Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will eliminate 20,000 employees and cut HHS’ regional offices in half as part of what the department calls a “dramatic restructuring.”  

The Food and Drug Administration will lose 3,500 employees, “with a focus on streamlining operations and  centralizing administrative functions," said a fact sheet released by the department Thursday. The reduction won’t affect  “drug, medical device, or food reviewers, nor will it impact inspectors,” HHS said. 

The HHS overhaul “will implement the new HHS priority of ending America’s epidemic of chronic illness by focusing on safe, wholesome food, clean water, and the elimination of environmental toxins," a news release said. 

"We aren't just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said in the release. “This department will do more -- a lot more -- at a lower cost to the taxpayer."   

The announcement said the department was addressing an executive order, “Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative.”   

The release said the restructuring “will serve multiple goals without impacting critical services. First, it will save taxpayers $1.8 billion per year through a reduction in workforce of about 10,000 full-time employees who are part of this most recent transformation. When combined with HHS’ other efforts, including early retirement and Fork in the Road, the restructuring results in a total downsizing from 82,000 to 62,000 full-time employees.”

Fork in the Road refers to an offer from the Trump administration to allow employees to take deferred resignations.

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The restructuring will reduce the 28 divisions of the HHS down to 15, eliminating what the department said were redundancies. There will be a new Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA, and HHS plans to “centralize core functions such as Human Resources, Information Technology, Procurement, External Affairs, and Policy. Regional offices will be reduced from 10 to 5."

Steven Grossman, president of HPS Group LLC and former executive director of Alliance for a Stronger FDA, said the reductions in force at FDA "would be in addition to those who took buy-outs (voluntary separation) earlier" and noted that "reviewers and inspectors are exempt. Logically, the food policy, compliance, and regulatory staff are most at risk, but we wouldn’t know for certain until we see the plan.”

Brian Ronholm, director food policy at Consumer Reports, said the staff cuts "endanger public health and food safety, and they raise serious concerns that the administration’s pledge to make Americans healthy again could become nothing more than an empty promise. Despite recent encouraging statements about addressing infant formula safety and harmful food chemicals, mass layoffs will undermine these initiatives and hinder the FDA’s ability to ensure our food is safe to eat.”

For more news, go to Agri-Pulse.com

This story was updated to include reaction to the announcement.

Rebekah Alvey contributed to this story.