Thousands of probationary federal health workers fired by letter this weekend

Probationary workers across multiple federal health agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services received virtually identical letters Saturday evening informing them they would be terminated from their positions, sources told CBS News. 

“Unfortunately, the Agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and skills do not fit the Agency’s current needs, and your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment at the Agency,” read the letter obtained by CBS News.

The letter was signed by Jeffrey Anoka, acting head of human resources for the Department of Health and Human Services. One health official told CBS News thousands of letters were sent out Saturday.  

Probationary workers are those that generally have less than a year on the job and are easier to fire than other federal staff.

The move comes amid a government-wide effort to cut probationary workers by the Department of Government Efficiency task force, or DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk.

More than 5,000 probationary workers at health agencies had initially been slated to be let go, though not all received letters of termination Saturday. Some letters were also sent in error to people not intended to be let go, officials said.  

Some agencies have also been granted exemptions for a portion of their staff on the chopping block, as backlash has mounted over cuts at agencies like the Indian Health Service.

Also not on the final list of cuts ordered by the Trump administration was the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, the agency’s “disease detectives,” CBS News learned. Officials overseeing the fellowship had initially warned health departments and those in their ranks that they would be halved.

Fellowship programs elsewhere in the agency were not as lucky. Officials said CDC’s Public Health Associate Program, which places recent graduates in health departments throughout the country, was cut.

Other agencies losing staff Saturday include the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, which oversees the nation’s pandemic stockpiles, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the National Institutes of Health.

A White House official said Saturday that workers exempted from the cuts included scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FDA, workers for Medicare and frontline healthcare providers.

“This isn’t a haphazard effort of us axing whoever we can ‘get away’ with axing for the sake of it. This is a calculated effort to streamline bureaucracy,” said the official.

Calley Means, an adviser for newly sworn-in Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., defended the firings for reasons beyond cost savings, reiterating a criticism made during President Trump’s presidential campaign that officials had not done enough to address drivers of sliding life expectancy in the U.S.

“It would be irrational not to make changes,” Means wrote in a post to X.

At the FDA, an employee said Saturday that scientists, engineers and an attorney had been among those terminated from the regulatory agency’s ranks late Saturday.  

Cuts included parts of the FDA funded largely from fees that companies pay when they submit applications, not taxpayer dollars — like centers overseeing regulation of tobacco products and medical devices.

The toll inflicted by this week’s cuts stretches beyond probationary workers and fellows. Many contractors, who have fewer protections than agency staff, were suddenly told this week that they were being let go.

One former CDC contractor said they had been one of two people on a small team in the Atlanta-based agency who knew how to operate a project to analyze electronic health records for disease surveillance.

The only other person who knew how to use the project was a CDC employee still on probation.

“I fear they will be overrun with work and will end up dropping many projects. Projects were already beginning to drop while I was there,” said the former CDC contractor.

Many scientists that CBS News spoke to said they had uprooted their lives for the chance to serve the federal government, sometimes taking steep pay cuts from what they could be earning in academia or the private sector. Others had been on probation for staff roles after many years working for the same agency as a contractor.

One former National Institutes of Health scientist said they had been reassured in a tearful meeting with their supervisors Friday that the decision had nothing to do with their performance, and had received praise for the progress they had made in the time since they had been hired.

“Words cannot adequately express how financially screwed I am,” the former NIH scientist said.

In:
• United States Department of Health and Human Services
• Donald Trump
• Trump Administration
• RFK Jr.