About 600 employees of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose jobs were in limbo, apparently have been fired by the Trump administration.
The move comes after a court ruling that gave the Trump administration more leeway, officials with the union that represents some of them said.
Union leaders and other former and current CDC employees discussed the firing on a call with reporters Thursday evening. One said the layoffs include experts who work to curb gun violence.
“Letting the CDC Injury Center staff go, just days after the tragic shooting that sprayed 500 rounds across the CDC campus and that resulted in the death of Officer David Rose, is just heartbreaking,” said Tom Simon, CDC’s former senior director for scientific programs at the Division of Violence Prevention. “It deepens the wound.”
A union leader for the CDC workers, Yolanda Jacobs, said the actions place the country in jeopardy.
“With what we’ve seen from the administration, a lot of us know — we don’t feel, we know — that we are basically out here on our own,” Jacobs said.
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the CDC, stands firmly with CDC employees, his office said in a written statement Thursday.
HHS provided the statement after hundreds of CDC employees signed an open letter asking Kennedy to back them up and speak for science, after the Aug. 8 shooting. The letter cited Kennedy calling CDC a “cesspool of corruption.”
The HHS response pointed out that Kennedy traveled to Atlanta the week after the shooting. It said ensuring their safety and well-being are a top priority and that he has called CDC “a shining star among global health agencies.
“For the first time in its 70-year history, the mission of HHS is truly resonating with the American people — driven by President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s bold commitment to Make America Healthy Again,” the HHS statement said.
“Any attempt to conflate widely supported public health reforms with the violence of a suicidal mass shooter is an attempt to politicize a tragedy.”
The CDC firings this year began under President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk. Musk and Kennedy said they were rooting out fraud, waste and abuse at the agency.
The union maintains that the firings were done illegally, in violations of union contracts the federal government had already signed.
HHS has not released count totals publicly as it attempted to fire thousands of people. Some were fired in violation of law or contracts, courts ruled. Then they were rehired, then put on administrative leave pending court appeals or redoing the firing process in a different way.
The union members told reporters Thursday night they arrived at 600 after workers from particular offices began receiving notices or getting locked out of their work accounts, and they contacted the union.
Court battles over the firings are still ongoing as both sides appeal, and courts occasionally broaden or rule out protections for different groups of fired employees.
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