ATLANTA — Two former senior managers at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the agency cannot perform its core mission to protect the American public because of staffing cuts.
Those workers say the Trump administration has cut 25% of the CDC’s staff over the past eight months.
The latest round came on Friday when some 1,300 people got termination notices, only to have the Trump administration realize it made a mistake and rehire more than half of them 24 hours later.
“The CDC cannot protect all of us in the U.S. if it continues to have staff and resource cuts,” said Dr. Deb Houry, a former CDC senior manager.
Six weeks ago, Houry and other senior managers quit in protest of the Trump administration’s firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez -- a firing they insist was politically motivated.
Houry said since February, the administration has cut 25% of the CDC’s staff and in such a haphazard way as to reduce its effectiveness in fighting for public health.
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“This is now the third series of cuts to the CDC and their staff. Traumatic for the staff and really leaving the CDC less prepared to protect all of us,” Houry said.
In a statement on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said, “The current reduction in force actions are the direct consequences of the Democrat-led government shutdown. All employees receiving reduction-in-force notices were designated non-essential by their respective divisions.”
The statement did not mention that the agency quickly rehired more than 700 of those fired employees within 24 hours of termination.
CDC employee’s union president Yolanda Jacobs called the firings illegal and promised legal actions were already in the works.
“These illegal firings of union members during a federal government shutdown is a callous attack on hardworking Americans,” Jacobs said.
Houry and the others point out that there are still 600 CDC employees who remain fired.
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