The teams processing Freedom of Information Act requests at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration were destroyed on Tuesday. Wide range of employment order Officials said by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The process of fulfilling FOIA requests from reporters, advocacy groups and others is an important way for the public to gain access to information about government data and records.
All workers at the CDC FOIA office have been cut, two officials said. Two-thirds of Food and Drug Administration’s record request staff fell to 50 remaining.
“We haven’t done FOIA here yet. They’re doing litigation and other types of disclosure,” said an FDA official who is not permitted to speak publicly.
It is unclear what will happen to hundreds of pending requests before the institution.
“We don’t have staff for most types of FOIA requests,” an FDA official said.
Many FOIA staff at the National Institutes of Health have also been let go, one official said, but not all. No explanation is given as to why others remain at work while others remain at work, clearly violating federal procedures to prioritize some employees based on military and federal services.
The goal of the cut is to create a central location for processing FOIA requests across the department, according to HHS officials, making it easier for the public to make requests easier.
Although no final decision has been made as to exactly what the new FOIA process will look like at HHS, officials say their goal is to continue the work that has now been started by staff who have been cut.
Cut comes as authorities say the department’s spokesperson, led by Kennedy’s former campaign spokesperson Stephanie Spear, has tightened its grip. communication Issued by a health organization.
Department staff are already tightening surveillance of agencies releasing public information including unprecedented procedures Control scientific publication On CDC.
Communications staff was also one of the most difficult people with cuts, several officials said. Many staff members have been cut down on the teams within the CDC, FDA and Health Resources and Services Administration’s public relations department.
At a White House meeting earlier this month, Kennedy cited the example of “redundancy” as an example of “rationalization” of dozens of communications teams in the department.
Kennedy has also been critical of past administrations’ responses to FOIA, and supports lawsuits to speed up or expand responses to record requests.
“Public health agencies need to be transparent, and if we want Americans to restore confidence in public health agencies, we need transparency,” Kennedy said at a Senate hearing in January.
