ahrq
Functionally ‘incapacitated’
A small federal agency that studies how to improve the health care system has been functionally “incapacitated” after much of its staff was laid off or retired, Chelsea Cirruzzo reports.
In April, half of the staff at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality was estimated to have been laid off during the initial round of job cuts that were part of a massive restructuring of HHS. The cuts didn’t stop there. Three people, including two former employees, tell Chelsea that close to 90% of workers are now gone, including people who took early retirement offers.
But Congress is still proposing to fund AHRQ as though it exists in its previous form. Read more for how it’s all panning out.
hhs
RFK Jr.’s mounting challenges
The deadly shooting at the CDC’s campus in Atlanta tests the health secretary’s leadership at a time when fractures are emerging in his Make America Healthy Again movement, Chelsea and Daniel Payne report.
Some CDC employees blame the shooting in part on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vilification of the agency. The gunman was reportedly motivated by anti-vaccine beliefs. Kennedy said he is unaware of the gunman’s motivation. Kennedy waited until 11 a.m. the following day to comment on X about the shooting, after he posted about his fishing trip in Alaska, where he’d spent the week meeting with state and tribal leaders.
The question now is whether a series of recent setbacks, capped by the shooting, could create longer-term turmoil for Kennedy and his MAHA movement. Read more for reactions from CDC employees to the tragedy.
vaccines
FDA vaccine surveillance official removed from his role
The FDA has removed the official in charge of analyzing vaccine adverse event data from his position, one current and two former FDA employees told Lizzy Lawrence. Vinay Prasad, the newly reinstated director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, has assumed those duties, one of the people said. Endpoints first reported the news.
Richard Forshee was the acting director for CBER’s Office of Biostatistics and Pharmacovigilance, which assesses safety data for vaccines and other biologics products. Now he will serve in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research’s Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology.
Forshee did not respond to a request for comment and HHS said it does not comment on personnel matters. It’s not clear why he was transferred from CBER. Kennedy, who oversees FDA as health secretary, has long talked about wanting to revamp the way the FDA assesses vaccine safety data.
