On Tuesday, teams managing Freedom of Information Act requests at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration were significantly reduced as part of the extensive job cuts implemented by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to several officials.
Meeting FOIA requests from journalists, advocacy groups, and others is essential for public access to governmental data and records.
All employees in the CDC’s FOIA office were eliminated, as reported by two officials. Additionally, the Food and Drug Administration saw its records request team reduced by two-thirds, leaving only 50 staff members.
“The majority of those still present do not process FOIA requests. They handle litigation and other disclosure types,” explained one FDA official, who requested anonymity.
The fate of the hundreds of pending requests at the agencies remains uncertain.
“For most FOIA request types, there are no staff members available,” stated the FDA official.
Many FOIA personnel at the National Institutes of Health were also affected by layoffs, as one official noted, though not all were let go. There was no clear rationale for why some were retained while others were dismissed, which appears to violate federal protocols regarding prioritization based on military and federal service.
The objective of these cuts is to establish a centralized system to manage FOIA requests across the entire department, as stated by an HHS official, aiming to simplify the process for the public to submit their inquiries.
While final decisions regarding the new FOIA process at HHS have not been finalized, the official indicated that the intention is to maintain the efforts initiated by the staff that has been laid off.
These cuts occur amid reports that the department’s public affairs office, led by Kennedy’s former campaign press secretary Stefanie Spear, has tightened its control over communications issued by health agencies.
The department has already been enhancing its oversight on agencies releasing public information, including unprecedented efforts to regulate scientific publishing at the CDC.
Communications personnel have been among those most affected by the reductions, according to multiple officials. Public affairs teams at the CDC, FDA, and Health Resources and Services Administration experienced significant layoffs, with many teams losing all their staff.
At a White House gathering earlier this month, Kennedy pointed to the numerous communications teams within the department as an instance of “redundancies” that needed to be “streamlined.”
Kennedy has previously criticized FOIA responses under previous administrations, supporting lawsuits aimed at expediting or expanding the response to records requests.
“Public health agencies must maintain transparency. If we wish for Americans to regain trust in these agencies, transparency is essential,” Kennedy stated during a Senate hearing in January.
