The Trump administration’s cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services go deeper than it has acknowledged, according to a new analysis by ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization.
The report, which analyzed public information from the HHS employee directory, found that more than more than 20,500 workers, or about 18% of the department’s workforce, have left or been pushed out as of August 16.
“More than 3,000 scientists and public health specialists are gone,” ProPublica’s Brandon Roberts, Annie Waldman and Pratheek Rebala write. “Over 1,000 regulators and safety inspectors have also left.” They add that their analysis doesn’t include workers who have received layoff notices but remain on administrative leave, a group that could number in the hundreds or thousands.
The analysis also finds that the cuts span all health agencies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has lost 15% of its staff, while the National Institutes of Health has lost 16% and the Food and Drug Administration workforce has been cut 21%.
The cuts, part of a broader Trump administration effort to slash the federal workforce and a reorganization of Health and Human Services overseen by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have reportedly “left departments stretching to perform their basic functions,” ProPublica reports.
“Food and drug facility inspectors are having to go to the store and buy supplies on their own dime so they can take swab samples to test for pathogens,” the report says, adding that some divisions “have experienced a brain drain of epic proportions.”
Experts tell ProPublica that the cuts are endangering public health, making Americans less safe in a variety of other ways and will have long-lasting effects.
The report also notes that the cuts run counter to some of the priorities touted by Kennedy and the administration: “The secretary who has questioned the safety of vaccines has pushed out scores of regulators who work to make vaccines safe. And while he has declared a new era in the fight against chronic disease, he has decimated a center dedicated to that very goal.”
ProPublica says HHS did not dispute its findings but pushed back on the idea that Kennedy is weakening public health. “Yes, we’ve made cuts — to bloated bureaucracies that were long overdue for accountability,” a department spokesperson reportedly said in an email. “At the same time, we are working to redirect resources to science that delivers measurable impact, rebuilds public trust, and helps Make America Healthy Again.”