The Trump administration carried out another wave of mass terminations across the Health and Human Services Department over the weekend, continuing a turbulent purge of the federal workforce that career officials and lawmakers warned would disrupt essential programs and hinder efforts to monitor public health threats.
The layoffs affected employees at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, according to multiple sources familiar with the firings. Additionally, staff from the office overseeing emergency preparedness and response were also let go.
These terminations were part of a broader effort to eliminate approximately 3,600 probationary employees from the department, an initiative that began earlier in the week, primarily impacting staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
On Friday, Trump officials framed the layoffs, carried out by billionaire Elon Musk’s unofficial Department of Government Efficiency, as calculated decisions designed to protect HHS’ core functions.
However, insiders over the weekend contested that characterization, describing the cuts as sweeping and, at times, indiscriminate—leaving even some Trump political appointees uncertain about which employees were being dismissed and why.
Among those affected were officials working on Medicare and Medicaid initiatives aimed at improving beneficiary care at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, as well as those in the CMS office responsible for overseeing Obamacare.
The FDA layoffs included staff involved in the regulation of prescription drugs and medical devices, including employees who review medical device products, according to three sources familiar with the firings. The reductions have sparked concerns that they could slow the agency’s ability to assess and approve new medical technologies.
The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response within HHS was also impacted, drawing sharp criticism from public health experts who warned that the cuts could weaken the government’s ability to respond to health threats such as bird flu.
The administration is already expected to eliminate most of the CDC’s public health fellows, with some receiving termination notices over the weekend—including fellows from the Laboratory Leadership Service who conduct public health research, according to a former HHS official.
“On day one, the new HHS secretary is dismantling the very agencies that are essential to making America healthy again,” said Reshma Ramachandran, a Yale health professor who chairs the FDA task force for the nonprofit Doctors for America.
Democratic lawmakers have strongly condemned the firings, viewing them as a serious risk to public health. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) warned on Friday that the deep cuts at the CDC “leave Americans vulnerable to disease and devastate the careers and livelihoods of some of the world’s most talented doctors and scientists.”
The layoffs at CMS, FDA, and ASPR came just one day after Trump officials and other media outlets that they had taken care to protect employees working in critical areas such as Medicare, Medicaid, and emergency preparedness.
On Sunday, an administration official insisted that the weekend terminations were consistent with that policy. The official argued that the cuts at the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response only affected employees not directly involved in emergency preparedness, such as those in legislative affairs or human resources.
Similarly, they maintained that CMMI was not one of the offices directly responsible for federal health programs, unlike CMS’ Center for Medicare and Center for Medicaid.
Despite these assurances, health officials warned that the layoffs would still have significant repercussions in these crucial areas and questioned whether the DOGE officials responsible for the terminations fully understood the employees’ roles before making their decisions.
“You’ve got policy people operating on a broad vision, and then you have DOGE,” said one former HHS employee. “Nobody knows who these people are. They’re acting behind the scenes with their own priorities.”
Health and Human Services Department (Photo: AP)
Arielle Kane, a CMMI official who was terminated on Saturday, told that she had been working on a Medicaid pilot program operating in 15 states aimed at improving maternal health outcomes—an area where the U.S. has long lagged behind other nations.
Another recently fired CMMI employee, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation, had been focused on enhancing care for Medicare Advantage enrollees.
At least 80 CMS employees were also dismissed from the agency’s Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, which administers Obamacare and other programs, according to a source familiar with the layoffs.
Some of those affected were responsible for enforcing a ban on surprise medical billing, legislation passed during Trump’s first term, as well as efforts to combat broker fraud on the Obamacare exchanges.
The FDA layoffs included staff working on artificial intelligence and technology, two sources said. Another source noted that cuts were made in the FDA office responsible for conducting inspections and criminal investigations, as well as cancellations of certain information technology contracts.
Defending the decision-making process, a Trump administration official stated that DOGE had assigned an HHS employee to consult with department leaders to determine whether each probationary employee was essential to the agency’s overall function. The official declined to identify the HHS employee involved.
However, those within HHS described a chaotic and disorganized process in the days leading up to the layoffs, contradicting the administration’s portrayal of a careful and methodical effort.
Managers across multiple agencies scrambled to review lists of probationary employees eligible for termination—some of which contained errors—and rushed to justify keeping those deemed essential within short deadlines.
Meanwhile, many Trump political appointees within the health department remained in the dark about how many staff would be cut and what criteria were being used.
The terminations themselves were conducted inconsistently, with some employees receiving official letters while others were abruptly locked out of their email accounts without prior notice.
Some of the termination letters, cited “inadequate performance” as the reason for dismissal—despite performance evaluations from as recently as last month indicating that these employees were excelling.
By 4 p.m. on Friday, supervisors at CMMI reassured concerned employees that they were safe from what many in the department had begun calling the “Valentine’s Day Massacre.”
While they had not received a final list of terminations, they believed they had convinced DOGE officials of the office’s importance to the administration’s health agenda.
Then the termination emails started arriving. Some employees were fired that evening, while others did not receive their notices until Saturday—leaving them to inform their supervisors themselves that they would not be returning to work.
With no clear indication of when the purge will conclude, those who remain employed spent Sunday anxiously checking their emails, awaiting any updates on their fate.
