Many dental leaders in the U.S. were left scrambling after the Health and Human Services Department unexpectedly gutted the CDC oral health division as part of its restructuring plan.
HHS employees began receiving dismissal notices April 1 as part of the agency’s plan to reduce the number of full-time employees from 82,000 to 62,000. Plans outlined in a March 27 HHS fact sheet state that these reductions include consolidating 28 departments down to 15 and centralizing other functions.
The HHS Department said it intended to decrease the CDC workforce by approximately 2,400 employees and return the organization to its core mission of responding to epidemics and outbreaks.
It is unknown how many employees in the oral health division were laid off as part of this restructuring plan, or how the department intends to continue supporting oral health initiatives going forward.
Becker’s has reached out to the HHS Department for more information.
Dental organizations immediately began to speak out against the cuts, pushing for oral health to remain a priority under the federal government.
The American Dental Association said these reductions undermine national health priorities in an April 1 news release. The organization urged HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Donald Trump to immediately reverse the cuts.
“I am disappointed with the Department of Government Efficiency’s targeting of oral health workforce reductions,” ADA President Brett Kessler, DDS, said. “Blunt actions like this do not make Americans healthy. They make us sick. The mouth is the gateway to the body. When the mouth is healthier, the body is too.”
The American Dental Hygienists’ Association also shared their criticism, stating that the cuts weaken people’s ability to prevent and manage health conditions. It also urged the agency to restore funding and staffing under the CDC.
“ADHA urges the administration and Congress to recognize the critical role preventive oral health programs play in reducing long-term healthcare costs and maintaining public health,” the ADHA said April 2. “Without this infrastructure and support for community-based programs, the burden of oral disease will escalate and disproportionately affect those with the least access to care, including children, older adults and historically underserved populations.”
Although RFK Jr. said April 4 that 20% of the job cuts made April 1 were wrong and will need to be corrected, it is unclear if those reinstatements will apply to the CDC’s oral health division.
Barry Lyon, DDS, the dental director for Main Street Children’s Dentistry and Orthodontics and the chief clinical auditor for Dental Care Alliance, expressed his concerns for the consequences facing Americans’ oral health without the CDC’s leadership in addition to the growing anti-fluoride sentiment across the U.S.
“If streamlining the government and eliminating waste is the goal, there must be scores of other options than pulling the healthcare rug out from under Americans,” he told Becker’s. “The shutdown, or the butchering, of the CDC’s oral health department will create a generational catastrophe for the 16.3% of America’s children living at poverty level. This action, along with [the removal of] fluoride from public water supplies, will have damaging impacts that will follow these children for the rest of their lives.”
Melissa Burroughs, the director of policy at the CareQuest Institute for Oral Health, told Becker’s that the CDC cuts are another setback on top of several other threats facing oral health in the U.S., including potential Medicaid cuts, cuts to funding for the National Institutes of Health and anti-fluoride legislation in various states.
Ms. Burroughs added that although it is unknown how work to support oral health will continue without the CDC’s oral health division, CareQuest is hoping for future opportunities to work with the Trump administration to ensure that the U.S. does not lose its progress on oral healthcare.
“We know there are clear links between oral health and overall health, and at the same time, we know that good oral health is too expensive and out of reach for far too many people in America,” she said. “It seems like HHS is moving away from oral health at a time when we’re already facing a crisis and potentially facing other setbacks.”
