Two Essential CDC Training Programs Eliminated

With the recent mass layoffs by the new administration, two training programs have reportedly been gutted at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): one that embeds public health graduates in local health departments, the Public Health Associate Program (PHAP), and the Laboratory Leadership Service (LLS) program which fosters the next generation of Ph.D. laboratory scientists, according to The New York Times.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported for The New York Times on February 18 that the prestigious training fellowship, PHAP, was hit hard. The program was created to strengthen ties between epidemiologists and laboratory scientists.

Stolberg also wrote that the agency had lost its presidential management fellows assigned to the CDC under a decades-old government initiative.

Tom Frieden, former director of the CDC, expressed in an article with STAT News that both programs must be saved. “Their elimination is shortsighted and risks public safety at a time when the nation’s ability to detect and contain health threats, including H5N1 avian influenza, is already strained.”

“PHAP restores some of the lost frontline public health expertise by placing trained professionals in state and local health departments,” Frieden pointed out. “Without PHAP, the CDC will become even more disconnected from the practical realities of state and local public health work.”

“Without LLS,” Frieden argued, “public health labs will remain vulnerable to safety incidents and operational failures, increasing the risk of future testing failures and pathogen containment breaches.”

Cutting these programs is a short-term budget move that will have long-term and costly health and economic consequences for national security and public safety, Frieden concluded.

“We’re cutting off our hand to spite our face,” Dr. Fleming, a former deputy CDC director, conveyed in a statement obtained by The New York Times.