The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suffered a round of deep staff cuts late Friday night, with disease detectives, outbreak forecasters, policy and data offices among those impacted, according to four sources with knowledge of the layoffs.
“The administration did not like that CDC data did not support their narrative, so they got rid of them. They didn’t like that CDC policy groups would not rubber stamp their unscientific ideas, so they got rid of them,” said an agency official who asked not to be named for fear of losing their job.
The notices were emailed shortly after 9 p.m. The exact number of cuts is still being assessed.
The CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, which trains the agency’s celebrated “disease detectives,” lost at least 30 of the staff who coordinate the program, and 40 EIS officers who were in their second year of training, according to a second agency official who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.
More than 130 employees were laid off from the office of the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, which coordinated activities for the entire center, said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who recently resigned as the director of the NCIRD.
The layoffs come as the country is heading into the winter respiratory virus season.
All the staff at the agency’s the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a journal known as the MMWR that has published surveillance data on the nation’s health for over a century, were also fired, according to Houry.