In recent years, the Food and Drug Administration hired experts in surgical robots and pioneers in artificial intelligence. It scooped up food chemists, lab-safety monitors and diabetes specialists who helped make needle pricks and test strips relics of the past.
Trying to keep up with breakneck advances in medical technology and the demands of a public troubled by additives like food dyes, the agency enticed scores of midcareer specialists with remote roles and the chance to make a difference in their fields.
In one weekend of mass firings across the F.D.A., much of that effort was gone. Most baffling to many were the firings of hundreds whose jobs were not funded by taxpayers. Their positions were financed through congressionally approved agreements that routed fees from the drug, medical device and tobacco industries to the agency.
Known as user fees, the money provides adequate staffing for reviews of myriad products. While criticized by some, including the nation’s new health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as a corrupting force on the agency, the industry funds are also widely viewed as indispensable: They now account for nearly half of the agency’s $7.2 billion budget.
Though the F.D.A. is believed to have lost about 700 of its 18,000 employees, some cuts hit small teams so deeply that staff members believe the safety of some medical devices could be compromised.
Among the layoffs were scientists supported by the fees who monitor whether tests pick up ever-evolving pathogens, including those that cause bird flu and Covid. They hobbled teams that evaluate the safety of medical devices like surgical staplers, new systems for diabetes control and A.I. software programs that scan millions of M.R.I.s and other images to detect cancer beyond the human eye. The cuts also eliminated positions for employees who have played a role in assessing the brain-implant technology in Elon Musk’s Neuralink devices.