Will Stone and Pien Huang reported on “Morning Edition” on NPR (National Public Radio) on Feb. 17 that “Termination letters landed in the mailboxes of hundreds of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health over the weekend, as the Trump administration moved ahead with firings announced verbally Friday. That's according to more than half a dozen current staffers who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly and feared repercussions,” they wrote.
“The number of employees who lost their jobs at the NIH and CDC was lower than initially expected. At CDC, current staff members say they haven't been told why and still fear that more cuts could be coming. Among staff who were caught up in the first wave of layoffs: Ph.D.-trained scientists tasked with helping local and state officials respond to outbreaks; employees who ensure that medical devices for patients with cancer and diabetes are safe; and a public health worker stationed at an international airport who enforces regulations to prevent animals carrying rabies and other infectious diseases from entering the U.S. Altogether, about 750 CDC employees received termination letters over the weekend, according to a current CDC staffer who was on a call with agency leadership and another who reviewed an internal memo,” they reported.
And, they noted that, “On Friday, CDC leadership told staff that 10 percent of the agency's workforce — about 1,300 employees — would be notified they'd be losing their jobs.” And they quoted one CDC staffer as saying that "I'm going to work tomorrow and I don't know who's employed.” At that time, that staffer had yet to receive any official notification about exactly which employees in their division had lost their jobs.
Meanwhile, the NPR reporters said, “At the National Institutes of Health, between 1,000 and 1,200 employees received notification Saturday night that they were being cut, two staffers with knowledge of the situation told NPR. This is a few hundred fewer than was expected.”
On Feb. 16, Reuters’ Ahmed Aboulenein reported that “The number of workers terminated by the Trump administration at the National Institutes of Health has been revised to 1,165, according to an NIH internal email seen by Reuters on Sunday, down from an initial 1,500. The email, sent to senior NIH leaders on Saturday night, said some names were removed from the list but new ones may have been added. Affected staff will be placed on administrative leave starting on Monday. They have received termination letters and will be on administrative leave for four weeks before they are officially terminated, an NIH official told Reuters.”
Further, Aboulenein wrote, “The number accounts for around 6% of the 20,000 people employed by the NIH, an agency overseeing 27 institutes and centers and the top public funder of medical research on everything from vaccines for emerging pandemic threats to targets for new drugs.
It has long been in the crosshairs of newly confirmed Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said in November he would act quickly to fire 600 people there and replace them all with new hires.”
Aboulenein wrote that “It was unclear if those terminated this week, most of whom were probationary workers let go as part of President Donald Trump's overhaul of government agencies, included the 600 employees referenced by Kennedy, an avowed vaccine skeptic and critic of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the NIH, agencies now under his watch. The Trump administration also terminated employees at the FDA on Saturday night, Stat News reported, citing sources. It wasn't immediately clear how many FDA employees were affected nor how many parts of the agency may be involved, the report said, adding that some of those cut worked in the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health,” he added.
In a statement posted to her office’s website, Rep. Rosa De Lauro (D-Conn.), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee and Labor, Health, and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee, said that “Elon Musk – an unchecked billionaire – President Donald Trump, and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are continuing their assault on Americans’ health,” said Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro. “In the midst of a severe flu season, and as a potentially deadly avian flu outbreak threatens to raise the stakes for public health even further, firing thousands of highly skilled employees – including doctors – will make Americans sicker, weaker, and more vulnerable to avoidable death. These cuts reverse progress in the fight against deadly diseases like cancer and diseases that had been previously eradicated in America like polio. This does not lower costs for families as Trump promised he would. Instead, it tells them they are on their own.” She noted that, in this move, Trump and Musk have reportedly fired 135 members of the CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS). This is nearly half of the staff.
“EIS officers are at the frontline of public health emergencies. They are on the ground when outbreaks occur so that we can contain diseases before they reach the United States,” De Lauro added. We will not know the outcome of decimating this program until it’s too late – until Americans are dying from a disease we could have contained before it spread. This is nothing short of terrifying.”
This is a developing story. Healthcare Innovation will alert readers as new developments emerge.
