The HHS Officials Being Paid Six Figures to Do Nothing

"When she succeeded Anthony Fauci as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Jeanne Marrazzo felt that she'd landed "probably the most important infectious-disease job in the world," she told me. After decades of working in academia, she now had the power to influence, nationwide, the science she knew best-overseeing 4,500 employees at a $6.5 billion institute, the second largest by budget at the National Institutes of Health, the world's largest public funder of biomedical research."

"That was at the beginning of April. In a near instant, she went from days filled, morning 'til evening, with meetings, phone calls, and lively scientific discussions to "no structure," she told me. The first month or two, she "was too stunned to do much" at all, she said, beyond wrestling with feelings of humiliation over the situation she'd been forced into."

"Marrazzo isn't alone in purgatory. She is one of roughly 100 officials whom the Department of Health and Human Services placed on administrative leave-or sent to, as some of them call it, HHS's rubber room-in the winter or in spring, without explanation or a sense of when or how their status might change, according to a senior HHS official with direct knowledge of their circumstances. (Several of the HHS officials I spoke with requested anonymity to avoid retaliation from the Trump administration.)"

Jeanne Marrazzo became director of NIAID after Anthony Fauci, overseeing 4,500 employees and a $6.5 billion budget as the NIH's second-largest institute. After about a year and a half in the role, the Trump administration placed her on administrative leave and removed her access to the NIH campus, her staff, and her devices. She remained director on paper but was effectively pushed out and left without daily structure, feeling stunned and humiliated. She is one of roughly 100 HHS officials put on leave or sent to a so-called "rubber room" without explanation. Some officials requested anonymity to avoid retaliation.

Read at The Atlantic