The opinions came all weekend, landing in the reception boxes of federal scientists, doctors and public health professionals: your work is no longer necessary.
At the National Institutes of Health, the country’s first biomedical research agency, around 1,200 employees – including promising young investigators scheduled for larger roles – have been rejected.
In the centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two prestigious training programs have been emptied: one which incorporates recent public health graduates in local health services and another to cultivate the next generation of doctorate. laboratory scientists. But the agency’s epidemic intelligence service – the “detectives of the disease” which follows epidemics worldwide – has apparently been spared, perhaps because of an uproar among the former members were informed on Friday that they would be released.
President Trump’s plan to reduce the size of the federal workforce has shot thousands of officials in recent days. But cuts to the Ministry of Health and Social Services – on the heels of the coronavirus pandemic, the worst public health crisis – were particularly shocked. Experts say that layoffs threaten to leave the country exposed to new shortages of health workers, endangering the Americans in danger if another crisis bursts.
Public health officials, for example, have followed a deadly stump of flip -in birds which, according to them, remains a low risk for Americans. In recent weeks, however, he has affirmed his First victim in the United States – A patient in Louisiana who had been exposed to a flock of backyard.
“It is not canceled,” wrote Elon Musk, the billionaire in charge of reducing workforce, on social networks in response to the return of flame on the alleged dismantling of the epidemic intelligence service.
The layoffs have also excited the next generation of CDC, NIH, Food and Drug Administration leaders and other agencies that the Ministry supervises.
“It seems to be a very destructive strategy to dismiss the new talent in an agency and the talent that is promoted,” said Dr. David Fleming, president of an advisory committee of the CDC director. He added: “Lots of energy and time have been spent recruiting these people, and it has now thrown out the window.”
The emails of letters of form declared to the recipients that they were not “adapted to continuous employment” because their “capacity, knowledge and skills does not correspond to the needs of the agency” and that their “performance n ‘was not adequate ”.
On Monday, eight officials who led health agencies under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. – including the CDC, NIH and FDA chiefs – published a joint declaration denouncing the cups. He has listed a series of initiatives, to fight the epidemic of opioids to provide primary care to rural communities, which are “vital to the economic security of our nation” and are carried out by civil servants.
“These individuals are not figures on a spreadsheet,” they wrote, adding: “We owe them a gratitude debt, not a pink shift.”
The layoffs have also shaken graduate students who envisage public health careers and biomedical sciences.
“I just gave conferences to 42 graduate students this morning of which all morning is not clear,” said Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “Will they have jobs?” Will there be a public health job in the future? »»
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Services said that he was following the administrative councils and “took measures to support the president’s wider efforts to restructure and rationalize the federal government”.
“It is a question of ensuring that HHS serves better for the American people at the highest and most effective level,” spokesperson Andrew Nixon said on Friday.
As with the rest of the government, the cuts are intended for probationary employees with less than a year of work. But the cuts come under the name of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the skeptic of the prominent vaccine and Newly confirmed health secretarybegins in his work. NIH officials are particularly concerned with the fact that it can target more high -level employees by asking for their resignations.
Mr. Kennedy said on several occasions that he intended to clean the house in various federal agencies. He warned that he would remove 600 jobs from health institutes. In October, after having merged his presidential campaign with that of Mr. Trump, he educated by FDA officials To “preserve your files” and “pack your bags”.
About 700 staff members were cut at the FDA, including lawyers, doctors and doctoral examiners in the medical system, tobacco, food and drug divisions.
The cuts over the weekend have affected all kinds of health workers. It is not only scientists and disease hunters, but also administrators who oversee subsidies, analysts to find new ways to reduce the costs of health care and computer specialists who are trying to Improve government’s outdated systems to follow health information.
Arielle Kane was hired in May to work on a new project that aimed to improve maternal health results in Medicaid. Friday, she was provided by a manager that her work at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was safe. On Saturday afternoon, she received an email that she had been dismissed for poor performance.
“I was so excited to work on maternal health and Medicaid,” said Kane. “It seems very raised to have finally obtained the work I wanted, to have just had a good performance exam and then to be so without ceremony for poor performance.”
The Laboratory Leadership Service, a prestigious training scholarship at the CDC, was touched, according to three people familiar with the program. Of its 24 scholarship holders, four were protected because they are in the commissioned body of the US Public Health Service, a uniform branch whose members work through the government. The other 20 were released.
The program, started in 2015 in response to quality and security problems in laboratories, is a larger epidemic intelligence service program, where it has been developed to strengthen links between epidemiologists and laboratory scientists. Applicants must hold a doctorate. In microbiology, organic chemistry or another discipline linked to the laboratory.
Some of the scholarship holders are assigned to local and local public health laboratories. Others work at CDC in Atlanta. During epidemics like the coronavirus pandemic, they are sent to the field with EIS officers.
“EIS has a culture and ancient forts; The answer will be: “ Thank God, it was spared, ‘said Dr. Michael Iademarco, who helped create the laboratory leadership service when he was at the CDC “and my answer will be:” Yes, but We have just killed the promising half promising a field investigation, because no one knows. “”
The agency also lost its Presidential Management Scholarsideswhich was assigned to the CDC under a government initiative old decades which is described as “the first program of development of leadership for holders of advanced diplomas in all academic disciplines”.
The veterans of health agencies said they were disturbed by the apparently random nature of the cuts.
“If it is necessary to reduce the budget, it occurs at all levels of the government, but that there should be a thoughtful approach,” said Dr. Joshua Mr. Sharfstein, former assistant commissioner of the FDA, he Added, “for some of them roles, there is very specialized knowledge.”
Dr. Fleming, a former deputy director of the CDC, said that many health professionals can earn more in the private sector, but choose to join the government because they are attracted to the public service. The endings would make the attraction of new talents more difficult, he said.
“We cut our hands to overcome our face,” he said.
Christina Jewett,, Roni Caryn Rabin And Sarah Kliff Contributed reports.