Beginning Friday, February 14 hundreds to thousands of employees across agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), such as the FDA, started receiving notices that their positions were terminated effective immediately. According to a news report, these individuals received an email that read: “Unfortunately, the agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and skills do not fit the agency's current needs and your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment at the agency.”
These actions left many scientists feeling uncertain about the future. “[My colleagues and I] were all disappointed by the bigger layoffs from [HHS],” said Yu-Ping Wang, a bioinformatician at Tulane University. “We need to continue to invest [in] the future.”
Layoffs Leave Long Lasting Impacts on Research
The federal employee layoffs affected individuals who were probationary employees; this status refers to individuals who were hired within 1-2 years or who had been recently promoted to a new role. One scientist (they requested to remain anonymous) who reviewed medical artificial intelligence (AI) technology at the FDA said that they were in the process of completing a review Saturday evening for a Monday deadline when they received the termination notification and lost access to their work.
“It was shocking,” the FDA scientist said. They explained that the interruption to their work is additionally stressful, because their division reviews products for companies both within and outside the US, and they had no way to communicate to their clients what had happened. Additionally, since their agency was already understaffed compared to the number of submissions that they receive, the reviewer believes that a reduction in the number of subject matter experts like themselves will make it difficult to assign and complete reviews.
Although the scientist was reinstated to their position one week after their termination notice with a note that they were deemed an exemption from the firing decisions, they remain anxious about the future. “People are scared,” they said. “People are considering other options because there is no guarantee anymore. The people who didn't get laid off this time, it might happen next time. And the most scary part is that it will happen so suddenly. In less than a day, you will lose everything.”
Besides their own job security, researchers are worried about the state and functioning of certain health departments. “My initial reactions were distress and fear,” said Olivia Zarella, an epidemiologist and infectious disease expert at the University of Colorado. Speaking about her own reactions to the terminations on top of the proposed budget cuts and other policy changes, she said, “I'm concerned for the work that we're doing in the Occupational Health and Safety arena.”
Zarella highlighted that loss of experts in the infectious disease surveillance systems departments, which integrate public health data from agencies across state, federal, and local centers to identify potential outbreaks and propose prevention strategies against them, will have hard-hitting impact on public health-related matters.
As a result of the federal layoffs, she suspects that “Basic services are going to be ceased in a lot of ways. People are not going to get the information they need to stay healthy. The research trickle down is going to be detrimental in many ways as well.”
For example, reduced access to funding and new barriers in grant terminology will result in more scientists taking their research to the private sector, said Zarella. “While private industry is great in a lot of ways, it introduces potential conflict of interest in our partnerships with public health and research.”
Because the firings targeted probationary employees, positions across research and administration were impacted. “It's not adding to efficiency, certainly in the short run,” said Jeremy Berg, a biochemist who was previously the director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
“I think the worst probably, both from what I've learned from people who have communicated with me and from my experience when I was there, has been on the grants management side,” Berg said. He explained that the personnel in these offices have highly attractive skills across industries, and thus there is more turnover, resulting in more probationary employees. “Now they're going to be short staffed,” Berg said. Coupled with ongoing freezes to study section meetings, these layoffs further strain the system that oversees a large majority of basic science funding. As a result, many researchers remain in limbo on the status of their grants, and in turn, the fate of their labs.
“At Tulane, I think many professors are worrying about the future of biomedical research,” Wang said. One of these reasons is the ongoing and likely worsening delays in grants communication because of the large reduction in that department at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Wang said, “My lab is running out of research funding. If I do not get continuous funding, I'm under the threat of shutting down my lab.” He noted that junior faculty members are feeling these concerns even more.
Zarella, who started her position one year ago, echoed this concern. “The terminations at the federal level, the changes in research being accepted based on terminologies, and the lack of communication—because [our funders are] banned from talking with us—is extremely concerning about the nature of what's going to be for the future of our projects,” she said. “I don’t know what this means next for me and for those that are in public health.”
Researchers worry that the sudden layoffs not only threaten the integrity of current research at these institutions, but also its future. “There’s just a lot of confusion and frustration,” Berg said about the researchers at universities waiting on grant decisions to make calls on keeping and hiring their laboratory personnel. “Some of this is driven by the staff issues and grants not being made, and some of it's being driven by the indirect cost issue, but people are understandably very concerned and uncertain.”
As a result of the delay on grant funding, Wang said that many researchers at his institution, including himself, cannot extend offers to the PhD students who recently interviewed for their program. Additionally, whereas many graduates previously considered careers in government, Wang anticipates the sudden layoffs will deter many from applying because of the new uncertainty. “They feel [the] NIH or the FDA is not a secure place,” he said.
Taking Action to Protect the Future of Science
Suzanne Summerlin, an independent labor attorney for the federal sector, said, “What happened on February 14, clearly, to me, did not follow the prescriptions of the civil service reform act in terms of what is required to terminate somebody for performance.” This act, which was signed into law in 1978, outlines how federal employees should be evaluated for their performance and what reasons are not acceptable for terminating someone, such as partisan political activity.
She explained that while many terminations occurred indiscriminately, some departments appeared to be targeted. Additionally, she said that these actions do not follow the prescribed guidelines for reducing agency departments. “Instead, they’re using this pretext of somebody’s job performance even though [one affected individual] I talked to this morning had only been on the job for less than two weeks,” Summerlin said.
In response to the layoffs, some labor unions attempted to bring cases to a federal judge, but those so far have been denied. Summerlin explained that the reason why is because these cases will need to go through separate processes.
According to Summerlin, individuals who are a part of labor union can reach out to their representative to find out if the union is bringing a case forward. Those who are not, she added, but who had received positive performance reviews, or who had not been eligible for a review because of the short period of their employment can file claims independently at the Merit System Protection Board or find a class action suit currently being compiled by firms in the Washington, D.C. area. “Unfortunately for federal employees, there are not any quick solutions here. The law prescribes this process, and this process has always sort of been a long and drawn out one, and now we're seeing it en masse,” Summerlin said.
Recently, the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology in the US House of Representatives opened a survey for affected federal employees of science agencies to collect information about the impact of these layoffs. “What you would be doing there, if you do participate in the survey and speak to your lawmakers, is you would be providing them with ammunition they need start making these points in front of Congress and in front of a wider audience,” Summerlin said. She said that this could include opening investigations that bring agency leaders to Congress for questions about their actions.
In addition, Zarella and Wang both emphasized the importance of increasing communication about the role and benefits of these agencies and their research to the public. “This is a very important time to not shut down, and I think it's really important for the public to show up and continue to call their representatives, continue to crowd those phone lines,” Zarella said.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the individuals interviewed and do not reflect those of their employers.
