Kennedy Guts Teams That Share Health Information With the Public

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services in February, he promised “radical transparency” and declared that “both science and democracy flourish from the free and unimpeded flow of information.”

But when the Trump administration laid off thousands of employees on Tuesday, the targets included the very people who communicated the health department’s work to Americans.

Some of those employees were press officers, but many worked behind the scenes — on social media, newsletters, information campaigns and personal outreach — to translate complicated scientific studies into accessible guidance and to ensure that the recommendations and cutting-edge research produced in the department’s dozens of offices reached the people who needed them.

Their work included publicizing drug and food recalls, explaining the implications of new research and spreading awareness of treatments and preventive measures for diseases, according to seven people laid off from the communications offices of five H.H.S. agencies housed in the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. Posts on LinkedIn indicated that the layoffs also hit people who communicated about infectious disease outbreaks.

All seven people who spoke with The New York Times said their offices had lost most or all of their employees. Gillian SteelFisher, a principal research scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, described the situation as “a profound loss for public health, and for the public’s health.”

“Good public health is a partnership with the public,” Dr. SteelFisher added. “It’s about helping people make decisions and take actions that protect them and their loved ones, and to do that, fundamentally, you have to be able to talk to people.”