Officers Ron Wyden (D-ore.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have expressed concern to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of Health and Human Services (HHS) that recent layoffs at U.S. health agencies threaten modernising the organ transplant system.
The pair of lawmakers asked Kennedy on Wednesday. letter Layoffs were affected to disclose Health Resources and Services Management (HRSA) staff tasked with implementing improvements to organ procurement and transplant networks (OPTNs).
“We share the concerns that the National Kidney Foundation has raised in a letter to you due to the indiscriminate layoffs of probation employees launched by HHS on Friday, February 14, 2025. I wrote it To Kennedy.
Some were brought by the HRSA to help apply in 2023 in the round of ending workers from federal agencies.Protection of the US Organ Procurement and Transplant Network ActIt also reportedly reportedly.
“Allowing these efforts to be suspended or completely stopped would have meant that they had calcified the issues within the organ transplant system that facilitated this effort in the first place and failed to implement federal law,” the senator said.
Sanders, ranking members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (Help) Committee, and Wyden, ranking members of the Senate Finance Committee, asked Kennedy what extent he has been accused of being in charge of improving organs and transplant systems since President Trump's administration began on January 20th.
The duo too I asked The new HHS “will provide appropriate staffing and related experience and expertise to ensure continuous improvement in the country's organ donation and transplant system, in line with its intention to ensure the US Opton Act in 2023.
Groups including the National Kidney Foundation are calling for workers to be brought back; I'm saying The layoffs “will directly oppose the goals of port system reform to improve efficiency, transparency and government capabilities to meet the needs of those who rely on the system.”
Wyden and Sanders asked the HHS leader to respond by March 5th.
Oka reached for HHS for comments.
