CDC's "disease detectives" apparently spared in DOGE cuts at health agencies
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Epidemic Intelligence Service officers — a group known as the CDC's "disease detectives" — were apparently spared by the cuts made over the weekend by the Trump administration, after initially being warned of firings.
There were fears the cuts would be among the thousands of probationary workers being let go this week across the federal government as part of efforts to shrink the federal workforce overseen by President Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, task force headed by billionaire Elon Musk.
The CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service or EIS officers are hired in annual classes through a competitive process.
Officers in the first year of the program, and some of the local health departments they work with, had initially been warned by agency leadership that they were slated to be cut. However, they were not among the workers at the Atlanta-based agency to receive termination letters late on Feb. 15.
As part of the fellowship, they serve for two years around the CDC or deployed to health departments across the country, often on the front lines of public health responses. Many go on to rise through the ranks at the agency after being selected for the program.
Such cuts would make the country "less safe," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, a former top-ranking CDC official and alumna of the program, in a message about the prospect of cutting the program. "These are the deployable assets critical for investigating new threats, from anthrax to Zika."
In all, around 1,270 probationary workers were slated to be let go from the agency out of 2,800 recent hires and promotions. The cuts amount to around 1 in 10 of the CDC's staff, though it is unclear how many other workers may have been granted last-minute exemptions.
It is unclear who decided which CDC staff to cut. While managers at the Atlanta-based agency were asked to rank probationary hires earlier this month, officials told CBS News that the final decisions on which staff to cut were handed down from Trump administration appointees outside the agency.
"Many are young staff from all the training programs who managed to land a job after they finished. Now their dream is canceled," said one health official as the decision loomed.
Many more CDC workers who had been hired as contractors were also cut, multiple people told CBS News, suggesting the toll on the agency stretches far beyond only probationary staff. Some teams at the CDC are made up in large part by contractors.
"Terminated for convenience," was the reason given to one CDC contractor now out of a job.
Cuts are also being made at other health agencies.
The Indian Health Service has seen hundreds of staff cut, officials said, amounting to a steep loss for an agency that has struggled to recruit new providers.
A coalition of Tribal Nations Friday denounced the "drastic reduction," according to a letter obtained by CBS News that was sent to the Office of Personnel Management, warning that people would likely die as a result of the cuts.
"To see the hard-won progress of recruitment and retention efforts so casually disregarded is the very definition of government inefficiency and shows a disregard for Native American lives," Joshuah Marshall, a former senior adviser in the Indian Health Service, said in a message.
One health official said that some teams in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had also seen steep cuts in staffing. Large cuts in probationary staff are also expected at the National Institutes of Health, two officials said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC and other health agencies, said that they were supporting President Trump's "broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government."
"This is to ensure that HHS better serves the American people at the highest and most efficient standard," said Andrew Nixon, the department spokesperson, in a statement.
News of the cuts came after new HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had denied plans to make significant purges at the nation's health agencies.
In an interview with Fox News after being sworn in to head the department, Kennedy praised the "lower level employees" he now leads as "good American patriots and hardworking people."
"If you've been involved in good science, you've got nothing to worry about. If you care about public health, you've got nothing to worry about," he said.
