Dozens of employees were laid off from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Friday evening, as the Trump administration made good on its promise to carry out mass layoffs in response to a prolonged government shutdown.
The layoffs targeted leaders of departments related to respiratory disease, chronic disease, injury prevention and global health, according to the New York Times reported. Approximately 70 Epidemic Intelligence Service agents, also known as “disease detectives,” the entire staff and editors of the CDC’s publication, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), and the agency’s Washington office have all been notified of their terminations, according to the report.
This comes as the agency is still reeling from months of uncertainty after a change in direction and priorities under new Health and Human Services (HHS) chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Learn more: Exclusive: Behind the Scenes of CDC Exodus and RFK Jr.’s Anti-Vaccine Crusade
Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, said Friday’s layoffs would be a death blow to an agency that has already been hollowed out by previous budget cuts under Kennedy’s leadership.
“The CDC will have lost its ability to detect and respond to outbreaks. It will no longer be able to track disease, in America and around the world. This includes infectious threats like influenza, foodborne illness and Ebola, as well as chronic illnesses and injuries,” she said.
Rasmussen added that losing the MMWR would remove the CDC’s ability to communicate with the public.
“Overall, this means that the CDC is not functional. It cannot carry out any of its missions,” she said. “America no longer has a national public health agency.”
Other doctors, including Michelle Au, a Georgia state representative and anesthesiologist, noted on social media that the United States is “going into respiratory season — when viruses like influenza, COVID and RSV arise — flying blind.”
The CDC did not respond to a request for comment from TIME.
It comes at a time when the nation’s top public health agency has suffered blow after blow, from a tragic shooting at its Atlanta headquarters to Kennedy’s firing of former CDC Director Susan Monarez.
Learn more: CDC shooting is a dark sign for science and America
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has asked federal agencies to plan for reductions in force (RIF) in the event of a government shutdown caused by disagreement over health care and subsidies related to the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The gap between the two parties is mainly due to a Democratic demand to expand Affordable Care Act subsidies for low- and middle-income Americans, which are set to expire at the end of the year.
Learn more: Republicans say Democrats want to provide health care to illegal immigrants. Here are the facts
The White House and Republicans have sought to blame Democratic leaders for the shutdown, and President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that the layoffs would target those who are “Democrat-oriented.”
“A lot of these are people the Democrats want and a lot of them will be fired,” Trump said. “It will be a lot.”
The mass layoffs come just two months after the CDC experienced a mass exodus of top agency officials, who said they were pressured to resign in August after Kennedy sidelined officials and ignored scientific research and protocols since he was tasked with leading the department.
“Having worked in local and national public health for years, I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor seen such clumsy manipulation of data to achieve a political goal rather than the good of the American people,” former CDC vaccine chief Dr. Demeter Daskalakis said in her resignation statement.
In a hearing with Senate lawmakers after her ouster by Kennedy, former Director Monarez described heated meetings with the head of HHS, who she said called the CDC the government’s “most corrupt federal agency” and demanded it fire vaccine scientists without cause.
“I was fired for holding the line on scientific integrity,” Monarez said.
