RFK Jr Guts The Department of Health and Human Services
By 
Yesterday Secretary of Health and Human Services began the destruction of the American health system. Large numbers of people, starting with the heads of agencies, were fired from NIH, CDC, and FDA. We no longer need drug research, pandemic planning, or regulations to assure the safety of food and drugs, if we just think correctly. And Kennedy plans to have outdoor camps with healthy exercise to help us think correctly.
At NIH, Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; H. Clifford Lane, her deputy, and Emily Erbelding, director of the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, are out. Erbelding and others were offered jobs with the Indian Health Service at a remote location.
At the CDC, senior leaders who oversee global health, infectious diseases, chronic disease, HIV, sexually transmitted disease, tuberculosis, outbreak forecasting and information technology were among officials notified that they would be reassigned to the Indian Health Service.
At the FDA, Peter Stein, head of the agency’s Office of New Drugs, and Brian King, head of the FDA’s tobacco center were removed. In all three agencies, unknown numbers of staff across job classifications were fired.
Also fired were people at major federal aging, disability and anti-poverty programs. The Meals on Wheels program for older and disabled people was defunded. Every staffer was laid off from the Division of Energy Assistance, according to two employees who lost their jobs on Tuesday, Andrew Germain and Vikki Pretlow. The office runs the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program,or LIHEAP,which helps 5.9 million low-income households pay heat and cooling bills and pay for home repairs to boost energy efficiency.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are also affected.
“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “This Department will do more – a lot more – at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”
Between retirements and firings, something like 20,000 people will leave the agency, which employed 82,000.
Say goodbye to research on Alzheimer’s dementia, m-RNA vaccine for cancer of the pancreas, surveillance of bird flu, and reliable food and drugs.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner