What is happening at these agencies is absolutely crazy. National parks are understaffed and worried about the upcoming season.
It seems the admin just wants to gut everything, and the only reason to me seems privatization. Make all these agencies dysfunctional, tell people look how bad<insert govt. agency here> is, let's get bids from private companies that can do a better job at <x> dollars.
In my state (Idaho) there "seems" to be a big push to defund and disrupt the local school systems, libraries [1] and community college board of trustees [2].
There is also legislation that keeps attempting to be pushed to allow public funding to parents who have their kids in private schools [3]
This is all part of the "Redoubt" movement [4]. Which sadly...even though I am living literally in the same town as some of the major players I had never heard of it until a friend from Germany sent me a link.
I later realized it all made sense when you look at everything as a distinct "movement" instead of "motivated individuals" who were disrupting all these public services.
Looks like its not just health-related agencies. Many/most people hired by US government agencies in the last two years seem to be being let-go. Some of them will be tech workers, but also engineers, scientists, clinicians, administrators, rangers, educators. People who use this site.
"Some 280,000 employees out of the 2.3 million member civilian federal workforce were hired in the last two years, with most still on probation and easier to fire, according to government data."
"About 1,200 to 2,000 workers at the Department of Energy were laid off, including hundreds of employees from the office that oversees the nuclear stockpile, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday."
Looks like absolute carnage, and its hard to see how the US government is going to maintain its operational capacity. As for the CDC being gutted, better hope these bird flu and measles outbreaks don't do a covid.
Dude has been department head for a day? Do we have such little faith that we judge a person before a single stroke of the pen? While historical actions do speak loud, having a bad past does not mean you are a bad person. Nor does it mean your policies will reflect your personal beliefs. There have been tons of individuals who set aside their beliefs and done a fantastic job.
We're supposed to withhold judgment on somebody who has directly led to the deaths of several dozen children? Are you really implying there is no one who is better qualified to lead HHS?
Does it sound like I am suggesting that? That's certainly not my question. I don't think RFK should be anywhere near anything. But he is. So the only option is to accept that, and hold off judging someone until bad policies are released.
It's entirely possible RFK feels extreme regret for such incident and wishes to help prevent it from happening again. It's also entirely possible RFK will do a decent job, just like it's possible he will be replaced in 6 months.
There is some validity in his comments, US is not healthy, there is extreme dietary issues, lack of exercise and eating terribly is rampant. But nobody complained about any other department head for not trying to solve that issue. But his past is very loudly negative.
That's an interesting analogy. If I recall correctly, Mythbusters put a bull in a china shop and found that the bull avoided the shelves and didn't break anything.
You're correct that I don't expect RFK's policies to necessarily follow his personal beliefs. He's previously mentioned being pro-choice, and this admin is against that, so he's already changed his tune there.
But no, I don't expect him to change that much. Just last night he was on Fox saying how we don't have good data on the COVID vaccines.
RFK Jr. has a long track record of spreading pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, and misinformation—issues that go beyond personal beliefs and directly impact decision-making. Trusting him to govern rationally ignores the fact that his entire brand is built on anti-vaccine rhetoric and a general rejection of scientific consensus. Leaders who have successfully set aside personal beliefs to govern effectively typically have a history of pragmatism, not one of doubling down on disinformation. If someone has spent years pushing harmful falsehoods, there's little reason to believe they'll suddenly embrace reality when in power.
"Do we have such little faith that we judge a person before a single stroke of the pen?"
Yes.
It's not like he hasn't got a massive body of public statements to read. I mean, I understand that people in gov think we are all dumb enough that we think he's "pro-vaccine" no, somehow despite his toddler merch.
I mean, sometimes I think I am dumb too, especially when I respond to folks on this site. But yeah, most folks here aren't so dumb they can't tell what RFK will probably do based on his long public record of saying dumb stuff.
> Many/most people hired by US government agencies in the last two years seem to be being let-go.
Could read into this a few ways. People joined who were eager to be part of tackling how the US prepares for and manages the next pandemic (which was uh, how do you say...an unpopular event with this administration), or people who may have been hired while DEI initiatives were having their moment. Both cases feel like vengeful targeting.
Regardless of which camp you're in, you can't ignore the collateral damage from this. What a very troubling time for the US.
Or its just everyone who accepted a federal job to put food on their family table or to perform public service. It's all federal jobs, not just health as in this article, where those that are hired within the last 1-2 years are being summarily fired. Without consideration of performance or need.
