FDA staff handling drug safety for pets and livestock lost jobs in Trump firings

One casualty of the mass firings across federal health agencies are regulators who ensure drugs for pets and livestock are safe and effective.

The cuts hit the Center for Veterinary Medicine, an arm of the Food and Drug Administration that regulates the safety and efficacy of drugs, food and medical devices for animals.

That’s according to two staffers working at the FDA, and a third who was fired over the weekend, who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak for the agency and fear retribution.

The center’s work has an impact on many different animals, including household pets, like dogs, cats and hamsters. It’s also responsible for making sure that human food from animals being treated with medications (such as antibiotics and hormones) is safe to eat, including dairy cows, egg-laying hens and other livestock.

Some of those who lost their jobs were responsible for reviewing data-heavy material from companies that manufacture veterinary drugs to determine whether those are safe and effective, the sources told NPR.

One staffer who received their termination letter over the weekend said the majority of their work had involved regularly reviewing reports on drugs that are on the market to make sure manufacturers were following quality standards and preventing contamination, among other things.

Like many other federal workers who were fired by the Trump administration, the individual was still in their probationary period — a prolonged trial of one to two years for new employees or those who have moved to new positions — which meant they had fewer worker protections.

According to one FDA employee who spoke to NPR, at least 20 reviewers had lost their jobs, but because information is spreading among employees by word-of-mouth — not through the normal chains of command — the true scope of the layoffs wasn’t entirely clear.

FDA had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

Marcos Contreras, director of pharmacy at the University of California, Davis, Veterinary Teaching Hospital, says news of the cuts was concerning.

“Anything entering the [veterinary] market, just like a human drug, needs oversight and regulation to make sure that they are putting safe stuff out there,” he says.

The losses will deplete staffing in an already backlogged area of FDA, meaning those workers that are left could be forced to “rush through their work,” in order to meet deadlines, one of the current FDA staffers told NPR.

“We want to be able to trust the medications,” the person said, adding that they worry overworked reviewers could miss “critical aspects of concern that will affect safety and efficacy.”

What’s more, the cuts may not save the government money, the sources said. The majority of salaries of many of the terminated staffers are paid by user fees, which veterinary drug companies pay the FDA to hire more staff and ensure product reviews happen in a timely manner.

The cuts affect a relatively small team. And they coincide with an order to return to in-person work, which may lead to others who were hired as remote workers to resign, the other FDA staffer said.

This could have implications not only for pets like cats and dogs, but also for humans who consume animal products.

“The safety of these drugs impacts anyone who eats animal products who eats meat or milk or eggs,” the person told NPR.

Have information you want to share about the ongoing changes at federal health agencies? Reach out to these authors via encrypted communications: Will Stone @wstonereports.95 and Sydney Lupkin @sydneylupkin.36.