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It’s been a tough year at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The federal agency charged with protecting the nation’s public health has been weakened by staffing and budget cuts. NPR health correspondent Pien Huang took stock.
PIAN HUANG, BYLINE: Erin Melton Backus started the year as a health communications specialist at CDC. Then the Trump administration started cutting jobs.
Erin Melton Backus: So you have his probation case – that was the Valentine’s Day Massacre. Then you have the April Fool’s Day RIF. And then some people call it Shutdown RIF, some people call it 10/10.
Huang: RIF – means reduction in force. Backus received dismissal emails in all three rounds, but he is still getting a pay check from the CDC. He is on administrative leave.
Backus: So you know, we’re still not doing our job.
Huang: This is a sign of chaos. In an email, Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon says the CDC has been broken for a long time and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is committed to restoring it as the world’s most trusted guardian of public health through continued reform. Nixon said CDC continues to protect Americans from public health threats, guided by gold-standard science and common sense.
This year, CDC has effectively lost a quarter to a third of its staff. That’s thousands of people. Programs that aimed to reduce smoking or cavities or gun violence were discontinued. Workers trained to respond to radiation-related emergencies or outbreaks that cause birth defects have run out. For Backus, this is a public health emergency. She and former CDC employees have organized a response, just as they did for the disease outbreak. They collect reports from employees.
Backus: How do we collect data on what’s missing at CDC? – Because there is not much transparency in the administration.
HUANG: HHS has declined to confirm the numbers or areas being cut, so Backus’ group, called the National Public Health Coalition, is trying to fill the gap. She says CDC staff are discouraged and intimidated by statements about vaccines, autism, measles that do not reflect scientific consensus but are made in the agency’s name. Dr. Demetre Daskalakis resigned as a top vaccine official at the CDC in August. He says that the agency is no longer what it used to be.
Demetre Daskalakis: I keep calling the CDC like a zombie, because it is a zombie.
HUANG: He says the first few rounds of agency cuts left shortcomings.
DASKALAKIS: If you had to make a map, it would be a map that’s been eaten up by moths because there are just random holes in it.
HUANG: Daskalakis says the recent cuts show where the CDC may be headed.
DASKALAKIS: Which is, like, a very compact thing that does infectious disease responses, maybe some data stuff and laboratories. That’s it.
HUANG: He and his former boss, Dr. Debra Howery, wrote an article in the medical journal The Lancet saying the CDC is in dire straits. Oury was the last career scientist at the highest levels of CDC until she also left in August. She says CDC leadership now lacks critical experience.
Debra Horry: I really don’t understand how you can oversee priorities and objectives for an agency with zero experience in those areas.
HUANG: …Like in science and dealing with state and local health departments. HHS has confirmed a new second-in-command for the CDC — Dr. Ralph Abraham, who was Louisiana’s surgeon general. But public health officials are worried. Earlier this year, Abraham banned the state health department from promoting the vaccines. Houry says many of the changes at CDC track with the Project 2025 blueprint from conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.
Horry: Then I also realize that we live in an upside-down world, where some of RFK Jr.’s statements relate to things like gold-standard science and fundamental transparency.
HUANG: …Because he does things like cutting the CDC’s ethics board, she says. Houry says the CDC has lost more than just jobs this year. It is losing confidence and the ability to protect the country from future health crises.
Pien Huang, NPR News.
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