Washington (AP) – When Health Minister Robert F. announced. Kennedy Junior’s work cuts at his ministry last month, said that safety inspectors who oversee American food and drugs will not be affected.
These employees remain in the food and medicine management, but dozens of others who supported their work have been. Among the departed employees are people who have seized complex international flights to remote Indian pharmaceutical factories, laboratory scientists who tested foodstuffs for pollution, and communications specialists who alerted the public to call for urgent safety.
Possible disorders in front of the tense inspection force are already in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) so large that agency leaders have recently hurried to employ external contractors to replace some divorced workers, starting with those who arranged foreign travel, according to employees with direct knowledge of the situation who spoke on the condition that his identity does not disclose. Under the FDA rules (FDA), employees are prohibited from discussing the issues of the sensitive agency publicly without permission.
The FDA (FDA) has been struggling for years to intensify inspections after he resigned or retired from phase staff for a long time during Covid-19. The efforts made to recruit new inspectors have fallen into the job demands: months of travel, modest wages and hard work under difficult external conditions.
“If you assemble all this together, even if you do not have a decrease in the number of people who search, you reduce their support,” said Howard Skamburg, a lawyer who was previously working as an inspection and enforcement official in the FDA. “The natural result will be less than inspections.”
In an episode published on Thursday, the FDA Commissioner (FDA) told PodCaster Megyn Kelly in an episode published on Thursday that the discounts were for communications, legislative affairs and technical support sites.
“There were no discounts for scientific auditors, inspectors, or law enforcement in the Department of Food and Drugs, and my goal is to make sure that all of these people have the resources they need to do their job well,” said Makari.
The agency cited efficiency, but the union asks that
The latest discounts include 170 employees at the FDA Inspection and Investigation Office, including all employees who dealt with travel, visas and security reservations for inspectors working in Asia, South America and other regions.
The termination messages stated that these jobs were “almost unnecessary or identical” for others at the agency. But this language apparently contradicts plans to use external sources to work for private companies.
The Union, which represents the employees of the FDA, said the decision “not only reckless, but it is ineffective, costly and great risks to human life.”
A HHS spokesman said that the cuts only affected the “administrative positions” and will make the agency more efficient and responsive. “They did not answer questions about whether the contractors would be cheaper or more efficient.
Skamburg said the changes are likely to lead to more departure, especially among experienced inspectors, “because of the environment that has been created and the difficulty of working there.”
The government accounting office recently urged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to develop new strategies to keep the inspectors, noting that attrition has exceeded employment for years. As a result, the FDA (FDA) is still conducting 36 % lower searches today by the epidemic.
There is no official outcome of the missing jobs in the Food and Drug Administration, and many supervisors still do not do the number of their employees who decided to retire early, acquisitions and other offers designed to reduce the workforce.
“This may be destroyed for the FDA in a way that they cannot control,” said Susan Main of Yale University, who was previously directed to the Food and Drug Administration Center.
Functional cuts include roles that support RFK JR.
In the weeks before the latest workers’ demobilization operations, senior food and drug administration leaders prepared detailed plans to reduce employees without hurting the basic agency jobs, according to employees of two food and drug administration employees who have direct knowledge of work. But these proposals have never requested them, and they were not submitted, the employees working for Elon Musk’s Doge who made decisions.
Several shootings targeted positions and teams with the words of “politics” and “organization”, in their titles. Other discounts seem to target offices in parts of the country more expensive.
At least 10 food scientists were reduced to the FDA San Francia test laboratory, according to FDA employees (FDA) with direct knowledge of the program.
Food samples test is very important to inspect the FDA (FDA), allowing the agency to close the facilities that produce polluted products quickly and issue warning messages. The accuracy of this work is also essential when the FDA lawyers need to defend their actions in court.
Even roles that support Kennedy’s announced goals – such as a tougher organization of food and chemicals – have been eliminated.
About 15 scientists working in the Department of Food Science and Technology in Chicago have their jobs. Their research included finding ways to identify and eliminate dangerous chemicals and reduce accurate plastic and other molecules that can leak into packed food.
FDA food experts are assembled in different locations throughout the United States
“With these different sites closing, only the skills and areas of experience are losing the entire experience,” Main said.
Public communications are affected by the release
The rest of the agency is now trying to capture some of the critical tasks performed by their divorced colleagues. This includes notifying consumers, industry and doctors about emerging safety problems, including food summons, import alerts, drug effects and lack of display.
For many years, this work was mainly carried out by more than ten people at the Agency’s Media Office, which was eliminated earlier this month.
I have left these connections that work on many employees scattered in all agency centers that deal with hundreds of other issues that involve food, medicines, vaccines, tobacco and other products.
In addition to difficulty, almost all public data should be passed in the HHS press office. It contains only a few employees, most of whom have no background in food and drug management issues.
“There are some things that were working no longer working.”