Multiple Leaders Purged At NIH, CDC And FDA As Massive Layoffs Begin At U.S. Health Agencies

NIH — The National Institutes of Health is among the health agencies whose senior leaders have been put on leave. (Francis Chung/Politico/AP)

By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Rachel Roubein and Joel Achenbach

In emails that began arriving late Monday, senior leaders across the Department of Health and Human Services were put on administrative leave and offered reassignment to remote locations at the Indian Health Service as other employees began receiving layoff notices.

At the National Institutes of Health, a nearly $48 billion biomedical research agency, at least five top leaders were put on leave. Among those offered reassignment were the infectious-disease institute director Jeanne Marrazzo, according to emails obtained by The Washington Post and multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Marrazzo had succeeded Anthony S. Fauci as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an institute that helped lead the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and that later became a target of Republicans.

According to an email reviewed by The Post, the letters say: “The Department of Health and Human Services proposes to reassign you as part of a broader effort to strengthen the Department and more effectively promote the health of the American people.”

They offer reassignment to a number of locations, including Alaska; Billings, Montana; the Navajo Nation; and Oklahoma, and ask leaders to respond with a preference by Wednesday at 5 p.m. Eastern.

Other HHS agency leaders were also removed on the heels of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s announcement last week of a sweeping reduction of the department that ensures the safety of the nation’s food and drugs and funds biomedical research and discovery.

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