Hundreds of Federal Public Health Workers Laid Off Amid Shutdown, Chaos at CDC Reported

Hundreds of federal employees working in mental health services, pandemic response, and disaster preparedness were among those affected by the mass layoffs carried out by the Trump administration over the past few weeks, according to reports from both remaining and dismissed workers.

The move took place amid a government shutdown that has already lasted two weeks, as the administration seeks to pressure Democratic members of Congress to drop their demands and end the shutdown.

The wave of layoffs began Friday and rocked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, just six months after a previous round of cuts. The situation became even more chaotic when more than half of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) employees who received dismissal notices later discovered they had been sent by mistake and that they were, in fact, still employed by the agency, CNN reported.

Dr. Nirav Shah, who resigned earlier this year as deputy director of the CDC, said: "This is pure managerial incompetence. I used to think the chaos was a byproduct of that incompetence. Now I'm starting to wonder if chaos is the goal".

According to sources who spoke with Axios, about 600 CDC employees working in offices related to medical statistics, violence prevention (132 employees), congressional relations, and human resources stopped working as a result of the mass layoffs. Among those dismissed were staff from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which supports the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) initiative spearheaded by Kennedy. Employees from the ethics office, which reviews conflicts of interest, were also let go.

Dakota Jablon, a former public health analyst at SAMHSA, said that the loss of additional agency staff "will have devastating ripple effects across the behavioral health field. Even if grants continue, the loss of experienced personnel means those remaining will be stretched to their limits, often beyond their areas of expertise".

Dr. Eric Rafla-Yuan, a psychiatrist and chair of the Committee on Public Mental Health Protection, said that staff cuts at SAMHSA could jeopardize state safety nets for individuals with mental illnesses, as the agency provides critical funding and support for state-level programs.

Among those mistakenly dismissed and then reinstated were members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), the CDC's "disease detectives" deployed to respond to public health threats, and the staff of the respected Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), a key source of health data and public health recommendations. Also fired and reinstated were Atelia Christie, head of the CDC's measles response team (the U.S. has recorded 1,563 measles cases this year-the highest since the disease was declared eliminated a quarter-century ago), and Maureen Bertie, a senior infectious disease specialist.