Wyden, Padilla Lead Colleagues in Slamming RFK Jr. for Purging Staff on Frontlines of Opioid Crisis
Letter follows mass layoffs from Trump administration during ongoing Republican government shutdown
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Alex Padilla, D-Calif., today led their Democratic Senate colleagues in slamming the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for firing federal employees working on the frontlines of America’s opioid crisis at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
HHS has now terminated more than 100 SAMHSA employees since the start of the Trump administration, reducing its staff to less than 50 percent capacity. SAMHSA provides key addiction and mental health treatment services, with a focus on rural and underserved areas, and is responsible for programs like the 9-8-8 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. The layoffs, part of another government-wide reduction in force carried out earlier this month by the Trump administration, will lead to more Americans falling into addiction because they will be unable to access SAMHSA’s critical addiction prevention and treatment services.
“Terminating the experts at SAMHSA who coordinate our national response will deepen both the human and economic toll and ensure devastating impacts from increasing supplies of illicit drugs flowing into communities across the country," the senators wrote in their letter to Kennedy. "Your decision sends the wrong message to public health professionals—and to the families counting on them. It contradicts the administration’s own stated goals to tackle the fentanyl crisis, expand mental health services, and end the opioid epidemic."
Kennedy’s decision to purge public health professionals not only derails progress made by a workforce with irreplaceable experience, but it also contradicts the Administration’s pledge to tackle the fentanyl crisis, expand mental health services, and end the opioid epidemic.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 73,000 people died from overdosing from April 2024 to April 2025. Wyden and Padilla’s letter further warned that these terminations will lead to more opioid-related deaths and illicit drugs flowing into communities across the United States.
This letter is part of Wyden’s ongoing effort to address the opioid crisis in Oregon and nationwide, and continue to pressure the Trump administration to fulfill its promise to address this crisis. Last week Wyden questioned the DEA on what it’s doing to crack down on chemical broker middlemen that help cartels procure chemicals needed for illicit fentanyl production.
“We are in the throes of a mental health and addiction crisis in the US - we should be staffing up to meet the challenge, not shedding talent without cause,” said Dwight C. Holton, Chief Executive Officer of Lines for Life.
In addition to Wyden and Padilla, the letter to HHS was signed by Senators Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., Jack Reed, D-R.I., Tina Smith, D-Minn., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Mark Warner, D-Va., Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawai’i.
The text of the letter is here.
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