【By Chen Sijia, Observer News】Since President Trump returned to the White House, the U.S. government agencies have been continuously cutting staff to reduce fiscal expenditures. According to a report by The Washington Post on October 11, more than 1,000 employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received layoff notices, including personnel responsible for responding to infectious disease outbreaks, analyzing health data, formulating policies, and supervising employee safety.

However, a federal health official said on the 11th that some layoff notices were sent in error and will be revoked. However, the official did not specify how many notices would be withdrawn.

After the U.S. federal government shut down at local time on October 1, a large number of federal employees were forced to take unpaid leave, and various public services came to a standstill. The White House announced on the 10th that over 4,000 employees from the Department of Commerce, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Treasury would receive layoff notices.

Multiple individuals who issued the notices and other informed sources told The Washington Post that more than 1,000 employees of the CDC had received layoff notices, including those responsible for responding to the surge in measles cases, analyzing scientific and health data to formulate policies, and overseeing employee safety.

Informed sources said that among those who initially received layoff notices were senior officials responsible for dealing with the sharp increase in measles cases in the United States. One senior official had over 28 years of experience and had led efforts to respond to Ebola, Marburg, and monkeypox outbreaks in Africa.

Atlanta, Georgia, United States, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Visual China

Debra Houry, former chief medical officer of the CDC, revealed that before the latest round of layoffs, the CDC had approximately 11,400 employees. She learned that the Trump administration had issued 1,250 layoff notices to the agency, and all policy and communication teams within the agency had received them. Houry resigned in August this year to protest the Trump administration's "politicization of science."

The Washington Post disclosed that multiple departments of the CDC, including the Washington office, the Predictive and Outbreak Analysis Center, the Library, the Office of Safety, and the Human Resources Office, received layoff notices. The leadership of the Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Center was also laid off, which is one of the largest departments of the CDC, responsible for vaccination, flu monitoring, and tracking the novel coronavirus and other respiratory viruses.

Additionally, the U.S. government issued layoff notices to members of the CDC's "Disease Detectives" program for 2023 and 2024. These program members usually go to the front lines first when an outbreak occurs, participating in the response to the outbreak. Houry stated that two of them were originally scheduled to be sent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to deal with the Ebola outbreak.

After the news of the CDC layoffs spread, a U.S. federal health official said on the 11th that some layoff notices were sent in error, including those received by personnel responsible for dealing with the measles outbreak, those involved in responding to the Ebola outbreak, the head of the CDC's global health department, and some "disease detectives." The official did not specify how many notices would be withdrawn.

This federal health official stated that due to a code error, layoff notices were initially mistakenly sent to the department responsible for compiling the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). However, Houry said that as of the afternoon of the 11th, the personnel of this department had not yet received notice of the revocation of their layoff notifications.

In response, the federal health official explained that it might take several days to issue the revocation notices.

The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report is the main channel through which the CDC disseminates public health information and recommendations, providing guidance to health officials, clinicians, and researchers across the United States. It has never been interrupted since its inception in 1952. Until January this year, the Trump administration ordered the suspension of external communications by federal health agencies, which marked the first time the weekly report was suspended.

Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, explained that the CDC significantly expanded during the Biden administration's response to the pandemic, and this layoff aims to limit the size of the agency. "All employees of the Department of Health and Human Services who received layoff notices have been identified by their respective departments as non-critical positions," Nixon said.

Nixon stated that the Department of Health and Human Services is closing "wasteful and redundant institutions," including those departments that contradict the Trump administration's "Make America Healthy Again" agenda.

Large-scale layoffs in the health sector have raised concerns among American health experts. Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC's Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Center, said, "Firing the director's office is like deleting a computer's operating system. The hardware and software are there, but without the core system, they cannot function."

Daskalakis is worried that after the CDC's leadership is laid off, the agency will struggle to respond to potential future outbreaks.

The Washington Post pointed out that while the Trump administration is targeting the health sector, the United States is facing public health challenges posed by a measles outbreak. This summer, the number of measles cases in the United States reached the highest level in 33 years, and the number has now grown to over 1,500 cases. Two health officials revealed that the cases are mainly concentrated in Texas and New Mexico, and there is an upward trend in communities near the Arizona-Utah border where vaccination rates are low.

This article is an exclusive piece by Observer News. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7560250900762116659/

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