The White House reportedly sent layoff notices to about 1,300 workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late Friday, but then partially reversed itself, reinstating roughly 700 employees over the weekend.
The White House, which has threatened to fire large numbers of federal employees during the government shutdown, with a focus on what President Trump called “Democratic programs,” said some of the layoff notifications were the result of a procedural error.
“The employees who received incorrect notifications were never separated from the agency and have all been notified that they are not subject to the reduction in force,” said Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon, per CNN.
Employees who received improper layoff notices on Friday reportedly include leaders of the federal measles response team, a group focused on containing the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the staff of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a vital vehicle for sharing public health research.
Turmoil at the CDC: The layoff notices, both planned and unplanned, come at an especially difficult time for the nation’s top public health agency, which has been targeted by Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for promoting supposedly “woke” policies and providing medical guidance that clashes with the beliefs of some libertarian health activists. Those activists include Kennedy, who has a long history of promoting what medical experts consider to be vaccine misinformation.
In August, the health agency was literally targeted by a gunman who fired more than 500 rounds at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, killing a police officer. The gunman was reportedly angry about the Covid-19 vaccine.
With the loss of 600 employees on Friday, the CDC has lost about a quarter of its workforce since Trump took office, a federal employee union official said Tuesday.
“One thing is clear, this administration has more than delivered on its promise to traumatize federal employees,” said Yolanda Jacobs, a CDC employee and union official, referring to Office of Management and Budget chief Russell Vought’s vow to make government employees feel “trauma” at their workplaces. “These illegal firings of our union members during a federal government shutdown is a callous attack on hard working Americans and puts the livelihoods, health, and safety of our members and communities at great risk.”