Confusion Reigns at CDC Over Layoffs, Rehirings of Experts

Confusion reigned over the weekend of October 10-12, as the Department of Health and Human Services engaged in a major reduction in force (RIF) of about 1,300 staffers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but then attempted to rehire a number of CDC experts, particularly those responsible for the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, with media reports on Sunday evening, October 12, indicating that about 700 of the 1,300 staffers had been notified that their layoffs were made in error.

In a report published on Saturday evening, October 11, POLITICO’s Sophie Gardner reported that “Some of the Department of Health and Human Services employees fired through reduction-in-force notices Friday are being rehired, according to two people familiar with the details. The two people, an HHS official and an employee granted anonymity to speak about internal personnel decisions, said that many employees who received reduction-in-force notices will or already have been informed they will not be terminated. The two said that an unspecified number of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were mistakenly fired through a ‘coding error.’ Those being rehired, they said, are staff who work on the critical Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the director’s office of the Global Health Center and staff working on the measles response and Ebola outbreak response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The HHS official and employee declined to provide a specific number of staff to be rehired.”

Gardner went on to report that, “Additionally, many of the fellows in the Laboratory Leadership Service — who work on lab safety and testing accuracy — are being rehired, said a current CDC employee granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The employee also said that many of the Epidemic Intelligence Service officers — who investigate disease outbreaks — also had their reduction-in-force notices rescinded. A former CDC official said that Sara Patterson, acting director of the Public Health Infrastructure Center, was rehired. The terminations, which come amid a government shutdown and after the Trump administration repeated threats of mass firings, are being challenged in court by the American Federation of Government Employees and the AFL-CIO.”

Meanwhile, the New York Times’s Apoorva Mandavilli and Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported on Saturday that “The Trump administration on Saturday raced to rescind layoffs of hundreds of scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who were mistakenly fired on Friday night in what appeared to be a substantial procedural lapse. Among those wrongly dismissed were the top two leaders of the federal measles response team, those working to contain Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, and the team that assembles the C.D.C.’s vaunted scientific journal, The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,” they wrote.

And, Mandavilli and Stolberg added, “After The New York Times reported the dismissals, two federal health officials said on Saturday that many of those workers were being brought back. The officials spoke anonymously in order to disclose internal discussions. The mistakes rocked an agency already in tumult, and which has been a particular target of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The C.D.C. lost about a third of its staff in April; many were rehired weeks later.” The Times reporters noted that, “Among the workers whose firings were revoked were members of the elite corps of “disease detectives” who are typically deployed to the sites of outbreaks. The team that puts together the M.M.W.R., which communicates the agency’s recommendations and research, has also been brought back.”

MSNBC’s Brandy Zadrozny, who noted in an updated report the rehirings of many of those laid off on Friday, had written on Friday that “Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. moved one step closer to his goal of dismantling the nation’s premier public-health agency by dismissing more than 1,000 scientists, doctors and public health officials from the Department of Health and Human Services late Friday night. The dramatic move came during the second week of a government shutdown and is part of the Trump administration’s aggressive push to even further slash the size of the federal workforce and punish Democrats. The culling reportedly started with at least 4,000 people across departments including Education, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development and Energy, among others. But the bloodshed at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was especially acute, according to a list crowdsourced by CDC employees who received layoff notices that was viewed by MSNBC. The firings ran across more than a dozen CDC divisions and centers, wiping out entire offices and teams that investigate disease outbreaks, manage infectious disease responses, collect data, publish scientific reports and communicate with global partners and Congress.”

And she quoted Detre Daskalakis, M.D., the former director of the CDC’s National Center on Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, who was one of four very senior CDC officials who resigned in August after then-Director Susan Monarez, Ph.D., was forced out, as saying that “CDC is over. It was killed. This administration only knows how to break things. They have made America at risk for outbreaks and attacks by nefarious players. People should be scared.”

Zadrozny wrote that “MSNBC spoke with eight current and former CDC officials, most of whom requested anonymity for fear of retaliation against themselves or their remaining colleagues.” And, she wrote, “The emails alerting staffers came late Friday night, but current and former employees said CDC staffers had been bracing for layoffs since President Donald Trump signaled that he would use mass reductions in force as a way to punish Democrats for the ongoing shutdown, caused by a budget standoff between Republicans and Democrats. Notification that they’d lost their jobs came even as the human resources professional tasked with implementation had been furloughed as part of the shutdown. Several current and former officials said they initially believed the cuts — like other chaotic firings that were later walked back — might not be permanent. And there is a question about the legality of all employee firings during the shutdown. And, indeed, following publication of this article, many fired employees began receiving emails with the subject line, “Recession of Previous Notice of Reduction in Force,” communicating that that despite the earlier notice, they would no longer be fired. An HHS official who declined to be named because he was not approved to speak on the issue, told MSNBC that around half of the firings had been done in error.”

What’s more, Zadrozny wrote, “The emails alerting staffers came late Friday night, but current and former employees said CDC staffers had been bracing for layoffs since President Donald Trump signaled that he would use mass reductions in force as a way to punish Democrats for the ongoing shutdown, caused by a budget standoff between Republicans and Democrats.”

Meanwhile, the BBC’s Grace Eliza Goodwin reported on Sunday evening, October 12, that “[S]ome of those CDC layoff notices were sent in error, a spokesman for the US health department, which oversees the CDC, told the BBC. Those CDC employees ‘have all been notified that they are not subject to the reduction in force’ Andrew Nixon said. Out of about 1,300 CDC workers who were fired on Friday, around 700 were reinstated on Saturday, the employees' union told CNN.”

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