Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services finally followed through on a plan it first outlined for several of its top officials nearly a year ago: It reassigned them to positions in the Indian Health Service. Many of the officials who were sent the reassignments'a group that includes at least half a dozen top-ranking employees at the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, and other agencies'have been on administrative leave since last spring, when they were abruptly ousted from their roles without explanation, or any indication of how long their hiatus might last. So they were shocked last week when, with no preamble, they received phone calls, then a letter, informing them of their new role, and an April 8 deadline to decline or accept. In most or all cases, accepting these new roles would represent a major career shake-up and force a move across the country: Many senior HHS officials are based in Maryland'where the FDA and the NIH are located'or near Atlanta, where...
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