Thousands of FDA staff fired in latest RIF

Thousands of workers at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were abruptly fired on 1 April as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to reduce the size of the federal government. Many agency staff only found out they had been let go after commuting to work then being told to go home.

Since last week, thousands of workers have been on tenterhooks after Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. announced an impending reduction in force (RIF) of approximately 10,000 positions, including about 3,500 workers from FDA. On Monday, there were indications that the RIF notifications were imminent, and a little after 5 am Tuesday, emails started hitting inboxes telling staff they had been fired (Related: HHS to cut 10,000 more jobs across HHS, including 3,500 from FDA, Regulatory Focus, 27 March 2025).

According to sources who spoke to Focus, some workers arriving at FDA’s White Oak headquarters were told they had 45 minutes to collect their personal belongings and leave since they had been fired. They also said some workers broke down in tears after learning they had been let go.

Alex Saint, a strategic communications specialist at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) was part of the RIF. She said that before she could get ready to drive the hourlong commute to work at FDA’s Hillandale building in Silver Spring, MD, from her home in Virginia, she was notified by her colleagues and supervisor that the entire CDER communications office had been purged except for two people who maintain their websites and who are expected to retire in a few weeks.

Saint said that she received an email notifying her that she was put on administrative leave and her last day with FDA would be 2 June. She and other workers Focus interviewed noted that the termination emails were riddled with mistakes, including asking laid-off staff to reach out to an FDA official if they have any questions, except that official had left FDA a few weeks ago.

"There's no one to post drug labels, there's no one to post recall notices, there's no one to write a drug safety communication, everything's gone," Saint told Focus. "We know it's rushed, and it wasn't done properly and I expect a lot of people to be appealing what happened today."

According to sources who spoke to Focus and were granted anonymity due to fear of reprisal, the latest RIF seems to have disproportionately affected FDA’s communications, policy, management, and other offices that are not part of its regulatory review divisions. One said that FDA’s Office of Inspections and Investigations (OII) San Francisco laboratory has been decimated in the RIF.

“So, we are keeping inspectors but not the people who test the samples,” they said.

Focus reached out to HHS for additional details and clarification about the full impact of the RIF and was directed to Kennedy’s statements about the RIF and a fact sheet from last week.

Saint, who has been with FDA for four years, said that there are several venues for FDA staff to contest the firings, including appealing to the Merit System Protection Board within 30 days of the firing, which she said she will do. She said that she still has her work laptop, cell phone, and other equipment that the agency provided, but she hasn't been instructed on how to return it.

According to reports, several top-level FDA officials were also fired as part of the latest RIF, including Peter Stein, director of the Office of New Drugs (OND); Brian King, director of the Center for Tobacco Products (CBT), and Julie Tierney, who was expected to lead the Center for Biologics Research and Evaluation (CBER) after Peter Marks resigned. Currently, FDA’s leadership page has blank slots for acting CBER director and chief counsel. (RELATED: Sweeping health agency cuts at FDA, CDC, CMS and more divisions begin, Fierce Healthcare, 1 April 2025)

While some of her coworkers had started looking for new employment before today, Saint said that, even considering the turmoil at FDA, she still held hope that she would survive the purge.

"I wanted to stay as long as I could because I'm in it for the public service,” said Saint. “I wanted to make sure that as long as I have the opportunity to be part of it, that people got clear information that they could take action on issues of public health."

Saint said that many of her former co-workers are angry, not just because of how the RIF was handled but because they feel betrayed. She also noted that eliminating her position would not save American taxpayers any money since she is funded through user fees.

“We are proud of the work that we do and the service that we provide and the impact that we provide to the American public,” she said. “The fact that they are being robbed of that is infuriating… If your goal is radical transparency, stripping all of the health agencies of their ability to communicate is a really interesting way of going about it."

Another source who spoke to Focus and was granted anonymity due to fear of professional reprisal said they were expecting the RIF letter Monday night and kept checking their email to see if they had been fired until close to midnight. After not seeing an email, they thought they were safe for the time being and drove the hour-long commute to their Denver field office to start work, only to find the email that they were laid off and drove home (Related: Sources: FDA staff being told to take laptops home in anticipation of RIF email, Regulatory Focus, 31 March 2025).

While they said they knew this was a possibility based on everything they've read and heard the past few weeks, the news still came as a shock. They added that they wanted to stay in government service because they believe in FDA's mission to save lives, but now they will have to reassess their finances and look for a job in a saturated job market.

"It's not a great situation," they said. "I wanted to stay with the government my entire career, and that's been burned to the ground. One thing this whole experience has shown me is how incredible and smart everyone [at FDA] is because I don't think they're going to get talent like that back.”

Stakeholders expressed their outrage over the RIF. In a LinkedIn post, former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said he was overwhelmed with messages about the RIF.

"The FDA as we've known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed," he said. "I believe that history will see this a huge mistake.

"I will be glad if I'm proven wrong, but even then, there is no good reason to treat people this way," he added. "It will be interesting to hear from the new leadership how they plan to put 'Humpty Dumpty' back together again."

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee warned that the RIF puts the health of Americans at risk

“They fired scientific experts who keep Americans safe from infectious diseases, including HIV, tuberculosis, and measles," she said. "We have already seen a resurgence of, and deaths caused by, measles—a disease that had been eradicated in America—and we will see new disease outbreaks going forward.

"They fired people tasked with making sure our food and drugs are inspected and safe," she added. "They fired scientists who are working on cures and treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and other debilitating diseases. They fired experts who are helping to combat the opioid and substance use crisis."

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce (E&C) Committee also issued a similar dire warning in a letter to Kennedy.

“This is no time to carelessly eviscerate our health workforce,” committee members wrote. “There is an ongoing risk of avian flu outbreaks and more cases of measles already this year than in the past five years.

"Americans deserve the benefit of numerous treatments and cures that are being diligently researched and examined through clinical trials at NIH and elsewhere within HHS," they added. "They also deserve access to safe and effective medical products that are reviewed by FDA within the congressionally mandated timelines.”

The Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM) said it was "deeply concerned" upon news of top FDA officials at the agency's generic drugs and biologics programs being fired. While they support FDA efficiency, they warned that the staffing cuts could delay treatments getting to patients.

"Today’s staff reductions may undermine the Agency’s ability to approve and ensure the safety of lower-cost generic and biosimilar medicines," said AAM CEO John Murphy. "The sustainability of the generic industry in the U.S. is already threatened due to increasingly consolidated purchaser markets, unsustainably low reimbursement levels, and continued threats to new launches from patent games by brand drug manufacturers."

"A decrease in the expertise and capacity within the FDA to review and approve generic and biosimilar medicines will severely and broadly impact patient care," he added.

However, not everyone is as distraught by the firing of HHS workers. Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN), a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, reshared a video on the social media platform X, where he said an HHS worker who was fired on 14 February deserved to be fired and called him a "clown."

Thousands of FDA staff fired in latest RIF

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