Former FDA leaders say staff cuts are killing the agency
Two former FDA leaders have taken to social media to say that the agency as we know it no longer exists.
Robert Califf, who stepped down from his post as Food and Drug Administration commissioner earlier this year, wrote on LinkedIn that the agency “is finished.” His pronouncement came as the first wave of firings at the agency went into effect. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. oversees the FDA and is firing 3,500 people from the agency.
Some of the firings are impacting food safety operations such as the inspection of food and food facilities, the investigation of foodborne illness outbreaks, and research on chemicals added to foods. Many people in communications and Freedom of Information Act positions are also being fired, bringing into question the FDA’s ability to communicate with the public and seeming to be counter to Kennedys vow to promote “radical transparency.”
“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,” Califf wrote on LinkedIn, saying he’s been “overwhelmed with messages about the firings.”
“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.
“It will be interesting to hear from the new leadership how they plan to put ‘Humpty Dumpty’ back together again.”
Another former FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, also said the layoffs will cause problems. He said on X that the FDA was once known to lag behind its European counterparts in medical advances, but, during the past 25 years, “we built the FDA into the most efficient, forward-leaning drug regulatory agency in the world—and established the U.S. as the global center of biopharmaceutical innovation.”
“Today, the cumulative barrage on that drug-discovery enterprise, threatens to swiftly bring back those frustrating delays for American consumers, particularly affecting rare diseases and areas of significant unmet medical need.”
Overall, Secretary Kennedy plans to fire 10,000 of the employees in the Department of Health and Human Services as part of the reorganization announced this past week. Kennedy said it would be a “painful period for HHS.”
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