‘Damage is done’: Mass firings and dysfunction at CDC spark chaos for public health, critics warn

The firings of hundreds of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and their sudden reinstatement after an “error” sent layoff notices to critical staff, has sparked chaos at the nation’s public health agency, which has endured a hectic 10 months under Donald Trump’s administration.

The administration sent “reduction in force” memos to more than 1,000 CDC employees before a three-day holiday weekend as the White House used the government shutdown to purge a federal workforce that has long been in its sights.

As many as 1,200 workers at the Department of Health and Human Services, which houses the CDC, were fired, according to court documents. HHS initially said that impacted workers “were designated non-essential by their respective divisions,” including critical “disease detectives,” outbreak forecasters and scientists studying emerging infectious diseases.

But more than half of those notices were rescinded over the weekend after being delivered in “error,” according to the union that represents federal workers.

The latest chaos comes just six weeks after top CDC officials resigned en masse after the director was forced out of the job, prompting warnings from health officials and public health experts that Trump, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his deputies are endangering millions of lives by politicizing public health and crippling its institutions.

“Think about what it’s like to be at CDC,” wrote Demetre Daskalakis, who served as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases before his resignation in August.

“It’s like living with an abusive partner that attacks and then takes back some of the abuse,” he added. “That doesn’t make the partner less abusive. … CDC damage is done. Rescinded firings or not. U.S. health security is compromised.”

Among the staff whose firings were “rescinded” include the “disease detectives”at the Epidemic Intelligence Service, leadership at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, scientists working on responses to measles and Ebola outbreaks, and the team that complies the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, according to workers’ unions.

It also marked the second time this year that Athalia Christie, who is currently managing the response to measles outbreaks, was fired in error.

The agency’s entire Washington, D.C., office, which was emptied out Friday, will not be rehired.

Mass firings and confusion within the agency “threaten the health of everyone in the U.S. and will lead to needless, preventable deaths,” according to Defend Public Health, a coalition of public health workers demanding urgent reform inside the Trump administration.

“Did they really not know they were firing the people tracking Ebola? Did they not care enough to find out who they were firing and what they did before sending termination letters?” said Gregg Gonsalves.

“The carelessness and callousness with which this administration handles life and death matters is unbelievable,” he added. “Viruses and bacteria don’t care about where you live or what political party you belong to, and the administration’s reckless destruction threatens every one of us.”

Unions are calling on federal judges to intervene to block any further “illegal” firings while thousands of other federal health workers remained furloughed during the shutdown, which is stretching into a third week.

“It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country,” American Federation of Government Employees union president Everett Kelley said in a statement.

The latest cuts will likely throw the agency into further chaos after a series of controversial public health decisions under Kennedy and a shooting at its Atlanta headquarters which killed a police officer.

Since his appointment to the role, the vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist has gutted research funding, pushed discredited claims about autism and Tylenol use, and oversaw mass layoffs and chaotic agency reorganizations, including firing all members of a 17-member CDC vaccine advisory panel.

He also pushed out now-former director Susan Monarez, who had refused to rubber-stamp Kennedy’s vaccine agenda. Several other top officials at the agency left in the wake of her exit.

Administration officials had warned that layoffs would cut across federal agencies the president labeled “Democrat-oriented” during the federal government shutdown, with no end in sight to an impasse among Democratic and Republican members of Congress.

But the administration is already furloughing a vast swath of federal workers who aren’t collecting paychecks without a budget agreement to keep the government running. The new “Reductions in Force” are permanent job cuts.

“The RIFs have begun,” White House budget director Russell Vought announced Friday.

The office said they cuts “are substantial,” with court documents suggest as many as 4,000 workers receiving an initial wave of “RIF” notices. The bulk of those cuts were within HHS and the Department of Treasury.

Kennedy defended actions under his leadership during testimony to the Senate Finance Committee last month, saying it is “imperative that we remove officials with conflicts of interest and catastrophically bad judgment, and political agendas.”

“We need unbiased, politics-free, transparent, evidence-based science in the public interest,” he added. “Those are the guiding principles behind the changes at the CDC, and that is what you can expect all across our agency for the next three years.”

The Independent has requested comment from HHS.