The Trump administration is scrambling to rehire Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staffers that were let go as part of the president’s promise to cull the federal workforce in response to the government shutdown.
The firings on Friday were part of the more than 4,000 government jobs cut by the Trump administration, according to the Washington Post. Many of those let go were working to combat critical diseases, including measles and Ebola.
After the New York Times and other outlets reported on the firings of the CDC staff, a federal health official told the outlet that many of those laid off had been terminated in error, and would be brought back.
The official spoke to the Times anonymously.
Some of the CDC officials cut included the “top two leaders of the federal measles response team,” despite the nation grappling with a measles outbreak, the Times reports.
The Times reports that impacted parts of the agency include:
· Staff working to counter an Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo were cut.
· A team that supports surveillance of infectious disease was dismissed.
· Agency leaders who oversaw immunization and respiratory diseases were fired just as the flu season begins.
· Some of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, who are sent to the site of outbreaks and described as “disease detectives,” were let go.
· Members of a team that compiles the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which documents the CDC’s various recommendations and outbreak updates, were cut.
· At the agency’s forecasting center, which helps to manage public health emergencies, the administration dissolved a division focused on technology and innovation.
“This is going to be devastating to Americans and to the global community,” Dr. Debra Houry, who previously served as the CDC’s chief medical officer before resigning in protest of the administration’s policies in August, told the outlet.
She said that the Trump administration was “dismantling public health.”
“When you’re taking out the ability to respond to outbreaks like this, people’s lives are in jeopardy,” she added.
Officials speaking to the Times said that some of the staff working on the MMWR publication were laid off “in error because of a misclassification” of their job codes and that those workers would be restored. The source reportedly also said that anyone working to combat measles or Ebola would be restored.
The number of workers being brought back could number in the hundreds, according to the outlet, though they did not specify when those individuals would return to work.
Trump and his Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy have treated the CDC with general derision since the president returned to office.
After a gunman fired on the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta to express his opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine — a vaccine that Kennedy was vocally critical of before Trump gave him a position in his government — Trump said nothing in defense of the agency.
Since his instalment as the head of the DHS, Kennedy has fired the entire 17-member CDC vaccine advisory board and replaced them with people who are sympathetic to his views on vaccines. The same month as the shooting, Kennedy fired CDC Director Susan Monarez.
Monarez said she was fired because she refused to rubber stamp Kennedy’s vaccine policies without first seeking scientific review of his ideas.
This also isn’t the first time that a cut-happy Trump administration has fired individuals working on Ebola prevention. Back when Tesla CEO Elon Musk was still in the president’s good graces and helming the Department of Government Efficiency, he accidentally fired members of USAID who were working on Ebola aid and prevention projects.
After admitting the mistake, the team was reportedly rehired.
The Independent has contacted the White House and CDC for comment.
