RFK Jr.'s layoffs expected to gut worker safety agency NIOSH, officials say

At least two-thirds of the staff at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, are expected to be laid off as part of a restructuring ordered by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., multiple federal health officials tell CBS News.

Around 873 staff are expected to be cut from NIOSH, multiple leaders within the agency were told in recent days, out of the 10,000 workers that are slated to be laid off from across the Department of Health and Human Services this year. 

NIOSH was created by Congress in 1970 to study worker safety and health. Workplaces often turn to the agency to investigate outbreaks and injuries, like after the deadly fungal outbreak that shuttered a Michigan paper mill in 2023.