More than a thousand employees at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received termination notices on Friday, in a move that eliminated entire offices and was partially reversed over the weekend. The Trump administration claims about 700 notices were sent in error, though no public evidence of an error has been provided. Another 600 terminated employees have not been reinstated.
Debra Houry, former chief medical officer at the CDC, described the situation as causing 'instability and whiplash'. She said, 'It seems like they just took a sledgehammer to the agency versus a scalpel. The fact they brought half back already just shows they didn't think through what they were doing.'
The entire staff of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), a respected epidemiology journal, were terminated and then reinstated. Similarly, employees working on global health, suicide prevention, disease detectives, and the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases were reinstated. However, the entire human resources department remains cut, affecting agency operations. The Washington office is also still cut, which Houry says 'makes it difficult to communicate with Congress'.
Staff with the CDC's institutional review board, which reviews study designs, and the ethics office, which oversees conflicts of interest, were also let go. In the next 30 days, some science protocols are up for renewal by the board. The National Center for Health Statistics was hit hard, with cuts to nutrition surveys and electronic health records staff. The program offering mental health support to employees, especially after a recent mass shooting, was also cut.
Many from the data office and the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics were terminated, affecting the CDC's ability to inform the public about outbreaks. Houry doubts the rescinded notices were a coding error, suggesting jobs were reinstated after public outcry. She noted, 'When you do look at what has been reinstated so far, it does seem like it was the things that had the most attention to it.'
Since the start of the Trump administration, thousands have left the CDC due to terminations, retirements, and layoffs. Houry emphasized, 'The capacity to respond to an outbreak or to communities is hampered.' She called for congressional oversight, stating, 'We really need Congress to ask questions about how these RIFs happened... The CDC takes care of the public. We need the public to take care of the CDC.'
