Instability and confusion' as CDC slashes 1,300 jobs before reinstating half

"More than a thousand employees at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received notice that they were losing their jobs on Friday in a move that erased entire offices and was partially reversed over the weekend. It caused instability and whiplash, said Debra Houry, former chief medical officer at the CDC. About 700 reduction in force (RIF) notifications were sent to employees in error, the Trump administration reportedly says, though there does not seem to be public evidence of an error."

"The entire staff of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), a highly respected epidemiology journal, were terminated and then reinstated. So were employees working on global health and suicide prevention, as well as disease detectives and staff at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. But the entire human resources department is still gone, which will affect operations of the entire agency."

"Staff with the CDC's institutional review board, which reviews the design of studies, and the ethics office and oversees all conflicts and interests for CDC leaders and advisory committee members, were also let go. In the next 30 days, some science protocols will be up for renewal by the institutional review board. They'll have to be shut down, Houry said."

More than a thousand CDC employees received notices of job loss in a move that erased entire offices and was partly reversed over the weekend. About 700 reduction-in-force (RIF) notifications were sent in error, while roughly 600 terminated employees have not been reinstated. Entire teams—including Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report staff, global health and suicide prevention workers, disease detectives, and National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases staff—were affected and some were reinstated. The human resources department was eliminated, disrupting agency operations. The Washington office was cut, hindering congressional communication. Institutional review board and ethics staff were let go, jeopardizing upcoming protocol renewals. The National Center for Health Statistics lost staff working on nutrition surveys, electronic health records, and science office employees were laid off.

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