With new cuts at CDC, some fear there’s ‘nobody to answer the phone’

Around 600 workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were cut over the long weekend, as part of a wider push by the Trump Administration to slash the size of the federal workforce during the government shutdown.

It was not a smooth process. On Friday, more than 1,300 CDC employees were notified that they had lost their jobs. Many of them were furloughed because of the shutdown, and found out only after Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, posted on X that “the RIFs have begun.”

The next day, around 700 employees got emails revoking these reduction in force notices, according to numbers compiled by the National Public Health Coalition, a group of former CDC employees.

Aryn Melton Backus, a health communication specialist with the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health who has been on administrative leave for months, was one of them. It was the third time this year she’s received a termination notice.

“We have no idea why certain programs were eliminated and others were saved,” Backus said in a press conference held Tuesday by NPHC. “At this point, it seems like the chaos and lack of transparency is the point.”

In a Tuesday court filing, the Department of Health and Human Services attributed some of the firings and rapid rescindments to “data discrepancies and processing errors.”

When the dust settled, around 600 CDC staffers were cut over the weekend, according to the former CDC employee group and AFGE Local 2883, a union that represents CDC workers.

Those fired include CDC staff who brief Congress, those working on health statistics and chronic disease. It also affected CDC support staff, such as those at the CDC library, those who provided mental health support after an attack at the CDC’s main campus in August, and human resources staff who were called back from furlough to lay off colleagues and members of their own team.

HHS declined to confirm numbers or groups affected by this round of layoffs, but Andrew Nixon, director of communications, said staffers that were terminated were “designated non-essential.”

The court filing states that, on October 10, a total of 982 employees were purposefully cut from HHS, which includes agencies such as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, in addition to CDC.

The national federal workers union is contesting the legality of these and other layoffs.

“These illegal firings of our union members during a federal government shutdown is a callous attack on hardworking Americans and puts the livelihoods, health and safety of our members and communities at great risk,” said Yolanda Jacobs, a health communications specialist at CDC and president of AFGE Local 2883, speaking at a union press conference on Tuesday.

The recent round of cuts add to the stream of workers leaving the CDC this year due to earlier rounds of firings, early retirements and resignations. The CDC has lost around 3,000 employees, or a quarter of its staff, since January according to the union.

The entire staff of the CDC’s Washington office was eliminated in the recent cuts, upending a longstanding support system for Congressional representatives.

“CDC has worked directly with Congress for decades to help constituents by providing data, expertise and insight when needed,” said Dr. John Brooks, who retired last year as chief medical officer for the CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention, at the NPHC press conference. “These firings mean Congress no longer has a means of direct access to the agency it funds when it needs information or briefings.”

Outside of the Washington office, CDC policy experts that help develop briefings and answer questions from Congress have also been eliminated, according to NPHC.

Overall, the cuts to CDC staff and budget under the Trump Administration undermine the nation’s public health infrastructure, Brooks says. “Many experts, including myself, are concerned that we are no longer well prepared for the next big outbreak or disaster because of the Trump administration’s continued erosion of our nation’s ability to respond to public health emergencies.”

State and local health departments are feeling the effects. When faced with problems such as outbreaks of food poisoning or hospital infections, they’ve traditionally reached out to the CDC for help.

“Sometimes that help might be — we’re going to send some people to help you investigate this. Sometimes that might be talking to somebody who’s the world’s expert on a specific type of infection or exposure,” said Dr. Karen Remley, a former CDC official and former health commissioner for Virginia, at the NPHC press conference. “Now, there’s nobody to answer the phone.”

In an email, Nixon of HHS described the federal health infrastructure as a “bloated bureaucracy,” and said: “HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities to streamline the agency for the American people.”