More than 1,000 CDC staff receive layoff notices during government shutdown

More than 1,000 staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received layoff notices, including in units that respond to infectious-disease outbreaks, analyze science and health data to develop policy, and monitor the safety of employees, according to multiple individuals issued dismissal notices and others with direct knowledge of the cuts.

Among those who initially received lay off notices were leaders of CDC’s response to the growing number of measles cases in the United States and abroad, including one official who has more than 28 years experience overseeing a dozen federal agencies that have responded to outbreaks of Ebola, Marburg virus and mpox in Africa over the years, said the individuals, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

After details about the firings became public, a federal health official said Saturday that some layoff notices had been sent in error and would be reversed, including for those leading the measles response, those responding to an Ebola outbreak, CDC’s global health leadership, and some CDC disease detectives. The official did not detail how many of the more than 1,000 layoffs would be reversed.

The CDC dismissals Friday were among the more than 4,000 government positions the Trump administration said it was eliminating in response to the ongoing shutdown. The layoffs are the latest blow to the agency that is at the front lines of public health threats to Americans.

The agency already downsized this year during the reorganization of Health and Human Services. In August, agency employees were reeling both from the public firing of then-CDC Director Susan Monarez and an attack on its headquarters in Georgia, where a gunman who appeared motivated by his distrust of the coronavirus vaccine sprayed hundreds of bullets into six buildings and killed a police officer.

Debra Houry, who was among three top leaders who resigned from the agency in August to protest what they described as the Trump administration’s politicization of science, has been in touch with employees across the agency and said 1,250 layoff notices were sent. Before this latest round of layoffs, the agency had about 11,400 employees, Houry said.

Some of those receiving emails had already been let go in an earlier round of layoffs in April. But most of the people fired Friday were receiving notices for the first time, said Houry, the CDC’s former chief medical officer, and others. Policy and communications teams across the agency received notices.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said the cuts across the department are an attempt to rein in growth of the agency during the Biden administration’s pandemic response.

“All HHS employees receiving reduction-in-force notices were designated non-essential by their respective divisions,” Nixon said. “HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.”

Layoff notices were sent according to the administrative code where employees were assigned, Houry said. In most cases, all employees within one administrative code - or unit - were laid off.

Others who had received dismissal notices Friday include the 2023 and 2024 classes of the CDC’s disease detective fellows, known as the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), who are typically the first responders in an outbreak, according to a list of CDC units that have been affected. Two who were were being deployed to an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Houry said.

The global health center’s leadership office, or office of the director, was also “wiped out,” she said before reversals were issued. That includes all six of the CDC’s regional offices around the world, severely hampering the agency’s ability to operate overseas, she said. CDC uses those offices to coordinate the majority of its outbreak and emergency response. “When you want people who can work globally with other organizations or respond quickly to countries that need support” Houry said.

The federal health official, who spoke on the on the condition of anonymity to share internal policy information, said layoff notices for the EIS officers, Ebola response and global health center’s office of the director would be reversed. It was not immediately clear whether that included all of CDC’s regional offices. It could take several days for reversal notices to be sent, the official said.

The leadership of the center that oversees immunization and respiratory diseases was also fired. It is one of the agency’s largest centers, with responsibility for immunization, influenza surveillance, and tracking of coronavirus and other respiratory viruses.

“The deletion of the [center’s] office of the director is like deleting the operating system of a computer,” said its former director, Demetre Daskalakis, who also resigned to protest what he saw as politicization of science at the agency. “The hardware and the software are there, but they don’t function without that core system. … I fear what will happen with the next outbreak or human-generated biological threat.”

U.S. measles cases reached their highest annual tally in 33 years this summer, with more than 1,200 in July. That number has grown to more than 1,500, according to CDC data. Cases had largely centered in Texas and New Mexico and are now rising on the border of Arizona and Utah in an under-vaccinated community, according to two federal health officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Layoff notices also initially targeted the office that produces the CDC’s flagship weekly scientific report known as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, or MMWR. But those notices were sent in error because of a miscoding, according to the health official. As of Saturday afternoon, however, the editor who oversees the MMWR and others in the office of science had not been informed that the layoff notices were a mistake, Houry said.

The MMWR is the agency’s primary vehicle for disseminating public health information and recommendations. Health officials, clinicians and researchers are among those who rely on the studies for vital guidance. In January, the weekly report, which had been published without interruption since 1952, was paused for the first time as part of the Trump administration’s order to pause all federal health agencies’ external communications.

Other parts of the agency that were impacted include:

- The CDC’s Washington office, which handles congressional inquiries.

- The Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, which uses disease modeling, forecasting and simulation to help predict emerging outbreaks and the fall and winter respiratory disease season. About 20 people were impacted.

- The CDC library, which has about 25 to 30 staff, most of whom are based in Atlanta. “I don’t see how any research will be done without a working library,” said one staff member who was laid off and spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

- CDC’s office of safety that oversees occupational health and safety for CDC employees. That means CDC staff who are being deployed won’t get fit-tested for masks to protect them from investigating diseases or explosions, Houry said. This is the same office that tests water systems in CDC buildings for the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease.

- Suicide researchers working in CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

- The Office of Human Resources, which includes the agency’s ethics office that vets conflicts of interest of CDC officials. The office also vets members of federal advisory committees, including the influential vaccine advisory panel, which recently shifted its recommendations for how people can get coronavirus shots and has declared it will review recommendations on when and how often children receive vaccinations.