The United States is reportedly on pace for its worst year of measles infections this century, with 483 confirmed measles cases across 20 states. At the same time, 70 human cases of bird flu have been identified in 13 states. As these outbreaks of potentially deadly diseases escalate, with no clear resolution in sight, the Trump administration has begun the process of firing an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 employees at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Amid the ongoing bird flu outbreak, the “top FDA veterinarian working to help the Trump administration fight bird flu has been let go,” according to Wall Street Journal health reporter Liz Essley Whyte.

Medical and public health experts are in shock and sounding the alarm.

“The FDA as we’ve known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed,” remarked Dr. Robert Califf, who served twice as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, under presidents Obama and Biden. He calls this “a dark day for public health” that history will see as “a huge mistake.”

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Dr. Califf says he is now hearing that firms are preparing to move research and development to Europe and China. He added, “maybe there’s a plan to nurture the profound advances in medicine & tech on the horizon rather than promote unproven remedies like cod liver oil and supplements for serious diseases.”

The Washington Post points to the “purge of leadership” at the U.S. health agencies that make up HHS. They include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), among others.

“At the National Institutes of Health, a nearly $48 billion biomedical research agency, at least five top leaders were put on leave,” according to the Post. “Among those offered reassignment were the infectious-disease institute director Jeanne Marrazzo,” who “had succeeded Anthony S. Fauci as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an institute that helped lead the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and that later became a target of Republicans.”

Sam Stein at The Bulwark calls Tuesday’s firings a “bloodbath,” and a “mass culling.”

“Multiple officials who work in the department told The Bulwark that entire offices were being eliminated, the conservative media outlet reported. “To get a fuller sense of the despair, head over to the NIH’s Reddit forum; or the HHS forum. It’s bleak. That’s what happens, we suppose, when a weeks-old administration decides that it will eliminate 10,000 full-time employees from one of its most critical departments.”

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“Generation of scientists, health care officials being wiped out,” Stein wrote on social media.

Dr. Rob Davidson, executive director of the nonprofit Committee to Protect Health Care wrote: “Slashing 20,000 HHS jobs is reckless. Pairing that with Medicaid cuts? That’s not reform—it’s sabotage. You don’t ‘fix’ healthcare by gutting its core. People will suffer.”

Claiming “streamlining,” and “efficiency,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the layoffs late last week, declaring he “will eliminate an entire alphabet soup of departments, while preserving their core functions by merging them into a new organization called the Administration for a Healthy America or AHA. This overhaul will improve the health of the entire nation — to Make America Healthy Again.”

Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency room physician who treated Ebola patients and subsequently contracted the often deadly disease but survived, blasted the firings.

“Thousands of the best experts at FDA, NIH, and all across HHS are being terminated right now,” Dr. Spencer wrote. “These are the people who make sure the medications you and your children take are safe. These are the people who perform and oversee research on cancer, infant health, and so so so much more. These are the people who make sure new devices that physicians and patients use are effective. These are the people who keep workers safe on the job and help prevent devastating injuries for workers all around the country. These are the people who track what drugs and medications are experiencing shortages so we can adapt. These are the people who help tackle HIV and other infectious diseases, asthma, lead poisoning, and everything else that makes many Americans sick. And now, thousands of them are gone. There is no way this makes Americans healthier. We will regret this.”

STAT News reports that about twenty-five percent of the entire HHS workforce is expected to be eliminated:

“As of last week, it was estimated that the FDA would take the biggest cut, losing roughly 3,500 employees, or about 19% its workforce, followed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was expected to lose … about 18% of its staff. The National Institutes of Health was projected to lose about 1,200 employees, or about 6% of its workers.”

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who served as FDA Commissioner during President Donald Trump’s first administration, did not appear to directly address the firings, but chose the day they are happening to warn about the destruction of the ecosystem that works to create new drugs, which includes HHS agencies like the FDA and the NIH.

“Twenty-five years ago, it was common to hear complaints about a ‘drug lag’—the perception that Europeans routinely enjoyed medical advances years before their American counterparts. Through a generation of congressional actions, investments in expertise and hiring, and careful policymaking, we built the FDA into the most efficient, forward-leaning drug regulatory agency in the world—and established the U.S. as the global center of biopharmaceutical innovation. Today, the cumulative barrage on that drug-discovery enterprise, threatens to swiftly bring back those frustrating delays for American consumers, particularly affecting rare diseases and areas of significant unmet medical need.”

READ MORE: ‘Even the Rich Are Worried’: Experts Warn of ‘Scariest’ Signs Amid ‘Stagflation’ Fears

President Donald Trump has dubbed April 2 “Liberation Day”—the date he’ll unveil his sweeping and controversial tariff package—but behind the scenes, White House officials are quietly admitting it could be anything but liberating for America’s farmers.

Trump’s tariffs are expected to cost Americans tens of billions of dollars annually, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The cost to farmers could be “financial devastation,” The New York Times reported on Monday. And since the White House is mulling a necessary bailout for the American agricultural industry, the ultimate cost of Trump’s tariffs could grow even more expensive.

The Trump administration “is weighing a new round of emergency aid to farmers, who are likely to be caught in the middle if America’s trading partners retaliate.”

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“The early discussions offer a tacit acknowledgment that Mr. Trump’s expansive tariffs could unleash financial devastation throughout the U.S. agricultural industry, a crucial voting base that the president similarly tried to safeguard during his 2018 trade war with China,” the Times reports.

