Staff members who fought childhood lead exposure and those who worked on cancer clusters were among those who were fired from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a now former employee told The Hill.
The entire permanent staff of the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice was cut, according to one person who was among the approximately 200 fired from the division.
This division works on issues such as asthma and air pollution, climate change and health, childhood lead poisoning and cancer clusters.
The former employee noted that these divisions do crucial work to protect public health, pointing out, for example, that it helped discover lead contamination in applesauce pouches that were popular with kids.
The person also noted that the division also had staffers who would be able to help respond in case there was a nuclear event such as an attack or nuclear plant meltdown.
“Within this division, we house all the experts who do things like chemical, radiological or nuclear response activities. So for example, if there were a nuclear detonation within the United States, or a dirty bomb, our division would be the one who would lead that response,” they said. “Those people were targeted as well. There are no survivors.”
The person said that the division may still have contractors, but that there’s no staff for them to work with.
However, the current director of the Center for Environmental Health, Ari Bernstein, said in an internal email that the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice had been “slated to be eliminated in its entirety,” E&E News reported.
The workers who were let go include epidemiologists, scientists and administrators who manage grant programs.
Other experts also raised concerns about the impacts of the cuts.
“There was just the wholesale elimination of the division that eliminates, essentially, the program that protects children from lead, from air pollution and asthma, from emergencies like fires,” said Patrick Breysse, the now-retired former director of the National Center for Environmental Health, which houses the environmental health division.
“People are going to suffer from this for decades,” Breysse told The Hill.
The firings come amid broader cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the HHS, which houses it.
The Hill has reached out to HHS for comment.
The firings come as the department lets go of around 10,000 additional workers as it seeks to reorganize.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described the cuts as part of his plan to streamline the agency and “Make America Healthy Again.”
However, critics argue that cutting many of these jobs will actually make the nation less healthy.
“This is not the way we make America healthy again. This is how we make America sick again,” said Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Nathaniel Weixel contributed.
