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Significant staffing reductions were implemented on Tuesday in teams managing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These cuts were part of a broader initiative directed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to multiple sources.
FOIA requests play a vital role in ensuring public access to government data and records, making the function of these teams essential for journalists, advocacy groups, and the general public.
All personnel in the CDC’s FOIA office were terminated, as reported by two officials. Meanwhile, two-thirds of the FDA personnel engaged in processing records requests were also laid off, reducing their workforce to just 50 staff members.
According to an FDA official, most of the remaining personnel do not handle FOIA processing; instead, they are involved in litigation and other disclosure-related tasks. The fate of numerous outstanding requests at both agencies remains uncertain.
“There is essentially no staff available for most types of FOIA requests,” the FDA official stated.
Furthermore, a significant number of FOIA staff at the National Institutes of Health were also affected by the layoffs, although some positions were retained. The rationale behind retaining certain employees while cutting others was not disclosed, which appears to contradict federal guidelines that prioritize job security based on military and federal service.
According to an HHS official, the objective of these cuts is to establish a centralized unit to manage FOIA requests across the department, thereby simplifying the process for the public. While the specifics of the restructured FOIA process at HHS are still being developed, the goal is to preserve the foundational work previously conducted by the dismissed staff.
These staffing eliminations occur amid a tightening of oversight by the department’s public affairs team, led by Kennedy’s former campaign press secretary, Stefanie Spear. Reports indicate that this team has been intensifying control over communications issued by health agencies, taking unprecedented actions to regulate scientific publications at the CDC.
According to multiple sources, communications staff have been among those most significantly impacted by the cuts, with many, if not all, personnel in the public affairs divisions of the CDC, FDA, and Health Resources and Services Administration experiencing layoffs. During a recent White House meeting, Kennedy referred to the numerous communications teams in the department as “redundancies” that needed to be streamlined.
Kennedy has openly criticized the FOIA response practices of previous administrations, advocating for lawsuits aimed at expediting and broadening responses to record requests. At a Senate hearing earlier this year, he emphasized the importance of transparency for public health agencies to regain the trust of the American people. “Public health agencies should be transparent,” he stated. “If we want Americans to restore trust in the public health agencies, we need transparency.”
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