> One high-level researcher who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the NIH has effectively shut down a highly competitive intramural research program for undergraduate degree holders before they start graduate or medical school. It’s responsible for the next generation of leaders in biomedical sciences, the researcher said: “These are the best and the brightest to get their training and become world class scientists to compete with China.” The program had about 1,600 people in it last year; more than 1,000 positions will not be filled, the person said.
Virginia will be the place to watch. Northern Virginia is the home to many federal workers. Over 145k federal civilian employees not to mention contractors.
They probably caught wind of a bad jobs report upcoming and so they're trying to cover it up with mass federal layoffs and say that's the reason it's bad. That would be par for the course for these people, wouldn't it?
We need to change the laws making it difficult to fire federal employees, so that we can fire low performers instead of just based on seniority. Previous corrupt laws were passed to only allow firing junior employees, not senior. So this is the only way to shrink the federal government at this point.
Make the federal government accountable and allow terminations based on performance.
> We need to change the laws making it difficult to fire federal employees, so that we can fire low performers instead of just based on seniority.
Documented individual bad performance and misconduct are the (only, basically) reasons firing nonprobationary civil servants on an individual basis is allowed, seniority is an issue with general reductions in force because of elimination of functions, but isn't the controlling factor in for cause, performance or misconduct, firings.
It is, however, illegal to fire civil servants arbitrarily and invoke notional “bad performance” as an excuse; unlike in the private sector, there is a defined process that has the force of law and Constitutional due process rights behind it.
Most people aren't aware of ARPA-H but the research it funds is important and potentially highly impactful. It takes a DARPA approach of funding "moonshot" type research in the domain of medicine/health. These are projects that are normally very hard to fund because they are trying to solve hard problems rather than result in some immediate commercial application. But a necessary part of the hard science that lays the foundation for future technological breakthroughs. Very sad to see this laid to wasted by some idiots.
> Head of ARPA-H and Biden appointee Renee Wegrzyn told staff Friday morning that she was fired, a source told STAT. The agency, established in 2022 by Biden to work with the private sector on breakthrough medical technology, employs less than 200 workers. Because of the agency’s newness, most employees are considered probationary and could be targeted for layoffs.
It is more like getting rid of the quacks to look for other cures. While success is not guaranteed it has been proven by now that the current approach does not lead to desirable results.
By the way, it is quite remarkable how much resistance there is to change in the supposedly 'progressive' opposition to Trump. Those who want to keep things the way they are tend to be called 'conservative' while those who want to shake up things - to make them better or just to change them for change's sake - are called 'progressive'. It looks like the 'progressives' of old have turned into 'conservatives' while the 'conservatives' have taken on more 'progressive' characteristics. This goes to show that party labels and affiliations only go so far when it comes to finding out who stands where and that the silly 'left' vs 'right' dichotomy is decidedly useless to separate 'good' from 'bad', no matter where you consider yourself to stand in this division.
Hello, I submitted this. Thanks for your concern. I've been lurking on Hacker News since ~2014 when I was in college. I made an account and started posting because people on the board have something of an interest in biology and genetics (for example this story on cancer detection from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43035147 ) and I wanted to contribute. I posted this because the NIH funds a lot of research related to that and this story reports on a massive change to the NIH, which seemed worthy of discussion.
General normal politics was really never posted to HN since it wasn’t interesting. DOGE/etc very much interesting new phenomenon though and so a valid topic. Wouldn’t mind a discussion topic posted by dang to discuss it, maybe a hn.com/pol/ (only half joking)
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic
I didn't submit this article, but I did vouch for it. I wouldn't normally do either for a political article.
The lay-offs are apparently not just affecting health agencies but are across the entire range of US government agencies, and are extensive. This will affect a great many people, and I feel very sad for their predicament - but it will also affect the regulatory, economic, and public policy environment in the US, as well as US government funded technology and research. Many people who use this site will be affected, directly or indirectly. As will many of the companies that they work for.
So, apart from the awful human cost, I believe the article is HN-relevant.
I mean it's kind of hard to not call it partisan when it starts with "Trump administration". But I may just be tired of going on reddit, X, hackernews, and seeing the exact same news articles. We are losing a lot of half way decent technology articles, because people are more interested in what Musk or Trump is up to. Which is fair.
Well, what Musk is doing is very impactful and out of the ordinary, and DOGE is (supposed to be) a technology-focused agency (efficiency, blah blah), so it enters the HN domain.
If you're upset that tech and politics have merged, blame Musk.
It seems the admin just wants to gut everything, and the only reason to me seems privatization. Make all these agencies dysfunctional, tell people look how bad<insert govt. agency here> is, let's get bids from private companies that can do a better job at <x> dollars.
I hope this is not the case.