Health
10,000 Federal Health Workers to Be Laid Off
The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it was laying off 10,000 employees at the Health and Human Services Department as part of a broad reorganization that reflects the priorities of the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the White House’s drive to shrink the government.
The layoffs are a drastic reduction in personnel for the health department, which had employed about 82,000 people and touches the lives of every American through its oversight of medical care, food and drugs.
The layoffs and reorganization will cut especially deep at two agencies within the department that have been in Mr. Kennedy’s sights: the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those agencies are expected to lose roughly 20 percent of their staff members from the latest cuts alone.
Together with previous buyouts and early retirements spurred by Trump administration policies, the move will pare the health department down to about 62,000 employees, the agency said.
The restructuring is intended to bring communications and other functions directly under Mr. Kennedy. And it includes creating a new division called the Administration for a Healthy America.
“We’re going to do more with less,” Mr. Kennedy said, even as he acknowledged that it would be “a painful period for H.H.S.”
Mr. Kennedy asserted that rates of chronic disease rose under the Biden administration even as the government grew. But he did not provide data to back up his claim; experts say that rates of chronic disease have been rising for the past two decades, including under the first Trump administration. Two 2024 analyses of the issue used C.D.C. data from 2020.
The health secretary pitched the changes as a way to refocus the agency on Americans’ health, but did not outline any specifics on how he would reduce rates of diabetes, heart disease or any other conditions.
Inside the affected agencies, stunned employees struggled to absorb the news. Democrats and outside experts said the move would decimate agencies charged with protecting the health and safety of the American public, depriving it of the scientific expertise necessary to respond to current and future biological threats.
“In the middle of worsening nationwide outbreaks of bird flu and measles, not to mention a fentanyl epidemic, Trump is wrecking vital health agencies with the precision of a bull in a china shop,” said Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat who has been a leader on health issues in Congress.
She called Mr. Kennedy’s comments about doing more with less an “absurd suggestion” that “defies common sense.” Her sentiments were echoed by several agency employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.
They said they worried not for themselves, but for the country, expressing concern about what the layoffs would mean for public health and whether putting safety at risk was really what Americans wanted.
Under the plan, the C.D.C., which handles a wide range of health issues including H.I.V./AIDS, tobacco control, maternal health and the distribution of vaccines for children, would return to its “core mission” of infectious disease.
“Converting C.D.C. to an agency solely focused on infectious diseases takes us back to 1948 without realizing that in 2025, the leading causes of death are noncommunicable disease,” said Dr. Anand Parekh, who served in the health department during the Obama administration and is now the chief medical adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.
The C.D.C. will have its work force cut by about 2,400 employees, and will narrow its focus to “preparing for and responding to epidemics and outbreaks,” an H.H.S. fact sheet said. But it will also absorb the health department’s Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, which has 1,000 employees and was elevated to its own separate agency under the Biden administration during the coronavirus pandemic.
The reorganization will cut 3,500 jobs from the F.D.A., which approves and oversees the safety of a vast swath of the medications and food people eat and rely on for well-being, the fact sheet said. The cuts are said to be administrative, but some of the roles support research and monitoring of the safety and purity of food and drugs, as well as travel planning for inspectors who investigate overseas food and drug facilities.
The National Institutes of Health will lose 1,200 staff members, and the agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid is expected to lose 300.
All of those agencies tend to operate under their own authority, and Mr. Kennedy has been at odds with all of them. Mr. Kennedy assailed them, and other parts of the department, in a YouTube video.
“When I arrived, I found that over half of our employees don’t even come to work,” he claimed. “H.H.S. has more than 100 communications offices and more than 40 I.T. departments and dozens of procurement offices and nine H.R. departments. In many cases, they don’t even talk to each other. They’re mainly operating in silos.”
Mr. Kennedy’s move to take control of health communications is significant. Currently, agencies including the C.D.C., the N.I.H. and the F.D.A. manage their own communications with the press and the public.
During the first Trump administration, the C.D.C. clashed with the White House, which silenced agency scientists and took control of its public outreach about Covid-19. The agency’s chief spokesman quit in frustration last week, saying the C.D.C. has been muzzled since January, when Mr. Trump returned to office.
The 28 divisions of the Health and Human Services Department will be consolidated into 15 new divisions, according to a statement issued by the department. Mr. Kennedy announced the changes in his video. The staff cuts, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, are being made in line with President Trump’s order to carry out the Department of Government Efficiency’s drive to shrink the federal work force.
The plan also includes collapsing 10 regional H.H.S. offices into five.
