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Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a plan to make sweeping changes to his agency\u2019s structure and workforce this morning, with the most significant job cuts planned<\/a> for the agency that regulates food safety, food additives, and antibiotic use in agriculture.<\/p>\n Of the 20,000 jobs Kennedy said he\u2019ll eliminate across the HHS, 3,500 will be at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He\u2019ll also cut 2,400 jobs at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which monitors infectious disease outbreaks, including the bird flu that is still spreading on poultry and dairy farms. The cuts are in addition to several thousand probationary employees<\/a> fired from the HHS in February.<\/p>\n In a video<\/a> posted to YouTube, Kennedy said that in the first few months on the job, with the help of the Department of Government Efficiency, he determined that HHS is a sprawling bureaucracy filled with \u201ctremendous waste and duplication,\u201d including subagencies working at cross purposes. \u201cWe\u2019re going to streamline HHS to make our agency more efficient and more effective,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to imbue the agency with a clear sense of mission to radically improve the health of Americans and to improve agency morale.\u201d<\/p>\n The plan is in line with multiple pledges<\/a> Kennedy made before his confirmation as Secretary, when he said in different instances he\u2019d eliminate entire departments and told FDA employees to \u201cpack your bags.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to job cuts, he\u2019s consolidating 28 HHS divisions into 15 and combining five smaller agencies into a new Administration for a Healthy America (AHA). FDA was still in the process of a restructuring that started in 2023 to move all of its work on food into one place to better prioritize food safety and nutrition. Jim Jones, the director of that division, resigned in February <\/a>in response to the earlier job cuts, which he said threatened his team\u2019s ability to do their work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n