The Deep Cuts At Health And Human Services

 

Pseudo-science pushing, brain worm host Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., an utter disgrace to his family, is overseeing deep cuts in the staffs at CDC, NIH and the Food and Drug Administration, cuts that will impact America's health.  RFK, Jr.'s slogan of "Make America Healthy Again" is an Orwellian take on what will actually happen with the anti-vaccine, anti-health research Secretary.  From Jonathan Cohn at The Bulwark:

"On Tuesday morning, the Department of Health and Human Services informed thousands of employees they were losing their jobs. The notices came by email and, in one sense, they were not a surprise. Last Thursday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the layoffs were imminent, as part of a broader restructuring designed to shrink the department’s total workforce by 25 percent.

But it’s one thing to know those layoffs are coming, quite another to learn about the real people who will no longer have jobs, the real positions that will no longer exist, and the real divisions that will no longer operate as they did before.

The sheer breadth of the cuts is staggering: The layoffs affected agencies that exist to fight deadly pathogens, to protect the nation’s drug supply, to finance and carry out cutting-edge research—along with countless other divisions and offices that touch everything from rural health to early childhood care."  (our emphasis)

RFK, Jr., will waste resources that could be going to these efforts by ginning up a "study" of the purported connection between vaccines and autism, a hobby horse of his that has been debunked for years, having a fellow vaccine denier head up the operation.  Ominously, HHS' leading scientist on vaccines, Dr. Peter Marks, resigned after blasting RFK, Jr.'s dangerous unscientific misinformation on vaccines. Marks was instrumental in the development of COVID-19 vaccines which saved millions of lives.

As we noted yesterday, the Malignant Fascist has decided to give Secretary Brain Worm responsibility for special needs and neurodivergent children, a program to be ripped out of the gutted Department of Education.  Sadly and unnecessarily, lives will be turned inside out and lost while this arrogant and unqualified health charlatan remains at the head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

BONUS:  As Cheryl Rofer put it --

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. 

 ... and so much more.