"Widespread, chaotic layoffs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week have impaired the agency and removed its leadership, former agency scientists warned on Tuesday. The latest lossessome 600 layoffs made by the Trump administration over the weekendremoved experts in measles, child health, vital statistics and overseas Ebola outbreaks, as well as many others, from the federal health agency."
"Initially 1,300 people at the CDC received termination notices, but last Saturday the Department of Health and Human Services rescinded some of these firings, calling them a coding error. Even so, a quarter of the CDC is gone, said Abigail Tighe of the National Public Health Coalition, a network of former CDC employees, at a briefing for news reporters at the federal agency's headquarters in Atlanta on Tuesday."
"At the highest level of leadership in the CDC, there are no public health or medical professionals left, said Tighe, who was laid off from her position as a project officer at the Drug-Free Communities Support Program branch of the CDC in February. This round of firings, as with all the others experienced at CDC in the last 10 months, was an intentional attack on the American people and the public's health."
Chaotic mass layoffs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removed leadership and impaired agency operations. Approximately 600 layoffs over a weekend eliminated experts in measles, child health, vital statistics and overseas Ebola responses. Initially 1,300 CDC staff received termination notices; the Department of Health and Human Services later rescinded some firings, calling them a coding error. Even so, about a quarter of the CDC is gone. The firings followed earlier personnel removals in February and April and affected units tracking suicide trends and those producing the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, weakening national disease surveillance and public health capacity.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]