Public Health Experts: CDC Firings “Represent Generational Damage to Health Research”

Fired CDC scientists specialized in birth defects, sexually transmitted diseases, environmental health, violence prevention, tuberculosis, and domestic HIV prevention

As reported in today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Elon Musk’s DOGE project has again targeted the Atlanta-based CDC for mass firings, “cutting a wide swath with entire branches of the agency facing elimination,” according to active CDC employees.

This new wave of mass firings — 2,400 workers for the CDC specifically and 10,000 workers for the entire Department of Health and Human Services — represents “generational damage to health research and the elimination of infectious diseases,” according to public health experts. 

Fired CDC workers tended to specialize in birth defects, sexually transmitted diseases, environmental health, violence prevention, tuberculosis and domestic HIV prevention. Workers who communicate scientific findings to the public, doctors, and the public health community were hit hardest by the mass firings, which many predicted after they were singled out for cuts by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in a recent cabinet meeting.       

Read the reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution here:

AJC: Wide swath of job eliminations begin at the CDC
Ariel Hart; April 1, 2025

KEY POINTS FROM THE ARTICLE:

• Termination notices began arriving through emails at dawn Tuesday morning for workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cutting a wide swath with entire branches of the agency facing elimination, according to active CDC employees who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
  
  
• Scientists have been terminated and work in areas such as birth defects, sexually transmitted diseases, environmental health, violence prevention, tuberculosis and domestic HIV prevention has been decimated, the sources said.
  
  
• President Donald Trump and DOGE office leader Elon Musk have said they are rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in government. But public health experts have said the cuts could represent generational damage to health research and the elimination of infectious diseases. It will also have particular impact on metro Atlanta, as thousands of CDC employees work out of the agency’s two campuses and lend support to state and local public health officials.
  
  
• The firings began Tuesday for employees across the entire U.S. Health and Human Services Department, of which the CDC is a part. The effort is expected to eventually mean job losses for 10,000 people — about 2,400 within the CDC. The plan would consolidate agencies that oversee billions of dollars for addiction services and community health centers under a new office called the Administration for a Healthy America.
  
  
• The notices come just days Trump moved to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights at HHS and other agencies throughout the government.
  
  
• Groups hit particularly hard included employees who work to communicate science to the public and to the nation’s doctors and health community; workers stopping HIV and tuberculosis, the Injury Center and domestic violence, according to initial reports from workers.

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