The Great American Health Purge: Cutting Expertise as Budgets Bleed

It's been yet another absolutely normal week in America, where we've simply been witnessing checks notes the largest government restructuring since the New Deal, catastrophic market crashes, and a president who still thinks he can buy Greenland. Just your standard, run-of-the-mill April in America!

Refer to 47 Watch analyzed executive actions and curated news timeline for direct references to the topics, below.

The Week That Was: A Rapid-Fire Digest

First, trade wars! They're back and bigger than ever! On Wednesday, President Trump signed an executive order implementing what he's calling "reciprocal tariffs" on countries with trade deficits with the US. Markets responded to this news by collectively jumping out the window, with the US stock market losing $2.5 trillion in a single day. That's trillion with a T, as in "Terrifying amount of money to vanish overnight." JPMorgan also became the first major bank to forecast a recession later this year.

The auto industry has been hit particularly hard, with Stellantis already temporarily laying off 900 US workers. Yes, that's the same Stellantis that makes Jeep and Chrysler vehicles — truly nothing says "America First" like putting American auto workers on unemployment.

Meanwhile, our allies are thrilled! And by thrilled, I mean absolutely furious. British consumers are joining Canadians in an "Elbows Up" campaign to boycott American products. Nothing strengthens international relations like having your closest allies create Pinterest boards titled "How to Avoid Buying Anything American."

In immigration news, ICE has been conducting raids across the country, including at Mt. Baker Roofing in Washington where 37 workers were detained. The administration has also apparently created an "Alien Enemies Act Validation Guide," where all it takes to be detained is having a tattoo an ICE officer says looks like a gang tattoo. Because if there's anyone qualified to analyze complex cultural symbols, it's definitely ICE agents with two weeks of training and a quota to fill.

Also, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered US diplomats to scour student visa applicants' social media for any pro-Palestinian content – a move that legal experts are calling "definitely not a First Amendment problem at all, no sir." The State Department is also revoking visas for hundreds of international students without even informing them or their universities. I guess "due process" is just another thing that doesn't survive contact with an executive order.

In government restructuring news, Social Security offices are seeing long lines and confusion after new rules require beneficiaries to come in person if they cannot register online. This comes as thousands more job cuts are expected at the agency thanks to DOGE.

But the biggest story this week has been the gutting of America's public health infrastructure.

The Dismantling Of America's Health Agencies

While the financial world burns, something equally alarming but far less reported is happening.

This week, the Department of Health and Human Services began what one source described as "a bloodbath" of layoffs across multiple health agencies, including the CDC, FDA, NIH, and CMS. Thousands of employees have received reduction-in-force notices, essentially pink slips telling them their decades of expertise in public health are no longer needed. It's the largest-ever reduction in force at Health and Human Services, eliminating 20,000 jobs – that's 20% of its entire workforce.

Let's put that in perspective. Imagine walking into your workplace and discovering that one in five of your colleagues have simply vanished. Not on vacation. Not working remotely. Gone. Employees showed up to find deactivated security badges or discovered termination emails sent at 5 a.m. Even leadership was blindsided, with one source describing the situation as "Radio silence. It's madness!"

So what exactly is being eliminated in this quest for "efficiency"? Oh, just some minor things like:

• At the CDC: Lead contamination response teams, cruise ship hygiene monitors, and HIV prevention programs. Because who needs clean water, sanitary cruise ships, or HIV prevention?

• At the FDA: 3,500 positions slashed, including food safety and drug approval staff. Apparently, knowing whether drugs are safe or if there's E. coli in your lettuce is now considered optional.

• At the NIH: Brain research scientists, infectious disease experts, and grant administrators. This also includes stopping all research on Alzheimer's disease, he seventh leading cause of death in the United States and is the most common cause of dementia among older adults.

• At CMS: Offices handling minority health and community engagement have been shuttered.

What's especially concerning is the frenzied nature of these cuts, with a reported 20% "error rate" forcing temporary reinstatements of some employees — which suggests this wasn't exactly a carefully planned reorganization. The chaos within these agencies is evident, with one HHS employee described the situation as "madness," and leadership kept in the dark about restructuring plans. Employees are awaiting their fate while essential public health work grinds to a halt.

The targeting of these specific agencies isn't random. The CDC, which tracks disease outbreaks and provides critical public health guidance, has been in conservative crosshairs since the COVID-19 pandemic. The FDA ensures our food and drugs are safe — a mission apparently at odds with the "government regulation bad" mantra. And the NIH, America's premier medical research institution, funds studies on topics some find politically inconvenient, like climate change's health impacts or gender-affirming care

The Real World Impact

This isn't just about numbers on a spreadsheet. These cuts have created a public health vacuum affecting programs for chronic disease, vaccine development, and outbreak response — including active measles and bird flu crises that are happening right now.