The department notified union leaders of the “reduction in force” — known as a “RIF” in federal parlance — early Thursday morning by email. The message, obtained by The New York Times, said the layoffs would most likely take effect on May 27 and were “primarily aimed at administrative positions including human resources, information technology, procurement and finance.”
Democrats including Ms. Murray reacted with fury to the cuts. Representative Gerald E. Connolly of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the cuts were troubling amid a bird flu outbreak and an uptick in measles cases.
“This is a grave mistake,” Mr. Connolly said in a statement, “and I have serious concerns about how this will impact Americans’ well-being now and long into the future.”
Republicans seemed to be taking more of a wait-and-see stance. Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana and the chairman of the committee that oversees health, said he had breakfast with Mr. Kennedy on Thursday. Mr. Cassidy suggested he was open to the reorganization but expected the two “would have more conversations” about specific cuts as their effects became clearer.
Doreen Greenwald, the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 18,500 H.H.S. staff members across the country, issued a statement vowing to “pursue every opportunity to fight back on behalf of these dedicated civil servants.”
“The administration’s claims that such deep cuts to the Food and Drug Administration and other critical H.H.S. offices won’t be harmful are preposterous,” Ms. Greenwald said.
Xavier Becerra, who served as health secretary under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., issued a statement saying the cuts would most likely downgrade services to elderly and disabled people, and those with mental health challenges, in addition to preparedness for health crises.
“This has the makings of a man-made disaster,” he said on social media.
Mr. Kennedy suggested in the video that the changes would help his team get more access to data. That prospect has been worrisome to his critics, given Mr. Kennedy’s long history of manipulating figures to advance arguments about what he contends are the risks of vaccines that have widely been deemed safe.
“In one case,” Mr. Kennedy said, “defiant bureaucrats impeded the secretary’s office from accessing the closely guarded databases that might reveal the dangers of certain drugs and medical interventions.”
Mr. Kennedy said the new division he is creating, the Administration for a Healthy America, would combine a number of agencies focused on substance abuse treatment and chemical safety, as well as the agency that administers courts that handle federal claims over vaccine injuries.
“We’re going to consolidate all of these departments and make them accountable to you, the American taxpayer and the American patient,” he said. “These goals will honor the aspirations of the vast majority of existing H.H.S. employees who actually yearn to make America healthy.”
Michael Gold contributed reporting.
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Feeling lonely may take a toll on older adults’ memory — but it may not speed up cognitive decline, according to a new study.
Researchers from Colombia, Spain and Sweden analyzed data from more than 10,000 adults ages 65 to 94 across 12 European countries and found those who reported higher levels of loneliness did worse on memory tests at the start of the study, according to research published this month in the journal Aging & Mental Health.
Over a seven-year period, however, memory decline occurred at a similar rate regardless of how lonely participants felt.
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“The finding that loneliness significantly impacted memory, but not the speed of decline in memory over time was a surprising outcome,” lead author Dr. Luis Carlos Venegas-Sanabria of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario said in a statement.
Loneliness may be linked to memory performance in older adults, a new study suggests. (iStock)
“It suggests that loneliness may play a more prominent role in the initial state of memory than in its progressive decline,” Venegas-Sanabria said, adding that the findings highlight the importance of addressing loneliness as a factor in cognitive performance.
The findings add to debate about whether loneliness contributes to dementia risk. While loneliness and social isolation are often considered risk factors for cognitive decline, research results have been mixed.
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The study looked at data from the long-running Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which tracked 10,217 older adults between 2012 and 2019. Participants were asked to recall words immediately and after a delay to measure memory performance.
Social isolation and loneliness could play a surprising role in cognitive health among seniors. (iStock)
Loneliness was assessed using three questions about how often participants felt isolated, left out or lacking companionship.
About 8% of participants reported high levels of loneliness at the outset. That group tended to be older, more likely to be female and more likely to have conditions such as depression.
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Researchers found that those with higher loneliness had lower scores on both immediate and delayed memory tests at baseline. Still, all groups — regardless of loneliness level — experienced similar declines in memory over time.
The results suggest loneliness may not directly accelerate the progression of memory loss, though it remains linked to poorer cognitive performance overall.
Researchers look at a brain scan at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Experts warn, however, that the findings should not be interpreted to mean loneliness is harmless.
“The finding that lonely older adults start with worse memory but don’t decline faster is actually the most interesting part of the paper, and I think it’s easy to misread,” said Jordan Weiss, Ph.D., a scientific advisor and aging expert at Assisted Living Magazine and a professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
“It likely means loneliness does its damage earlier in life, well before people show up in a study like this at 65-plus,” Weiss told Fox News Digital.
