NBC News
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported Thursday that it will cut 10,000 full -time jobs in several of its agencies, as part of the broad effort of the Donald Trump government to reduce federal expenditure.
The cuts are expected to close or reduce multiple departments in the centers for disease control and prevention (CDC) and other health agencies, potentially endangering public health efforts.
The HHS supervises 13 agencies, including the CDC, the Food and Medicines Administration (FDA) and the National Health Institutes (NIH).
The HHS said Thursday that 28 divisions of the Department of Health operate “redundant units”, and that the restructuring plan will consolidate them in 15 divisions.
“We will eliminate a whole set of departments, at the same time preserving their main functions by merging them into a new entity called the United States healthy or AHA,” said HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in a publication in the social network X.
Among the divisions that will be eliminated or reduced in CDCs, according to HHS, are those dedicated to world health, HIV prevention at the national level and injury prevention, as well as armed violence.
The administration has also made cuts in divisions of other agencies responsible for the approval of new drugs, the provision of health insurance and the response to outbreaks of infectious diseases.
The cuts announced this Thursday are apart from the previous attempts by the Republican government to fire thousands of employees of the CDC and other federal agencies that were in per (evidence of evidence. Two federal judges have ordered the temporary reinstatement of many of the affected workers.
Federal officials of the agency have said they plan to transfer the responsibilities of some departments eliminated to other HHS agencies.
For example, the Trump Administration is evaluating a plan to transfer the responsibilities of the HIV Prevention Division of the CDC to the Administration of Health Resources and Services (HRSA), which performs its own work on HIV in the framework of the Ryan White program against HIV/AIDS.
However, Hrsa focuses mainly on the treatment of HIV, instead of preventing it, which has left some concerned that the measures make progress in prevention back.
It was not clear on Thursday if that was still the administration plan. An HHS spokesman did not respond immediately to a comment request.
Much of the responsibility of the reduced agencies within the CDCs will probably fall on Susan Monaz, the one chosen by Trump to direct the agency and its current acting director.
Earlier this month, news agency reported that five CDC division leaders had resigned while the agency prepared for cuts.
