Is over..
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. moved one step closer to his goal of dismantling the nation’s premier public-health agency by dismissing more than 1,000 scientists, doctors and public health officials from the Department of Health and Human Services late Friday night.
The dramatic move came during the second week of a government shutdown and is part of the Trump administration’s aggressive push to even further slash the size of the federal workforce and punish Democrats. The culling reportedly started with at least 4,000 people across departments including Education, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development and Energy, among others.
But the bloodshed at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was especially acute, according to a list crowdsourced by CDC employees who received layoff notices that was viewed by MSNBC. The firings ran across more than a dozen CDC divisions and centers, wiping out entire offices and teams that investigate disease outbreaks, manage infectious disease responses, collect data, publish scientific reports and communicate with global partners and Congress.
Looks like the anti mask, anti science crowd is happy.
“CDC is over. It was killed,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the former director of the CDC’s National Center on Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, who recently resigned to protest what he described as Kennedy’s unscientific takeover of the CDC. “This administration only knows how to break things. They have made America at risk for outbreaks and attacks by nefarious players. People should be scared.”
MSNBC spoke with eight current and former CDC officials, most of whom requested anonymity for fear of retaliation against themselves or their remaining colleagues.
The emails alerting staffers of their firings came late Friday night, but current and former employees said CDC staffers had been bracing for layoffs since President Donald Trump (bastard) signaled that he would use mass reductions in force as a way to punish Democrats for the ongoing shutdown, caused by a budget standoff between Republicans and Democrats.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. moved one step closer to his goal of dismantling the nation’s premier public-health agency by dismissing more than 1,000 scientists, doctors and public health officials from the Department of Health and Human Services late Friday night.
The dramatic move came during the second week of a government shutdown and is part of the Trump administration’s aggressive push to even further slash the size of the federal workforce and punish Democrats. The culling reportedly started with at least 4,000 people across departments including Education, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development and Energy, among others.
But the bloodshed at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was especially acute, according to a list crowdsourced by CDC employees who received layoff notices that was viewed by MSNBC. The firings ran across more than a dozen CDC divisions and centers, wiping out entire offices and teams that investigate disease outbreaks, manage infectious disease responses, collect data, publish scientific reports and communicate with global partners and Congress.
Looks like the anti mask, anti science crowd is happy.
“CDC is over. It was killed,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the former director of the CDC’s National Center on Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, who recently resigned to protest what he described as Kennedy’s unscientific takeover of the CDC. “This administration only knows how to break things. They have made America at risk for outbreaks and attacks by nefarious players. People should be scared.”
MSNBC spoke with eight current and former CDC officials, most of whom requested anonymity for fear of retaliation against themselves or their remaining colleagues.
The emails alerting staffers of their firings came late Friday night, but current and former employees said CDC staffers had been bracing for layoffs since President Donald Trump (bastard) signaled that he would use mass reductions in force as a way to punish Democrats for the ongoing shutdown, caused by a budget standoff between Republicans and Democrats.