Research is grinding to a halt with thousands of NIH grants canceled, including studies on COVID-19, trans health, and DEI-related projects. The NIH has also terminated at least 678 research projects on a wide range of public health issues. On April 2nd, a group of health research organizations and scientists sued the NIH, alleging these terminations violate the Administrative Procedure Act and constitutional rights.

As Dr. Ashish Jha, former Biden COVID czar, put it: "We've never seen anything like this. More outbreaks, less capacity to respond." But don't worry — HHS Secretary Kennedy assures us this "streamlining" will "Make America Healthy Again" by focusing on "prevention over treatment." Interesting approach, considering they're firing the people in charge of…prevention.

But it's not just researchers who are concerned. Twenty states, DC, and two Democratic governors have sued HHS over the termination of $11 billion in public health funding. HHS claims these funds are no longer necessary because they were appropriated under COVID-19 response laws. The states argue these funds were meant to strengthen public health programs beyond the pandemic.

The impact of these cuts will be felt far beyond Washington. Rural communities, which often rely heavily on federal funding for healthcare services, will be disproportionately affected. Public health laboratories that track emerging diseases may be forced to close. Food safety inspections could be reduced, increasing the risk of contaminated products reaching supermarket shelves. And crucial research into cancer, Alzheimer's, and other diseases may be delayed or abandoned entirely.

The Bottom Line

The dismantling of HHS agencies represents a systematic destruction of institutional knowledge and emergency response capacity. As one CDC employee quipped: "We used to track pandemics. Now we're the pandemic."

In another universe where the administration was focused on actual efficiency, they might have considered that every dollar invested in public health saves approximately $5.60 in future healthcare costs. Or that the NIH research they're cutting generates approximately $69 billion in economic activity annually.

The irony is that effective public health work is invisible when it's working. We don't see the outbreaks that don't happen, the food poisoning cases prevented by inspections, or the lives saved by new treatments discovered through NIH research. But we will absolutely notice when these protections disappear.

We Are Not Without Hope

But wait! Just when this week's news had us reaching for both antacids and anxiety medication, something remarkable happened yesterday. While the administration was busy dismantling public health infrastructure and setting fire to the global economic order, Americans were busy organizing one of the largest protest movements since Trump returned to office.

The nationwide "Hands Off!" protests erupted across all 50 states on Saturday, with over 1,400 demonstrations from coast to coast bringing together thousands of Americans united under a single, powerful message. In Washington D.C., protesters gathered at the National Mall, while similar scenes played out in cities large and small across the country.

What makes these protests particularly significant isn't just their size but their breadth. In Boston, protesters rallied against cuts to research funding. In Sylva, North Carolina, over 300 people opposed cuts to national parks, education, and veteran services. And in Portland, Oregon, several thousand gathered against what they described as an "illegal, billionaire power grab."

The movement transcended age barriers too. Al and Bev Mirmelstein, both 77 years old, traveled by bus with others from Charlottesville to D.C., carrying signs that read: "Hands off our Constitution, rule of law, Social Security, free speech, health care" and "Save our democracy." When retirees are boarding buses for protest road trips, you know something significant is brewing.

And this wasn't just an American phenomenon – the protests went global, with demonstrations in Berlin, London, Paris, and cities across Europe and beyond, showing that what happens in America ripples throughout the world.

Is this the beginning of a sustained resistance movement? It's too early to tell. But at a time when many Americans feel powerless in the face of sweeping changes and cuts, these protests represent something vital: a reminder that democracy isn't just about what happens in Washington — it's about what happens when ordinary citizens decide they've had enough.

As Patty Kim, a retired federal worker who attended the D.C. rally, put it, "I felt so frustrated and paralyzed by the bunch of things that are going on that undermine human rights and humanity in this country that I love, that I had to do something."

So while the dismantling of our public health infrastructure is deeply concerning, yesterday's nationwide uprising offers a glimmer of hope – that Americans across generations and geographies aren't willing to stand by silently. They're raising their voices, exercising their rights, and sending a clear message to those in power: hands off our democracy, our rights, and our future.

And if there's anything history teaches us, it's that when enough people stand up together, even the most powerful have to listen. So keep your hand sanitizer close, but maybe also keep your protest signs handy. This fight isn't over yet.