After shedding as many as 10,000 full-time staffers at his department as part of a massive restructuring effort last week, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said he would reinstate 20% of them as mistakes from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led to those layoffs.

“Personnel that should not have been cut were cut. We’re reinstating them,” RFK Jr. said Thursday, noting that some of the programs are also being resumed after an initial decision to terminate as part of the reorganization.

“That was always the plan,” RFK Jr. said, adding, “Part of the DOGE—we talked about this from the beginning—is we’re going to do 80% cuts, but 20% of those are going to have to be reinstalled because we’ll make mistakes.”

According to him, HHS programs to be reinstated include a project run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor blood lead levels in children.

HHS planned to cut 2,400 CDC employees, representing about 18% of the agency's total workforce, as part of the restructuring program, which got underway early this week after an initial announcement on Mar. 27.