Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces HHS will rehire some fired staffers

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said some of the department’s 10,000 workers who were fired this week will be rehired and certain programs will be reinstated.

Mr. Kennedy told reporters his overhaul of HHS, which entails streamlining agencies and reducing the workforce, resulted in some mistakes.

“There were a number of instances where studies that should not have been cut were cut and we’ve reinstated them, personnel that should not have been cut were cut and we are reinstating them,” Mr. Kennedy said. “And that has always been the plan.”

The layoffs began on Tuesday and will ultimately shrink the HHS workforce by 25%, including another 10,000 workers taking buyouts. The cuts are part of President Trump’s pledge to reduce the size and cost of government through the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk.

Critics say the HHS reductions went too far by completely eliminating critical safety agencies and ongoing research. Employees cut from their jobs reported the elimination of entire divisions, such as the department’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health’s Division of Oral Health and the Department and the Center for Disease Control’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention branch.

It’s not clear which agencies and studies will be reinstated or exactly how many fired employees will be retained. A department spokesperson did not respond to an inquiry from The Washington Times.

Among those employees receiving calls to return to work were those cut from the Administration for Community Leaving, which provides support and resources for “the unique needs of older Americans and people with disabilities.”

The cuts have provoked outrage among some lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, wrote to Mr. Kennedy Thursday and demanded he rehire employees laid off from the department’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Mr. Schumer said the staff play an instrumental role in the World Trade Center Health Program, which provides screening services, research and medications to those impacted by collapse of the buildings during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“The reduction in force announcements at HHS are reckless and dangerous, are not based on any systematic review and will have profound negative consequences for the heroic survivors and first responders of 9/11 who are in need of health care due to illness developed as a result of their work in the days, weeks and months after that horrific attack on our nation,” Mr. Schumer wrote to Mr. Kennedy.

Mr. Kennedy indicated programs would not be entirely eliminated but would be consolidated under fewer divisions, among them the lead poisoning prevention branch.

He described dozens of duplicative departments within HHS including more than 100 communications offices and more than 40 procurement offices.

The department oversees more than a dozen agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes for Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Half of the HHS workforce was not required to be in the office, he said.

“All of these programs, all of the CDC, the NIH, were not doing their jobs, and there was tremendous redundancies,” Mr. Kennedy said.

Mr. Kennedy planned to reduce the workforce from 82,000 people to 62,000 and consolidate 28 divisions to 15 under a new moniker, the Administration for a Healthy America.

“This overhaul is about realigning HHS with its core mission: to stop the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again,” Mr. Kennedy said. “It’s a win-win for taxpayers, and for every American we serve.”