He helped write the policies that guided manufacturers, worked to close loopholes that threatened safety, and trained the FDA’s investigators to uncover sterility failures at manufacturing plants scattered across the globe.
And he was among the thousands of employees at the #FDA and other federal health agencies who were abruptly purged on April 1st by republicans.
Not going to make America healthy, that's for sure —
trump layoffs begin to erode FDA drug review system
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trump-layoffs-begin-erode-fda-drug-review-system-2025-04-04/
#FDA
The #Senate Cmte on #Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions invited #RFKJr to attend a hearing next week to explain the firings. The committee is chaired by Republican U.S. Senator & physician #BillCassidy of Louisiana, whose vote was key to Kennedy's confirmation.
#Trump layoffs begin to erode #FDA drug review system
The Trump admin's #MassFirings at the FDA have removed employees critical to reviewing new #medicines, setting back years of effort to bring promising #treatments to #patients more quickly.
The FDA is slated to lose 3,500 employees under Secy of #HHS #RFKJr's massive *restructuring* of US #health agencies….
#NIH #CDC #FDA #PublicHealth #ConspiracyTheories #science #medicine #research #disease #ethics #USpol
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trump-layoffs-begin-erode-fda-drug-review-system-2025-04-04/
No plan—not his *MAHA* agenda, not efficiency, nothing—can realistically explain cuts like these. Instead, the #MassFirings don’t seem to be a means to an end on the way to overhauling American #health. They are an end in themselves.
It’ll take months, if not years, to fully appreciate the effect that the cuts will have on America’s scientific enterprise.
Workers at one of the nation’s largest baby formula plants say the Abbott Labs facility is engaging in
unsanitary practices similar to those that led it to temporarily shut down just 3 yrs ago, sparking a nationwide formula shortage.
The plant takes shortcuts when cleaning MANU EQP & testing for microbes.
The new head of the FDA division that oversees baby formula is a corporate lawyer who previously defended Abbott against a lawsuit.
#Health #FDA #PublicSafety #USPol https://www.propublica.org/article/baby-formula-abbot-sturgis-michigan-shortages-unsanitary-conditions-workers-say
Speaking of babies.
"The complaints come as the Trump administration is dismantling wide swaths of the federal government — including conducting mass layoffs at the FDA — and filling some key regulatory positions with industry-friendly voices. The new head of the FDA division that oversees baby formula is a corporate lawyer who previously defended Abbott against a lawsuit."
Unsanitary Practices Persist at Baby Formula Factory Whose Shutdown Led to Mass Shortages, Workers Say
—
“Persistent leaks” and “unaddressed contamination issues” are among the problems workers say they witnessed at one of the nation’s largest baby formula plants. “I can’t have this on my conscience,” one told ProPublica.
https://www.propublica.org/article/baby-formula-abbot-sturgis-michigan-shortages-unsanitary-conditions-workers-say?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
Try 90% "mistakes" and not really mistakes if you are *planning* to rehire within days. There is absolutely no reason to believe these are mistakes. This is intentional sabotage.
He is dumb as a doorknob!
Identifying Unique Health Challenges of AAPI Populations, with Adrienne Poon, MD, MPH https://www.byteseu.com/891393/ #allergy #cardiology #clinicians #dermatology #diabetes #doctors #Drugs #Endocrinology #FDA #gastroenterology #Health #Healthcare #hematology #InfectiousDisease #insight #InternalMedicine #Interviews #Medical #Medicine #News #ophthalmology #Pharmaceuticals #pipeline #PrimaryCare #providers #Psychiatry #pulmonology #RareDisease #Research #rheumatology #Science #treatments
Meanwhile in the U.S.—
~ FDA planning for fewer food and drug inspections due to layoffs, officials say ~
#USA #health #PublicHealth #FDA #trump
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-food-drug-inspections-layoffs/
"Teams that fulfilled requests for government documents lost their jobs on Tuesday as part of the Trump administration's 10,000-person staff cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services. Their work, mandated by Congress since the 1960s under the Freedom of Information Act or FOIA, gives the public a view of the inner workings of federal health agencies."
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/03/g-s1-57888/hhs-fda-rfk-foia-public-records
The Trump administration is requiring the Department of Health and Human Services to cut spending on contracts by 35%, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon confirmed to NPR.
The spending cut is across all divisions of HHS – which includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and other agencies.
#HHS #FDA #NIH #Medicare #Medicaid #CDC
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/03/g-s1-58145/hhs-fda-cdc-cuts-spending
The clearing out of #FDA leadership is extraordinary. So many people gone, so few replacements (even acting) named. https://www.statnews.com/2025/04/03/fda-senior-officials-exits-departures-list/
Everything you need to know about bird flu, from @KnowableMag
Plus, @CBSNews reports on the FDA firing its bird flu leadership: https://flip.it/3IYlnx
#FDA employee learned she'd been let go by email at 5 a.m.
Her role was to release info about meds that people needed to stay safe.
Her salary was not paid by tax dollars; it was covered by user fees.
Requesting insights into #HHS #FDA reassigning [in lieu of firing] highly qualified, expert scientists to Indian Health Services requiring relocation to Alaska Oklahoma or New Mexico. Are there any jobs for these folks - how or if this actually works? thank you. #firings #healthcare #medicine #publichealth #IHS
Scary stuff, from Vanity Fair:
If you’ve ever used eye drops that didn’t blind you, thank Dr. Timothy J. Pohlhaus. As of yesterday, he’s gone.
Pohlhaus was one of the FDA’s few leading experts on sterile manufacturing for drugs. “I work to ensure that when people get a purportedly sterile drug product, that it is actually sterile,” as in, free of any contaminant, toxic or otherwise, Pohlhaus told VF.
The cuts were so sweeping that former FDA commissioner Dr. Robert Califf … posted on LinkedIn, “The FDA as we’ve known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/the-expert-who-kept-eye-drops-from-blinding-you-was-fired-yesterday or https://archive.ph/oQTQv
Vote Midterms 
