Late Friday night more than 1,000 employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were sent an email saying they had been let go due to reduction-in-force (RIF) efforts at the end of the second week of the federal government shutdown.
Some, however, were mistakenly fired and were rehired the next day, according to sources close to the situation.
MMWR staff fired, then apparently rehired
On social media sites and news sites, anonymous tipsters told reporters that included in the RIF firings were 70 disease detectives in the Epidemic Intelligence Service, the editors of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), the entire staff of the CDC's Washington, DC, office, and the official in charge of measles response.
But by Saturday morning, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had rehired approximately 700 of the 1,300 fired employees, including the editors of MMWR and Athalia Christie, MPH, the incident commander for the measles response. An HHS official told the media that some of the firings had been mistakenly made through a "coding error."
The weekend whiplash has further damaged the CDC, which has already seen significant cuts since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became HHS secretary. The agency has also been thrown into staffing turmoil after former director Susan Monarez, PhD, who held her position for less than a month, was fired after she clashed with Kennedy on vaccine policy.
And it comes 2 months after a gunman fired hundreds of bullets at CDC buildings and killed a police officer.
Decrying 'lethal injection' to CDC
Monarez's ouster led several top-level CDC staff to leave in solidarity, including Demetre Daskalakis, MD, who wrote on X over the weekend that the firing and rehiring at the CDC were a "lethal injection" to the agency.
"Think about what it's like to be at CDC. It's like living with an abusive partner that attacks and then takes back some of the abuse," he wrote on X after the rehirings were announced. "That doesnt make the partner less abusive. Sending strength to CDC staff held hostage."
Today Tina Tan, MD, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, in a statement decried the firings.
The unprecedented mass firing of more than 1,100 federal employees, and then rehiring of some, at the Department and Health and Human Services was a completely reckless act.
"The unprecedented mass firing of more than 1,100 federal employees, and then rehiring of some, at the Department and Health and Human Services was a completely reckless act that may compromise the health of all Americans," she wrote. "The initial targeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's core functions and scientific leadership will cripple the agency that keeps our country safe by monitoring and preventing disease and saving lives in every community across the country."
President Donald Trump on Friday signaled he would use the government shutdown to lay off "a lot" of federal workers, especially those who work in agencies that are "Democrat-oriented." So far, an estimated 4,200 workers have been fired in the latest salvo.
