Top federal health leaders across the Department of Health and Human Services were effectively ousted Tuesday from their posts, with many reassigned to positions at the Indian Health Service, or IHS, as part of a sweeping restructuring ordered by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Senior leaders at multiple agencies were removed, multiple health officials said, including Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo. Marrazzo replaced Dr. Anthony Fauci as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, senior officials put on leave and reassigned to the Indian Health Service include Dr. Karen Hacker, head of the agency’s chronic disease teams, Kayla Laserson, head of its global health center and Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of the CDC’s STD and HIV/AIDS center.
“The revolution begins today!” Kennedy posted Tuesday on X.
In an email to NIH staff sent Tuesday, obtained by CBS News, NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said he recognized he was joining the agency “at a time of tremendous change.”
“Every inch of the federal government is under scrutiny—and NIH is not exempt,” Bhattacharya said, expressing gratitude to those being let go and calling for “an entirely new approach” to how administrative functions will be carried out.
“As we navigate these challenges, I will do my best to lead NIH through these reforms, implement new policies humanely, and endeavor to earn your trust,” he said.
A top-ranking official at another HHS agency was also reassigned, one official familiar with the move said. All the other options they were given would have involved relocating, the official said they were told.
Another official said that senior leaders in their team had been offered reassignment to remote locations several states away, one official said. At the Food and Drug Administration, one official had been told that refusing the reassignment would result in them losing their severance pay.
“How insulting to IHS and the center directors. The IHS sites fill critical gaps, they aren’t an American Gulag Archipelago,” one CDC official said.
Other top officials effectively ousted Tuesday include Dr. John Howard, head of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, and Dr. Brian King, the top regulator of tobacco products at the Food and Drug Administration, current and former officials said.
In a statement, an official for the department said that the Indian Health Service was not impacted by this week’s cuts and that that the agency “has long faced challenges related to staffing shortages.”
“To address staffing needs and support the IHS in fulfilling its mission, HHS has invited certain individuals to consider positions within the IHS. These invitations are voluntary, and individuals have the option to accept or decline,” the official said.
The cuts and reassignments come as many of the teams under these leaders have been largely gutted in whole, as part of the 10,000 workers that Kennedy and the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency task force has said they would remove as part of the restructuring.
New leaders at the FDA and NIH also started on the job Tuesday, HHS announced. They were confirmed by the Senate earlier this month.
The CDC ranked as one of the agency’s with the largest workforce cuts in the list published by HHS, with 2,400 employees to be laid off.
In Hacker’s center at the CDC, multiple teams were gutted by the layoffs, according to a list circulated among agency officials, including the Division of Reproductive Health, Division of Population Health and Office of Smoking and Health. Under Mermin’s STD and HIV/AIDS center, tuberculosis elimination and studies branches were cut.
It comes after several top officials have already resigned or been forced out at federal health agencies, including the FDA’s top vaccines official Dr. Peter Marks last week and the agency’s top food safety and nutrition official earlier this year.
More resignations or cuts are expected in the coming weeks, officials said, as leaders at the agencies wrestle with the chaos caused by the cuts.
Many agency leaders said they had been left in the dark about the cuts, asking staff to let them know whether they had received reduction-in-force notices Tuesday.
