FDA lays off bird flu leadership, among steep cuts to senior veterinarians
SUMMARY
The FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine got slammed with layoffs, losing over 130 staffers—including top vets steering the bird flu fight—as part of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s massive 10,000-worker purge across the department. The cuts gutted the center’s leadership, sparing only Director Tracey Forfa, while axing nearly all managers and admin folks. “No comms team to sound the alarm, no one to pay the labs,” one FDA insider griped. These vets were key in tackling pet food recalls tied to bird flu, plus digging into antimicrobial resistance and funky animal feed. The agency’s chief medical officer, Dr. Hilary Marston, got the boot too—she’d been quarterbacking the human side of the virus response. Over at the Human Foods Program, 100+ staffers are out, and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response lost 80, hobbling pandemic stockpiles. The CDC dodged cuts to its flu team, and the USDA’s holding off for now.
