More than 400 CDC staff can be recalled at work after being dismissed in April: NPR

On Wednesday, federal officials seem to have “revoked” the dismissals of more than 400 employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which had been suddenly rejected months ago, which can restore all the staff of a laboratory that follows viral hepatitis and most of the employees of one of the CDC environmental health divisions.

The workers were one of the thousands that the Ministry of Health and Social Services laid off on April 1 as part of a reduction in force at the agency, most of which are still without work.

Employees of the National HIV Center, Viral hepatitis, STD and prevention of tuberculosis have represented 214 of the staff “which should receive the termination of RIF notifications”, according to an email to the group of its acting director, Dr Renáta Ellington, which was revised by NPR. The two laboratories of the division which treated with viral hepatitis And sexually transmitted diseases had been completely closed, despite the fact that some of these scientists have surveillance of diseases that were unlike other world laboratories.

More than 150 people who worked for the National Center for Environmental Health were also one of the reinstated workers, according to three CDC employees close to the Cups. The division of the Center for Sciences and Practice of the Center for Environmental Health, which includes employees based in Atlanta who work on asthma and air quality, environmental EMERGENCIES And the prevention of lead poisoning can be almost entirely reintegrated, two employees of the division at NPR said.

At least 95 workers from other CDC divisions represent the rest of the employees who were informed on June 11, according to two familiar CDC workers with the cuts.

HHS informed CDC employees on Wednesday afternoon by email, whose copies were obtained by NPR. The email said that the agency had “revoked” the “future reduction in opinions” that workers had previously received. This did not explain the reason why HHS seemed to restore hundreds of workers more than two months after having said to many of them in another email that their work was “useless or practically identical to the tasks carried out elsewhere in the agency”.

Ellington, the director of the group most affected by the HHS Backtrack, told his staff that she did not know “which took into account the decision or why certain staff members had received the notification” and told employees that the information may not be definitively.

HHS did not immediately respond to the request for NPR comments concerning the reason why he revoked the opinions of the employees. In April, HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recognized What about a fifth of the HHS cuts has been involuntarily carried out and that some people would be offered their jobs.

In May, Kennedy announced that 328 former workers in another CDC division, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, had been reintegrated.

The reactions to the news of CDC workers have been mixed. Some scientists have told NPR that they would be delighted to redo their work. Other workers said they were confused with regard to emails and worried about the consequences of the decision.

“I think that people hope very tacitly that it means that they can recover their jobs and continue to serve in a way they like,” Kathryn Sisler, health scientist at the Division of Environmental Health and Practice, told the E -mail on Wednesday. “But there was so much instability and chaos that I think a lot of people would hesitate to say that this is good news.”

Before Sisler was dismissed in April, she worked with communities in several states to help people affected by the results of climate change, such as increased heat. The turmoil that HHS had caused by the closing his department two months ago has already disrupted these efforts, she said.

“Some states and localities have decided to begin to dismiss people already because they did not know if the subsidies were going to continue,” said Sisler. “Really just a lot of precious data and information that was lost and did not use it, especially since we are looking at the heat season right now, which is starting to become quite deadly.”

The inversion of layoffs would also cause logistical challenges for certain affected employees, said Sisler. She and some other members of the division have already moved away from Atlanta, where they had lived to be close to their work at the headquarters of the CDC, she said. Other employees had taken other jobs or had been offered to them.

“It’s a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t look like a victory on solid ground,” said Sisler.

The staff of the National Center for HIV, viral hepatitis, MST and the prevention of tuberculosis confirmed that the period of activity when employees did not work in April and that May had also caused damage in some of their laboratories. At least one machine would need repairs, two CDC employees told NPR, and some disease epidemics had not been properly followed. Since the end of April, without the help of the CDC hepatitis laboratory, health workers in Florida had not been able to confirm additional cases within the framework of an epidemic in the hepatitis C in this state, said another CDC worker. The employees asked not to be identified because they said they feared reprisals.

Public health experts have echoed the mixed feelings of employees.

“It is great to see that there is a certain recognition of the importance of these workers and that being in these positions is essential for the public health of America and that they are reintegrated in order to continue their important work,” said Carmen Marsit, environmental health researcher and professor at the Rollins School of Public Health.

But “there are still a lot of people who are not reintegrated,” he added. “And so I think there are still concerns about what we miss.”

Scott Becker, CEO of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, a group that works in close collaboration with some of the laboratories that have been closed, said it was “fortunately stunned” to learn HHS emails.

“I am concerned about the number of people who have already evolved or could move on and on the trauma that they really have to cross with uncertainty,” said Beckler. “But overall, it’s good news and I’m going to take it.”

Contribution of Yuki Noguchi and Selena Simons-Dufin to this report.

If you have information on the health projects that have been interrupted or any other advice, you can send an e-mail to the journalist for this article at eisnerchiara@proton.me. You can also send a signal text message in the user name of the journalist: CEIS.78.