The Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce have led to layoffs at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), impacting newly hired personnel who review the safety of food components, medical devices, and other products.
Probationary employees were notified of their job eliminations. The dismissals appeared to concentrate on staff within the agency’s centres for food, medical devices, and tobacco products. It was uncertain whether the layoffs extended to FDA employees involved in drug evaluations.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) planned to terminate a significant number of probationary employees across its agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), FDA, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Sources indicated that a number of probationary employees at the CDC would be laid off, though the final number was lower than initially projected. These layoffs were not expected to impact the Epidemic Intelligence Service.
The FDA, located in Maryland, currently employs nearly twenty thousand people. HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. has been critical of the FDA. The recent cuts at the FDA involve personnel responsible for assessing the safety of novel food additives and ingredients.
A considerable portion of the FDA’s budget comes from fees paid by the companies it regulates. A former FDA official expressed concerns that cutting recent hires could eliminate staffers with up-to-date technical skills.
The FDA’s inspection force has been strained in recent years. Inspectors are responsible for overseeing thousands of facilities worldwide, though the agency faced a backlog of uninspected drug facilities. The agency’s inspection team has faced criticism for not moving faster to catch recent problems involving infant formula, baby food, and eye drops.
The layoffs at the FDA have included staff within user-fee-funded activities, such as reviewing medical products. Cuts have reduced teams regulating artificial intelligence and digital health programmes. Some employees received letters criticising their performance, though managers stated performance was not an issue.