The American taxpayer ended up paying farmers about $23 billion during the first Trump administration’s trade war with China. Trump’s new tariffs could push that number far higher, if he decides to protect the agriculture industry.

This quiet acknowledgement that Trump’s tariffs could be calamitous to farmers, likely requiring billions to offset their losses, would appear to destroy his claims that tariffs will enrich the government’s coffers. A top aide, Peter Navarro, has claimed, in what has been described as “Orwellian” remarks, that tariffs are a “tax cut.”

The Times explains that “an expensive federal bailout threatens to cut deeply into one of Mr. Trump’s signature reasons for pursuing protectionist policies in the first place: a desire to rake in ‘lots of money,’ as the president himself has said. Mr. Trump and his Republican allies say the new tariffs could help pay for their still-forming plan to expand and extend a set of expiring tax cuts, which could cost into the trillions of dollars.”

READ MORE: ‘Even the Rich Are Worried’: Experts Warn of ‘Scariest’ Signs Amid ‘Stagflation’ Fears

Trump’s tax cuts are expected to disproportionally benefit the rich, some say.

Meanwhile, critics are blasting the news.

“Farmers feed the world,” noted Wisconsin Democratic state Senator Brad Pfaff, a former acting agriculture secretary. “But Trump’s tariffs will hurt farmers and drive up consumer food costs. This is not sound economic policy.”

“Trump’s first government bailout for farmers cost way more than what DOGE has claimed to save,” writes HuffPost senior political reporter Igor Bobic. “Now we’re doing another liberation bailout.”

“He has barely launched his trade war that was gonna make us rich, and it’s already going to cost the taxpayers billions,” adds former Biden and Obama administration official Brian P. McKeon.

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President Donald Trump’s economic policies have already cost him the confidence of a majority of Americans. The stock markets and consumer confidence plunged last week—and the fall continued Monday morning, with markets hitting lows not seen since September. Economic experts are sounding the alarm, warning that inflation and joblessness are set to rise, and demand for goods and services is poised to drop dramatically. All this comes just days before Trump’s massive and deeply controversial tariffs package is scheduled to take effect.

Fears of stagflation are “rippling through Wall Street and Main Street,” Axios reported.

President Donald Trump, however, has decided to mock all this.

Aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening, the President was asked if he is worried about stagflation—an economy that has high inflation, high unemployment, and stagnant demand for goods and services. Trump brushed off the growing fears (see video below).

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“I haven’t heard that term in years,” Trump claimed, despite having campaigned on the false claim of stagflation just last year.

“I don’t know anything about it,” the President continued, using an increasingly favorite phrase he is turning to repeatedly to escape criticism.

“This country is going to be more successful than it ever was,” he insisted, despite numerous economic indicators to the contrary. “It’s gonna boom. We’re gonna have Boomtown USA. We’re gonna boom.”

Reporter: Are you worried about stagflation?

Trump: I haven’t heard that term in years. I don’t know anything about it.. this country is going to boom. We’re going to have boomtown. We’re going to boom pic.twitter.com/Ajo5RUOoaa

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 31, 2025

Many economists, and a majority of Americans, disagree.

Fifty-one percent of Americans now disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to a YouGov/Yahoo poll. Newsweek reports that number is even higher than during the height of COVID during the first Trump administration, when 49% disapproved of his handling of the economy.

A majority (52%) believe the nation is currently in a recession or heading toward one, while seven in ten Americans rate today’s economic climate as fair or poor.

Meanwhile, top economists warn it is about to get worse.

“I’m raising my odds that a recession will begin sometime this year to 40%, up from 15% at the start of the year,” wrote Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, on Sunday morning. “Last week’s economic data were disconcerting, including the slide in consumer confidence, punk consumer spending, and persistently high inflation.”

Zandi put the blame squarely on President Trump.

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“The intensifying trade war and DOGE cuts are behind all this and with last week’s announcement of big tariff increases on vehicle imports and the coming reciprocal tariffs, things are sure to get worse,” he added.

Zandi is looking for more information when the March jobs report drops Friday morning. Regardless of what that looks like, however, he said, “as long as the tariffs and DOGE cuts continue to mount, so too will the odds of recession.”

CNBC averaged forecasts for inflation and gross domestic product (GDP) from fourteen economists, the financial news network reported Monday morning.

“Policy uncertainty and new sweeping tariffs from the Trump administration are combining to create a stagflationary outlook for the U.S. economy in the latest CNBC Rapid Update,” CNBC reported, which “sees first quarter growth registering an anemic 0.3% compared with the 2.3% reported in the fourth quarter of 2024. It would be the weakest growth since 2022 as the economy emerged from the pandemic.”

That would be better than the forecast from the Atlanta Fed, which forecasted negative growth this year, at minus 2.8%, meaning the economy is expected to shrink.

As far as Trump claiming to not know what stagflation is, last year during the campaign he repeatedly claimed—falsely—that the economy was experiencing stagflation.

.@axios just now: “Wall Street is talking about stagflation, a combination of stagnant growth and elevated inflation.” https://t.co/AMwWJsQxfu

Trump last year: “We now have BIDEN STAGFLATION—which spells the DEATH of the American Dream” pic.twitter.com/RF9SbzMkxa

— Andrew Bates (@AndrewBatesNC) March 10, 2025

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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