RFK Jr. purges CDC and FDA’s public data groups, regardless of “transparency” guarantees

Groups dealing with Freedom of Info Act requests on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and the Meals and Drug Administration had been gutted Tuesday as a part of the widespread job cuts ordered by Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a number of officers mentioned. 

The method of fulfilling FOIA requests from reporters, advocacy teams and others is a vital means the general public positive aspects entry to data on authorities knowledge and data. 

The entire employees within the CDC’s FOIA workplace had been minimize, two officers mentioned. Two-thirds of the Meals and Drug Administration’s data request employees had been additionally minimize, right down to 50 remaining. 

“Most nonetheless right here do not do FOIA processing. They do litigation and different kinds of disclosure,” mentioned one FDA official, who was not licensed to talk publicly. 

It’s unclear what is going to occur to a whole bunch of pending requests earlier than the businesses. 

“For many kinds of FOIA requests there isn’t a employees,” the FDA official mentioned.

Many FOIA employees on the Nationwide Institutes of Well being had been additionally let go, one official mentioned, however not all. No rationalization was given for why some had been minimize whereas others stay on the job, the official mentioned, in an obvious violation of the federal authorities’s procedures for prioritizing for some workers primarily based on their army and federal service.

The purpose of the cuts is to create a central place to deal with FOIA requests for your entire division, an HHS official mentioned, making it simpler for the general public to submit their requests. 

Whereas no ultimate selections have been made on what precisely the brand new FOIA course of will appear to be at HHS, the official mentioned, their purpose is to proceed the work began by the now-cut employees.

The cuts come as officers say the division’s public affairs store, headed by Kennedy’s former marketing campaign press secretary Stefanie Spear, has tightened its grip on communications being issued by well being businesses. 

The division’s employees has already been tightening its oversight on businesses releasing public data, together with unprecedented steps to management scientific publishing on the CDC.

Communications staffers have additionally been among the many hardest-hit by the cuts, a number of officers mentioned. Groups inside the public affairs arms of the CDC, FDA and Well being Assets and Providers Administration noticed many or all of their employees minimize.

At a White Home assembly earlier this month, Kennedy cited the division’s dozens of communications groups for example of “redundancies” to be “streamlined.”

Kennedy has additionally been vital of FOIA responses by previous administrations, backing lawsuits to hurry or broaden the response to data requests.

“Public well being businesses needs to be clear. And if we would like People to revive belief within the public well being businesses, we’d like transparency,” Kennedy mentioned at a Senate listening to in January.