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RFK Jr.’s impact on HHS so far has some worried
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New Jersey and a coalition of other states Monday sued the Trump administration and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for cutting thousands of Health and Human Services Department employees, saying the agency is no longer able “to execute many of its most vital functions.”
The lawsuit, filed by 18 states run by Democrats, argues that the loss of 10,000 employees essentially shuts down programs and functions that can be ended only by the U.S. Congress, which created and funded them.
“President Trump and Secretary Kennedy do not have the legal authority to shut down this department — but they are apparently hell-bent on firing tens of thousands of public health workers and shuttering key programs,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a statement.
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In March, Kennedy said Health and Human Services was “realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities,” which includes what he calls the “chronic disease epidemic.” He announced the elimination of more than 10,000 employees and said he would collapse 28 agencies under HHS into 15.
Kennedy has placed more emphasis on exercise and food quality under his “Make America Healthy Again” campaign. But critics say Kennedy — an avowed vaccine skeptic — is instead dismantling initiatives to track and treat infectious diseases, regulate drug quality and provide mental health services.
Labs end testing for infectious diseases
The cuts had some immediate results, the lawsuit states.
Some laboratories stopped testing for infectious diseases such as hepatitis.
The Food and Drug Administration missed a vaccine application deadline and canceled a test for the bird flu virus.
The World Trade Center Health Program had no doctors to certify new illnesses for coverage of responders and survivors of the 9/11 attacks.
And programs aimed at monitoring maternal and newborn health were shuttered, the lawsuit states.
The suit was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Monday. In addition to New Jersey, the attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia also signed on to the complaint.
It is the fourth lawsuit that Platkin has joined against the Trump administration’s health care cuts.
NJ also sued over $11 billion in proposed cuts to health initiatives
In April, 23 states sued the administration for proposing to cut $11 billion in state and local health initiatives, including $350 million in New Jersey. HHS officials said the majority of the cuts were to programs that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic and were no longer needed.
The state Department of Human Services sent an email to nonprofit groups and other federal grant recipients, especially those that provide mental health and addiction services, telling them to stop incurring any expenses that would normally be reimbursed by those grants.
Platkin also filed two other lawsuits in February and April trying to reverse the Trump administration’s cuts to millions of dollars in research grants issued by the National Institutes of Health.
This story contains information from USA Today.
