Entire CDC FOIA Office Fired as Health Agency Moves to Centralize Structure 👉 Updatem News

A health official said all the Freedom of Information Act offices were previously operating in an isolated fashion.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s entire Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) office was fired as part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reorganization, a health official confirmed on April 2.

Some FOIA employees working in other HHS divisions, including the National Institutes of Health, were among those laid off by HHS this week.

The terminations are part of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s restructuring plan, aimed at streamlining operations, an HHS official told The Epoch Times.

The various FOIA offices did not communicate with each other, nor did they report to their parent agency, HHS, the official said. Instead, the offices “all operated in their own silo.”

The plan is to take the work the offices conducted and centralize it into one FOIA office. The plan is still being finalized.

The official said that all the requests that have been submitted will be handled.

FOIA is a federal law that enables journalists and members of the public to ask for and receive information from government agencies, including internal emails and documents. Responses regularly shed light on important topics. CDC records produced through FOIA in recent years showed that agency officials found evidence COVID-19 vaccines caused deaths, saw millions of cases of post-vaccination COVID-19 early in the pandemic, and why officials changed the definition of vaccine.

A CDC employee told The Epoch Times via the agency’s FOIA portal that the agency’s entire FOIA office has been placed on administrative leave.

Emails sent to CDC FOIA employees were returned with automated messages stating that they are on administrative leave and unable to respond.

Meredith Schlaifer, deputy director of the Food and Drug Administration Office of the Commissioner’s Division of Headquarters Freedom of Information, told The Epoch Times in an email that her office’s nine people are still employed, but that a number of other administration FOIA staffers were fired through a reduction-in-force, or mass termination.

The FDA declined to comment.

National Institutes of Health officials did not respond to inquiries.

Kennedy announced on March 27 that HHS would be cutting some 10,000 workers, on top of another 10,000 that have recently been fired or left the health department. Kennedy also detailed a reorganization that includes consolidating divisions and reducing the number of regional offices.

Terminations started this week.

Kennedy said Tuesday on the social media platform X that the process is difficult and “our hearts go out to those who have lost their jobs,” but that Americans have been getting sicker each year despite trillions spent by the HHS.

“This overhaul is about realigning HHS with its core mission: to stop the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again,” he wrote. “It’s a win-win for taxpayers, and for every American we serve.”

Critics say the terminations will cause harm.

“Cutting 10,000 critical public health jobs puts every American at risk—weakening our defenses against disease outbreaks, unsafe medications, and contaminated food,” Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees union, said in an emailed statement.

Original News Source Link – Epoch Times

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