Health
F.D.A. Reinstates Fired Medical Device, Food and Legal Staffers
The Food and Drug Administration has reinstated dozens of specialized employees involved in food safety, review of medical devices and other areas who were laid off last week, according to more than a dozen workers who got called back.
The total number of employees recalled was not immediately clear. But a person familiar with the conversations said nearly all of the roughly 180 medical division employees who had been let go would get their jobs back. More than a dozen workers across a handful of teams said that they had received a call or email reinstating their employment; some reported that up to a dozen others on their teams had also been brought back.
The F.D.A. and its parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, did not respond to requests for comment.
The workers had been fired as part of the Trump administration’s efforts, led by Elon Musk, to significantly downsize the federal government and cut costs. But the salaries of many of the fired F.D.A. staff members had been funded by fees companies pay the F.D.A., not taxpayer money.
Many of the reinstated jobs were financed by those kinds of fees, but some such employees were still out of work. Those whose job were funded by an excise tax on cigarettes, for example, said they were not called back to work over the weekend. Those workers reviewed applications for new tobacco products and studied the safety of emerging tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and devices that heat up tobacco but do not burn it.
On Friday, The New York Times featured the accounts of laid-off staff members who reviewed the safety of surgical robots, cardiovascular devices and diabetes-care systems that infuse insulin. All had their jobs back as of Monday morning.
AdvaMed, a trade association for medical device makers, had pushed the administration in a letter and in meetings to ensure that workers who review those products got their jobs back. The industry’s funds have helped the device review division hire experts, including doctors with experience using the devices. The industry funds are approved periodically in agreements passed by Congress that also include strict deadlines to make approval decisions.
Reinstated workers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation, said about a dozen staffers from the agency’s chief counsel got their jobs back, including lawyers who supported medication policy. About a dozen who oversee cardiovascular devices and another 12 who authorize artificial intelligence software programs were also restored. Others were called back to their jobs assessing food-chemical safety, a priority of the new health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In interviews, employees who returned on Monday reported a feeling of whiplash and frustration, but also of relief to get back to work.
Dr. Robert Califf, F.D.A. commissioner during the Biden administration, called the staff cuts “anti-efficiency” because many recent hires had been recruited to fill knowledge gaps at the agency, including in artificial intelligence and food-chemical safety. He also said the cuts were made with no regard to well-being of workers.
“It’s despicable to treat fellow human beings this way and a sign of immaturity of the people doing it,” he said in a text message on Monday.
The fired workers had uniformly been told that their performance was “not adequate to justify further employment by the agency.” Yet many of the dismissed workers — reinstated and not — said their performance reviews from the agency had been excellent.
Alice Callahan contributed reporting.
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The health benefits of morning coffee may go beyond a wake-up call, according to a massive new study linking the beverage to a significantly lower risk of severe liver disease, liver cancer and liver-related death.
Published in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the research used data from 354,957 participants enrolled in the UK Biobank.
Researchers tracked individuals who had no history of cirrhosis or liver cancer at the start of the study for an average of 13 years, according to a press release.
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Participants who drank one to two cups of coffee daily showed a 20% lower risk of developing cirrhosis and a 31% lower risk of liver-related mortality compared to non-coffee drinkers.
The protective effects became even more noticeable at higher levels of consumption.
Data revealed that heavy coffee drinkers had significantly lower levels of liver fat and liver iron. (iStock)
Individuals who drank five or more cups of coffee per day experienced a 32% reduction in cirrhosis risk, a 42% lower risk of liver-related death and a 47% lower risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common form of primary liver cancer.
While previous studies have hinted at coffee’s positive relationship with liver health, this study provides biological evidence to support the statistical trends, the researchers said.
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To better understand why coffee may protect the liver, the researchers conducted additional analyses using imaging data from a subgroup of nearly 29,000 participants and blood samples from approximately 50,000 individuals.
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The data showed that heavy coffee drinkers had significantly lower levels of liver fat and liver iron, as well as lower odds of developing fibroinflammation, which is the scarring and inflammation that often precedes permanent liver damage.
Participants who drank one to two cups of coffee daily showed a 20% lower risk of developing cirrhosis. (iStock)
The blood analysis linked coffee consumption with lower levels of some proteins known to trigger inflammation and tissue scarring, along with higher levels of proteins essential for healthy liver function.
Notably, the study found that the liver-protective benefits were similar for both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, suggesting that these benefits are driven by naturally occurring compounds not related to caffeine.
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While the benefits persisted regardless of whether the coffee was consumed black or with sweeteners, the researchers observed that adding sugar or artificial sweeteners slightly weakened the beneficial effects, particularly concerning markers of liver inflammation.
Researchers observed that adding sugar or artificial sweeteners slightly weakened the positive effects. (iStock)
While these findings suggest that coffee consumption is an accessible dietary habit for supporting liver health, the authors noted that it should serve as a complement rather than a replacement for standard preventative health practices.
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Because the research relied on self-reported dietary questionnaires from the UK Biobank, the findings could be susceptible to changes in participants’ coffee-drinking habits over the 13-year follow-up period.
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Additionally, as an observational study, it can only establish a strong correlation and cannot prove cause and effect, as other factors may influence the outcomes.
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