BREAKING: Trump White House Slashes Federal Health Agencies' Workforce

On Friday, Feb. 14, the Trump White House moved to slash employment levels at multiple federal healthcare agencies. First. The Associated Press’s Mike Stobbe reported on Friday morning that “Nearly 1,300 probationary employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — roughly one-tenth of the agency’s workforce — are being forced out under the Trump administration’s move to get rid of all probationary employees.” In the federal government, any employee on the job for less than a year—less than two years in some cases—have probationary status.

Stobbe wrote that “The Atlanta-based agency’s leadership was notified of the decision Friday morning. The verbal notice came from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in a meeting with CDC leaders, according to a federal official who was at the meeting. The official was not authorized to discuss it and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The affected employees are supposed to receive four weeks paid administrative leave, the official said, adding that it wasn’t clear when individual workers would receive notice. HHS officials did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment,” he added.

“With a $9.2 billion core budget, the CDC is charged with protecting Americans from outbreaks and other public health threats. Before the cuts, the agency had about 13,000 employees, including more than 2,000 staff working in other countries. Historically CDC has been seen as a global leader on disease control and a reliable source of health information, boasting some of the top experts in the world,” Stobbe noted, adding that “The staff is heavy with scientists – 60 percent have master's degrees or doctorates. Most of the workforce does not belong to a union.”

Stobbe quoted Joshua Barocas, M.D., an infectious diseases expert at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who spoke to reporters Friday morning during a call sponsored by the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), the Arlington, Va.-based association of healthcare professionals focused on infectious diseases. Dr. Barocas told the assembled press that many of the probationary-status CDC employees are filling vital roles.

"It's essentially assuming that they are not in a job that is crucial for the success of keeping everyone safe -- just because they've been there for less than a year or less than 6 moths," he said. "That sort of slash-and-burn approach is what will cause continued disruptions in our understanding of diseases" and disease outbreaks.

And then, shortly afterwards on Friday, StatNews’s Sarah Owemohle, Lizzy Lawrence, Helen Branswell, and Matthew Herper, reported that “Senior officials were informed in meetings Friday morning that roughly 5,200 people on probationary employment — recent hires — across agencies including the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be fired that afternoon, according to sources briefed on the meetings. CDC leadership was told the Atlanta-based agency would lose about 1,300 workers. The numbers at the NIH are not clear, but exceptions are being made for certain probationary employees, according to a memo viewed by STAT.”

They reported that “The workers will be given a month’s paid leave but lose access to work systems by the end of Friday, according to sources.”

What’s more, they wrote, “in addition to the probationary workers, an unspecified number of contract workers at the CDC and other health and Human Services agencies have been informed over the course of the past week that their jobs had been terminated, including dozens at the Vaccine Research Center housed at NIH. Many jobs at these agencies are done by contract workers.”

They further wrote that “Other changes are expected, particularly at the leadership levels of organizations. When Susan Monarez, a former ARPA-H official, was named acting director of the CDC,” they wrote, “ she informed staff she would transition into the role of acting principal deputy director once Dave Weldon, the nominee to lead the agency, is confirmed. That move signaled that the current acting principal deputy director, Nirav Shah, who joined the CDC in March 2023, was likely out of a job. Earlier this week, Shah told CDC staff that his last day at the agency would be Feb. 28, a source told STAT.”

An individual with knowledge of the matter told Healthcare Innovation that “There’s a lot of anxiety, because everything has been done so quickly, and people are seeing news reports before they’re hearing from their chain of command. It’s generally demoralizing.”

This is a developing story. Healthcare Innovation will update readers on new developments as they emerge.