Dr. Anthony Fauci’s successor is among the thousands to be dismissed from their roles in the health secretary’s latest wave of federal cuts that went into effect on Tuesday.
Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was sacked from the agency, which had a $6.3 billion annual budget, CNN reported.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his plans to slash 10,000 full-time employees across departments last week. This, in addition to the 10,000 employees who opted to leave, brings down the total number of staff from 82,000 to 62,000.
ADVERTISEMENT
Kennedy claimed that the changes would reduce “bureaucratic sprawl” and promised that the department could achieve more with less.
Those being let go worked in a wide range of departments, including those responsible for responding to disease outbreaks, approving new drugs, and providing insurance for the poorest Americans.
In Sept. 2023, Marrazzo took over the NIH’s Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, putting an end to Fauci’s 38-year run.
She was placed on administrative leave effective Tuesday, and offered a reassignment to a different part of the HHS, according to a person familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported.
She was asked to join HHS’s Indian Health Service division, which specifically provides health services to Indigenous Americans and Native Alaskans.
Thomas Nagy told Marrazzo about the change on Monday, according to an email viewed by Bloomberg. The NIH’s headquarters are in Maryland which is where the infectious disease expert seems to be based, according to her LinkedIn.
However, HHS’s backhanded proposal would reassign her to a different location. Suggestions included regions in Alaska, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.
The agency requested feedback and granted her till 5 p.m. on Wednesday to respond.
Since the announcement, employees have been left hanging as they anxiously await their fate. “What is really galling and hard is that supervisors and leaders aren’t being told anything, they just have to wait and see which of their staff get notices,” a senior official from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Tuesday.
“This [reduction in force] action does not reflect directly on your service, performance or conduct,” an email sent to a CDC staff member by Thomas J. Nagy Jr, the deputy assistant secretary for human resources at HHS, and obtained by CNN read. The staffer was also informed that they would be placed on temporary leave with no access to the building.
It seems like no one was spared in the Tuesday cuts that swept across leadership, longtime staffers, scientists, and administrators.
“It’s a bloodbath,” a U.S. Food and Drug Administration employee said.
Cuts seeped into the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention slashed the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the Office of Smoking and Health, Violence Prevention Division, and HIV offices.
At the FDA, workers in the Office of New Drugs, Office of Policy & International Engagement, and Office of Regulatory Programs are among those receiving notice.
