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The notices came all weekend, landing in the inboxes of federal scientists, doctors and public health professionals: Your work is no longer needed.<\/p>\n
At the National Institutes of Health, the nation\u2019s premier biomedical research agency, an estimated 1,200 employees \u2014 including promising young investigators slated for larger roles \u2014 have been dismissed.<\/p>\n
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two prestigious training programs were gutted: one that embeds recent public health graduates in local health departments and another to cultivate the next generation of Ph.D. laboratory scientists. But the agency\u2019s Epidemic Intelligence Service \u2014 the \u201cdisease detectives\u201d who track outbreaks around the world \u2014 has apparently been spared, perhaps because of an uproar among alumni after a majority of its members were told on Friday that they would be let go.<\/p>\n
President Trump\u2019s plan to shrink the size of the federal work force dealt blows to thousands of civil servants in the past few days. But the cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services \u2014 coming on the heels of the coronavirus pandemic, the worst public health crisis in a century \u2014 have been especially jarring. Experts say the firings threaten to leave the country exposed to further shortages of health workers, putting Americans at risk if another crisis erupts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Public health officials, for instance, have been tracking a lethal strain of bird flu that they say remains a low risk to Americans. In recent weeks, however, it claimed its first victim in the United States<\/a> \u2014 a patient in Louisiana who had been exposed to a backyard flock.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not canceled,\u201d Elon Musk, the billionaire in charge of the downsizing, wrote on social media in response to the blowback about the purported dismantling of the Epidemic Intelligence Service.<\/p>\n The firings have also excised the next generation of leaders at the C.D.C., the N.I.H., the Food and Drug Administration, and other agencies that the department oversees.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seems like a very destructive strategy to fire the new talent at an agency, and the talent that\u2019s being promoted,\u201d said Dr. David Fleming, the chairman of an advisory committee to the C.D.C. director. He added, \u201cA lot of energy and time has been spent in recruiting those folks, and that\u2019s now tossed out the window.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The form-letter emails told recipients they were \u201cnot fit for continued employment\u201d because their \u201cability, knowledge and skills do not fit the agency\u2019s needs\u201d and their \u201cperformance has not been adequate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On Monday, eight officials who led health agencies under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. \u2014 including the heads of the C.D.C., the N.I.H. and the F.D.A. \u2014 issued a joint statement denouncing the cuts. It listed a string of initiatives, from combating the opioid epidemic to bringing primary care to rural communities, that are \u201cvital to the economic security of our nation\u201d and are carried out by public servants.<\/p>\n \u201cThese individuals are not numbers on a spreadsheet,\u201d they wrote, adding, \u201cWe owe them a debt of gratitude, not a pink slip.\u201d<\/p>\n The dismissals have also rattled graduate students eyeing careers in public health and the biomedical sciences.<\/p>\n \u201cI just lectured to 42 graduate students this morning whose whole future at this point is not clear,\u201d said Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. \u201cWill they have jobs? Will there be public health employment in the future?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A spokesman for the Health and Human Services Department said it was following administration guidance and \u201ctaking action to support the president\u2019s broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is to ensure that H.H.S. better serves the American people at the highest and most efficient standard,\u201d the spokesman, Andrew Nixon, said in an email on Friday.<\/p>\n As with the rest of the government, the cuts are aimed at probationary employees with less than a year on the job. But the cuts come as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the prominent vaccine skeptic and newly confirmed health secretary<\/a>, is starting in his job. Officials at the N.I.H. are especially concerned that he might target more senior employees by asking for their resignations.<\/p>\n Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly said he intends to clean house at various federal agencies. He warned that he would cut 600 jobs at the health institutes. In October, after merging his presidential campaign with that of Mr. Trump, he instructed F.D.A. officials<\/a> to \u201cpreserve your records\u201d and \u201cpack your bags.\u201d<\/p>\n About 700 staff members were cut at the F.D.A., including lawyers, doctors and doctorate-level reviewers in the medical device, tobacco, food and drug divisions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The cuts over the weekend have touched all manner of health workers. They are not only scientists and disease hunters but also administrators who oversee grant proposals, analysts figuring out new ways to cut health care costs and computer specialists who try to improve the government\u2019s antiquated systems for tracking health information.<\/p>\n Arielle Kane was hired in May to worked on a new project that aimed to improve maternal health outcomes in Medicaid. She was assured by a manager on Friday that her job at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was safe. On Saturday afternoon, she received an email that she had been fired for poor performance.<\/p>\n \u201cI was just so excited to be working on maternal health and on Medicaid,\u201d Ms. Kane said. \u201cIt feels extra enraging to have finally gotten the job I wanted, to have just had a good performance review and then be so unceremoniously fired for poor performance.\u201d<\/p>\n The Laboratory Leadership Service, a prestigious training fellowship at the C.D.C., was hit hard, according to three people familiar with the program. Of its 24 fellows, four were protected because they are in the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service, a uniformed branch whose members work across government. The other 20 were let go.<\/p>\n The program, begun in 2015 in response to quality and safety concerns in laboratories, is a sister program to the more prominent Epidemic Intelligence Service, or E.I.S. It was developed to strengthen ties between epidemiologists and laboratory scientists. Applicants must hold a Ph.D. in microbiology, organic chemistry or another laboratory-related discipline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Some of the fellows are assigned to state and local public health laboratories. Others work at C.D.C. in Atlanta. During outbreaks like the coronavirus pandemic, they are sent into the field with E.I.S. officers.<\/p>\n \u201cE.I.S. has such a strong culture and alumni; the response will be, \u2018Thank God E.I.S. was spared,\u2019\u201d said Dr. Michael Iademarco, who helped create the Laboratory Leadership Service when he was at the C.D.C. \u201cAnd my response will be, \u2018Yeah, but we just killed the promising half of field investigation, because nobody knows about it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The agency has also lost its presidential management fellows<\/a>, who were assigned to the C.D.C. under a decades-old government initiative that describes itself as \u201cthe premier leadership development program for advanced degree holders across all academic disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n Veterans of the health agencies said they were troubled by the seemingly random nature of the cuts.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there\u2019s a need to reduce the budget, that happens at all levels of government, but there should be a thoughtful approach,\u201d said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, a former deputy commissioner of the F.D.A. He added, \u201cFor some of these roles, there is very specialized knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Fleming, a former deputy C.D.C. director, said many health professionals can earn more in the private sector but choose to join the government because they are drawn to public service. The terminations would make it harder to attract new talent, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re cutting off our hand to spite our face,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Christina Jewett, Roni Caryn Rabin and Sarah Kliff contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n