Democratic senators from Georgia, Oregon, Maryland and New Mexico called the Trump administration’s decision to terminate hundreds of CDC staffers reckless and unfair.
Seven Democratic senators have called on President Donald Trump to reverse the layoffs at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a Wednesday report from Reuters.
The lawmakers contend that letting go hundreds of CDC staff endangers American lives, according to Reuters, which has seen the letter the senators sent to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The senators are also seeking clarity regarding the programs at the CDC that have been scrapped, the reasons for their termination and the potential effects on public health.
The senators who signed the letter are Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), and Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM).
“Despite the CDC’s critical responsibility and record of keeping Americans safe, one of your very first actions as Secretary was overseeing the firing of an estimated 750 public servants at CDC,” the lawmakers wrote, calling the layoffs unfair and reckless.
While some fired employees have since returned to their posts, the Democratic senators nevertheless urged Kennedy to “immediately reverse all firings” and to “halt all additional mass terminations at the CDC.”
Trump in recent days has also set his sights on the CDC’s HIV prevention efforts and is reportedly considering closing down a relevant division at the agency, and instead transferring its work to another unit under the HHS. The CDC gets around $1.3 billion per year for its HIV prevention program, which includes disease surveillance and community outreach.
The first months of Trump’s second term have been marked by several setbacks for U.S. health agencies. On his first day, for instance, Trump suspended communications, hiring and travel at the HHS. He also pressed pause on grant review panels at the National Institutes of Health and on publications and external meetings at the CDC.
In the weeks that followed, health authorities were hit with mass firings. In February, for instance, hundreds of employees at the FDA were let go, with layoffs also affecting the NIH and CDC.
“No one at the moment thinks they have job security,” Stuart Pape, food and drug chair at Polsinelli Law Firm and former associate chief counsel for foods at the FDA, told BioSpace at the time. “There’s no question that there’s a concerted effort to reduce the number of government employees, including at places like FDA.”
The agency a few days later was reportedly planning to rehire some of its terminated scientists.
