Fda Hiring Contractors To Replace Fired Staff Who Supported Safety Inspections

When Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced sweeping job cuts at his department last month, he said that safety inspectors who oversee U.S. foods and drugs wouldn't be impacted.

Those employees remain at the Food and Drug Administration , but dozens of others who supported their work are gone. The departed staffers include people who booked complex international trips to remote Indian pharmaceutical plants , lab scientists who tested food samples for contamination , and communication specialists who alerted the public to urgent safety recalls.

The potential disruptions to FDA's already strained inspection force are so great that agency leaders recently expedited plans to hire outside contractors to replace some fired workers, starting with those who arranged foreign travel, according to staffers with direct knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity. Under FDA rules, staffers are prohibited from publicly discussing sensitive agency matters without permission.

The FDA has been struggling for years to ramp up inspections after a wave of longtime staffers resigned or retired during COVID-19 . Efforts to recruit new inspectors have been stymied by the demands of the job: months of travel, modest pay and grueling work under challenging overseas conditions.

"If you put all this together, even if you didn't have a reduction in the number of people who do the inspections, you're reducing their support," said Howard Sklamberg, an attorney who previously served as FDA's top inspection and enforcement official. "The natural result is going to be fewer inspections."