Human Services, cutting nearly a quarter of its workforce in a major restructuring that will consolidate several departments.
According to the Department of Health, the cuts will save $1.8 billion annually and reduce the employee headcount from 82,000 to 62,000 full-time employees. Combined with previous layoffs, the agency said, the layoffs will bring the department down to about 62,000 workers.
Under a restructuring plan, the number of health department divisions will drop from 28 divisions to 15 — including a new Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA. The number of regional offices will drop from 10 to five.
“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl,” Kennedy said in a statement. “We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic. This Department will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”
The national and global health community has been bracing for dramatic change since Kennedy, an opponent of some vaccines and an advocate of stronger food safety, took office vowing radical reform.
The primary target of Kennedy’s cuts is the Food and Drug Administration, which will cut its workforce by 3,500 full-time employees, according to a health department fact sheet. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will also cut 2,400 employees while the National Institutes of Health cuts 1,200 employees.
In an address posted to the social media platform X, Kennedy called his department a “sprawling bureaucracy” that had seen rates of cancer and chronic disease increase as its budget had increased. His overhaul of the department, he admitted would be a “painful period” for the agency.
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