At least 600 Center for Disease Control and Prevention employees are receiving final termination notices this week, with at least 100 of those working in violence prevention, NBC News reported.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sent layoff notices to thousands of health workers across the HHS on April 1 in an effort to restructure the organization and make it more efficient. A federal judge initially blocked the cuts but refined her order last week, saying employees in some divisions of the agency could be laid off but not others.
Among those laid off in the CDC include employees who help other countries track violence against children as well as those who work to prevent child abuse and teen dating violence.
“There are nationally and internationally recognized experts that will be impossible to replace,” Tom Simon, retired senior director for scientific programs at the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention, told CBS News.
This news comes just days after the fatal shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, where a gunman opened fire, discharging more than 180 bullets and killing a DeKalb County police officer on Aug. 8. The timing of these layoffs has intensified criticism from public health officials. In a blog post, employees affected by the layoffs wrote, “the irony is devastating: the very experts trained to understand, interrupt and prevent this kind of violence were among those whose jobs were eliminated.”
The CDC shooting itself was tied to misinformation. The shooter, 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, left behind documentation expressing blame on the COVID-19 vaccines for his depression. His attack on the CDC has now become a symbol of how public health misinformation can transform into real-world violence.
After the shooting, 750 HHS workers wrote a letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., urging him to publicly disavow misleading claims about vaccines and to commit to keeping federal health employees safe. Secretary Kennedy has since visited the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, and he wrote on his X account, “We know how shaken our public health colleagues feel today. No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others.”
Two separate public health crises could be emerging from these incidents — deadly violence facilitated by vaccine misinformation from a variety of sources including the CDC, coupled with laying off indispensable public health experts who are trained to prevent violence and combat medical misinformation. It has led to deep irony at the CDC: experts who are trained to prevent acts of violence are now being laid off just as their skills are most needed to protect the well-being of Americans.
Firearm violence is now the No. 1 cause of death among American children and teens; every day 125 individuals are killed with guns in America, according to Everytown Research and Policy. Similarly, vaccine misinformation has soared since the COVID-19 pandemic, as has vaccine hesitancy among adults and children.
Kennedy and the team at HHS hope to establish an Administration for a Healthy America, where different divisions that exist under the CDC will be consolidated and restructured to enhance efficiency across the HHS.
Given all the recent events surrounding the CDC shooting, the layoffs in Atlanta come at a critical time when public health expertise has become absolutely essential.