By older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold, an aging expert says. (iStock)
He suggested that by older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold.
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“By the time you’re measuring someone in their late 60s, decades of social connection patterns are already baked in,” he said.
Weiss, who was not involved in the research, added that loneliness may coincide with other health conditions, and noted that participants who felt more isolated also had higher rates of depression, high-blood pressure and diabetes. The link, he said, may reflect a cluster of health risks rather than a direct cause.
“While they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia,” a psychotherapist says. (iStock)
Amy Morin, a Florida-based psychotherapist and author, said the findings reflect a broader pattern in research on loneliness and brain health, and that the relationship may be more complex than it appears.
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“The evidence shows there’s a link between loneliness and cognitive decline but there’s no direct evidence of a cause and effect relationship,” she said. “So while they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia.”
Morin added that loneliness, which can fluctuate, may not be the root of the problem, but rather a symptom of other underlying mental or physical health issues.
Researchers suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging. (iStock)
She said staying socially and mentally engaged is crucial for overall brain health.
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“It’s important to be proactive about social activities,” Morin said. “Joining a book club, having coffee with a friend, or attending faith-based services can be a powerful way to maintain connections in older age.”
The researchers also suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging.
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for comment.
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Research continues to uncover new details on how fasting may help extend life.
A new study published in the journal Nature Communications investigated how intermittent fasting can boost longevity in small worms often used in aging research.
Researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas compared worms that were fed normally to those that underwent a 24-hour fast in early adulthood and were then fed again, according to a press release.
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The scientists measured a variety of factors, including stored fat, gene activity related to fat metabolism and lifespan.
The results showed that the life-boosting benefit did not depend on the fasting itself but on the body’s behavior after eating again.
Experts say sustainability is key when choosing a long-term weight-loss strategy. (iStock)
Study lead Peter Douglas, associate professor of molecular biology and a member of the Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine at UT Southwestern, suggested that these discoveries “shift the focus toward a neglected side of the metabolic coin – the re-feeding phase.”
“Our data suggest that the health-promoting effects of intermittent fasting are not merely a product of the fast itself, but are dependent on how the metabolic machinery recalibrates during the subsequent transition back to a fed state,” he said.
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“Our findings bridge a gap between lipid metabolism and aging research,” he added. “By targeting aging, the single greatest risk factor for human disease, we move beyond treating isolated conditions toward a preventive model of medicine that enhances quality of life for all individuals.”
Lauri Wright, director of nutrition programs at the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health, called this a “high-quality” study that adds an “important nuance to how we think about fasting and longevity.”
Intermittent fasting typically involves limiting meals to an eight-hour daily window or fasting every other day. (iStock)
The benefits of the refeeding phase after fasting were “especially interesting,” Wright, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital.
“The researchers showed that longevity was linked to the body’s ability to turn off fat breakdown after fasting, allowing cells to restore energy balance,” she reiterated.
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“From a scientific standpoint, that’s a meaningful shift because it suggests fasting is not just about burning fat, but about metabolic flexibility.”
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Fasting may support longevity through triggering metabolic switching, enhancing cellular repair and stress resistance and improving markers like insulin sensitivity, research shows.
Limitations and cautions
Although this study provides “important insight” on the power of refeeding, Wright noted that the findings should be approached with caution, as the study was done on worms and cannot always be translated to humans.
“Additionally, it explains how a process might work in a controlled lab condition rather than real-world eating behaviors,” she added as a limitation. “Finally, the study is short-term and doesn’t give us the long-term translation on lifespan outcomes.”
The review found intermittent fasting was barely more effective than doing nothing, according to the study authors. (iStock)
Wright cautioned that fasting is “not a magic solution for longevity, and how you eat overall matters more than when you eat.”
“I advise, first and foremost, to focus on diet quality, including a variety of fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and minimally processed foods,” she said.
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For those who are considering fasting, it’s better to stick with a moderate plan — like a 12- to 14-hour overnight fast — rather than going to extremes, Wright said. After fasting, she recommends focusing on well-balanced meals.
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Several groups of people should be cautioned against fasting, according to Wright, including those with diabetes who are on insulin or hypoglycemic medications, those who are pregnant or breastfeeding, anyone with a history of eating disorders and older adults at risk of malnutrition.
Anyone considering intermittent fasting should consult with a doctor before starting.
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