NIH lays off hundreds more staff, including at cancer research institute

Trump's firings and cuts astatine NIH

The firings and billion-dollar probe assistance cuts astatine NIH successful Trump's archetypal 100 days backmost successful office 03:15

The National Institutes of Health has laid disconnected hundreds much staff, aggregate existent and laid-off employees of the wellness bureau told CBS News, including astatine its crab probe institute.

Around 200 employees began receiving layoff notices Friday evening, said 3 radical who spoke connected the information of anonymity. The determination amazed NIH officials, since the section antecedently claimed no further cuts were planned astatine the agency. 

"We thought the worst was down us, and we were transitioning into this caller phase, and the rug was conscionable pulled retired from underneath us," 1 laid-off worker said.

A spokesperson for the NIH did not remark connected wherefore NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya sought the further layoffs, referring a petition for remark to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH. HHS did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

Among the cuts were astir 50 employees astatine the NIH's National Cancer Institute, oregon NCI. They had worked successful the institute's Office of Communications and Public Liaison overseeing programs similar the Cancer Information Service, which provides answers to doctors and patients astir cancer, and updates to databases summarizing crab accusation for healthcare providers. 

The layoff notices came a time aft unit successful that NCI communications bureau had met with top-ranking NIH leaders, to sermon drafting up plans to consolidate their unit into a caller centralized communications limb crossed the agency. 

While respective communications offices astatine the NIH's institutes had been gutted during an archetypal circular of layoffs connected April 1, NCI's squad was spared. Only a fistful of NCI unit had been laid disconnected past month, 2 radical said, including successful the institute's quality resources teams.

"Leadership was successful the process of transferring immoderate process and immoderate of our media relations radical implicit to NIH, due to the fact that they were inactive getting property inquiries, but they couldn't grip the measurement of inquiries that were coming through," the laid-off worker said.

Two radical said they had been told that the 2nd circular of cuts was done arsenic portion of an effort to compensate for different scientists needing to beryllium reinstated astatine Bhattacharya's agency, successful bid to comply with layoff targets.

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