A haphazard mass slashing of staff at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the weekend has left questions around the impact of these terminations on the agency’s programming. Sources told Devex there’s still uncertainty around how this will impact global health work.
“Our understanding right now is that most centers across CDC have been impacted in some way,” said Abigail Tighe of the National Public Health Coalition, a network of former CDC employees, during a press briefing.
On Friday, more than 1,300 CDC employees received reduction-in-force, or RIF, notices that they would lose their jobs. But then, about 700 of those people received emails rescinding these terminations on Saturday — with the Trump administration claiming these employees were “mistakenly” placed on notice because of a coding error, said Yolanda Jacobs, president of AFGE Local 2883, a government employees’ union.
About the author
Sara Jervingsarajerving
Sara Jerving is a Senior Reporter at Devex, where she covers global health. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, VICE News, and Bloomberg News among others. Sara holds a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she was a Lorana Sullivan fellow. She was a finalist for One World Media's Digital Media Award in 2021; a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists in 2018; and she was part of a VICE News Tonight on HBO team that received an Emmy nomination in 2018. She received the Philip Greer Memorial Award from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2014.
