After Trump’s mass firings, FDA asks scientists to return to work at agency

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) now plans to rehire around 300 staffers back into the agency, in a U-turn that follows on from President Donald Trump’s rash of federal employee firings at the start of his second term in office.

Some of those invited to return to work include specialists that had been reviewing a medical device from Neuralink – a company developing brain implant technology and led by Elon Musk – and described as ‘later stage venture capital’ with 43 private investors.

Musk, in his capacity as the co-head of the contested Department of Government Efficiency – alongside former 2024 presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy – oversees Neuralink, but has been leading the effort to cut the federal budget deficit through the dramatic downsizing of the roughly 2.3 million-strong US federal workforce.

According to a report by Reuters, it is not known who ordered the firings and now the rehirings at the FDA.

The news agency further reported that around a dozen employees who had been working at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health – which reviews medical devices – received calls over the weekend of February 22-23 inviting them to return to work this Monday. It also said that the White House confirmed that the administration had fired more than 1,000 members of staff at the FDA.

Previously, letters of termination had been sent to hundreds of employees at the FDA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH)  and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) swiftly following on from Trump’s second inauguration, although while the numbers of job losses at the NIH and CDC was still deep it was lower than had been first expected.

In 2023, the FDA initially rejected Neuralink’s request to start clinical trials, citing safety risks but the agency subsequently gave the firm approval to commence trials in humans.

The Trump Administration has recently made significant rehiring efforts – including FDA staffers – but also some former employees that had previously been responsible for the upkeep of US nuclear weapons.

Among other staff who were caught up in the first wave of layoffs:

• PhD-scientists tasked with the public response to pathogen outbreaks such as the ongoing avian flu epidemic.
• Employees who ensure the safety of medical devices for patients with conditions such as cancer and diabetes.
• A public health worker at an international airport who enforces regulations to prevent animals carrying rabies from entering the US.

The FDA jobs axed by Trump were to positions which were funded by fees charged to medical device companies, banks and other private sector organisations for the agency’s services and not by taxpayers.

FDA-user fees, which are paid by drug- and medical device-makers, began in the 1990s to fund a faster approvals system. Through receipt of the fees the agency was able to hire more staff and review applications for new products more quickly.

“When we think about all of the layoffs across [the US Department of] Health and Human Services (HHS), none of them are going to save the taxpayer money in the long run,” said Patti Zettler, a law professor at Ohio State University who served as deputy general counsel to HHS, covering the FDA, until January this year.

 “It is especially clear that laying off FDA staff who are funded by user fees will not save the taxpayers any money. The taxpayers are not paying for these employees.”

However, most jobs cut were for staff in their probationary periods or people who have moved to new positions within the agency and therefore had fewer worker protections.

“Unfortunately, the Agency finds 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,” was common language used in the letters sent from the US Office of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Anna Kelly, White House deputy press secretary, had previously stated that Trump had moved swiftly to cut wasteful spending and non-critical government jobs.