CDC/HHS defunding, layoffs, and staff resignations Case HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has overseen a large-scale restructuring of the department since March 2025. Documentation On March 27, 2025, HHS announced plans to cut about 10,000 full-time employees, on top of roughly 10,000 who had already left through early retirement and other offers - shrinking the department by about 25%, to roughly 62,000 employees. The CDC alone was set to lose about 2,400 employees. The cuts were tied to a February 11, 2025 executive order directing federal agencies to plan large-scale workforce reductions in coordination with DOGE. HHS's discretionary budget was proposed to fall from $127 billion in 2025 to $95 billion in 2026, with the NIH's 27 institutes proposed to be consolidated to 8. Nearly the entire CDC Division of Blood Disorders and Public Health Genomics was put on administrative leave in the initial round; 96 medical and health organizations, including the American Society of Hematology, urged Kennedy to reverse it, warning of 'severe and irreversible consequences' for patients with blood diseases. Kennedy subsequently walked back about 20% of the initial cuts. By June 2025, Kennedy told Congress HHS had reinstated 722 CDC workers, 220 NIH employees, and 300+ staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (including a 9/11 first-responder care program that had been cut). On October 11, 2025, amid a government shutdown, HHS dismissed more than 1,000 additional scientists, doctors, and public health officials in a late-Friday-night action, wiping out entire offices handling disease-outbreak investigation and data collection; many were reinstated within days after public backlash. An HHS spokesperson called the CDC 'a bloated bureaucracy' in response to criticism. Current and former CDC employees have publicly called for Kennedy's resignation; weekly protests organized by a group called 'Fired But Fighting' have continued outside CDC's Atlanta headquarters. A lawsuit brought by four state attorneys general challenges more than $600 million in CDC grant cuts, naming OMB Director Russell Vought as lead defendant. Note HHS calls the cuts an efficiency restructuring, and whether some layoffs were illegal has not yet been decided. Sources [1] FierceHealthcare (https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/severe-and-irreversible-consequences-hhs-dismantling-sparks-calls-worker-reinstatements) [2] BioPharma Dive (https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/hhs-fda-restructuring-layoffs-tracker/741684/) [3] BioPharma Dive (https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/hhs-layoffs-restructuring-kennedy-fda-cms-trump/743694/) [4] Healthcare Dive (https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/rfk-jr-robert-f-kennedy-details-hhs-rehirings-after-mass-layoffs/751532/) [5] Axios (https://www.axios.com/local/atlanta/2025/06/10/cdc-workers-protest-walk-out-advisory-committee-rfk) [6] MS NOW (https://www.ms.now/news/cdc-rfk-jr-shutdown-layoffs-goal-rcna237035) [7] NPR (https://www.npr.org/tags/126936263/cdc) Connections Related — Food safety: inspector cuts and foodborne illness Same HHS/USDA public-health oversight retrenchment during the same period. Related — RFK Jr.'s false and misleading health claims as HHS Secretary Same agency (HHS) and same period; leadership conduct and staffing cuts under the same administration.