During the late hours of Friday, Oct. 10, 2024, dozens of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received a devastating email announcing that they are no longer needed in the workforce. And here we thought Americans were about to get more jobs after mass deportations of immigrants.
Even though mass resignations have already severely affected the workforce at CDC after a shooting at its Atlanta headquarters in August, several of the remaining employees have been put on forced administrative leave. The CDC has become a huge target of Donald Trump‘s administration, and the Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who also fired its director, Susan Monarez, less than a month into her tenure in August.
The new batch of Kennedy’s targets included highly-qualified scientists in offices addressing respiratory diseases, chronic diseases, injury prevention, and global health. (via NYT) Even more shockingly, the entire staff of the Washington office of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Journal was collectively laid off. In publishing since 1930, the remarkable health journal has previously been the first to hint at the AIDS epidemic with its June 1981 report.
But the Trump administration doesn’t seem to care. Despite promising more jobs for Americans and justifying the horrible mass deportations of immigrants, he continues to eliminate even important jobs like the Epidemic Intelligence Service officers. Known more commonly as “disease detectives,” around 70 of these officers also received the layoff notices.
HR staff in furlough due to the selfish government shutdown were reportedly called to work to send out these notices. What economic purpose do these layoffs serve? There’s no data. But Trump has continued to threaten to continue with the federal layoffs and downsize the government during the shutdown. He also emphasized that these layoffs would be “Democrat oriented,” proving his motive as revenge instead of well-researched, thoughtful decisions.
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