Top US health agency permanently fires 600 CDC employees
In a statement, the AFGE said the firings exacerbated recent trauma experienced by CDC staff after the 8 August shooting, in which a police officer was killed after a gunman fired 500 rounds at the building. "The cruel decision to move forward with these unlawful separations immediately after a violent attack on campus contradicts their stated commitments to promote the recovery of CDC staff and undermines the stability of our Agency," the group said. HHS confirmed the firings to the BBC and referred reporters to Kennedy's March announcement, in which he said 10,000 workers would be laid off, including 2,400 people at the CDC and others at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). After the proposed layoffs, many CDC employees were placed on paid administrative leave while the courts dealt with legal challenges to the firings. Last week, a federal judge in Rhode Island refined a July order blocking the administration from firing any CDC employees, instead only banning HHS from firing employees of six CDC divisions. In announcing the mass layoffs, Kennedy said the changes were aimed at reducing "bureaucratic sprawl" and refocusing the agency on "reversing the chronic disease epidemic", a key priority of his. He said the firings would save taxpayers $1.8b (£1.3b) a year. The wide-ranging layoffs included employees working on the government's response to infectious diseases, including bird flu, as well as those researching environmental hazards and handling public record requests. Since taking office, Kennedy, a vaccine critic, has made a number of funding cuts and changes to how the US recommends and regulates immunizations that have angered public health experts. Earlier this week, a group of more than 750 former and current HHS employees sent a letter to Kennedy accusing him of fuelling violence towards public health workers after the CDC headquarters attack. They said Kennedy had spread vaccine misinformation and sowed mistrust in public health, contributing to harassment of health officials. Investigators say the man who fired 500 rounds at the CDC - who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound - blamed a Covid-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal.
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The Independent
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- The Independent
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The Independent
5 hours ago
- The Independent
Federal officials to take over inspections when troubled Boar's Head plant reopens
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Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Officials urge Americans in five states to be on high alert for new virus variants
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The new variant first arrived in the US in March, after appearing in Southeast Asia in January, with some of the first cases reported in New York and New Jersey. It is a recombinant virus, meaning it was formed when two other strains of Covid infected the same cell and then swapped genes to create a 'chimera' virus. The World Health Organization has classified the strain as a 'variant under monitoring' after lab analysis suggested that it may be more infectious than other currently circulating strains. The XFG variant, formed from two Omicron strains, was behind an estimated 14 percent of Covid cases over the week of June 21, the latest date available, up from 11 percent from two weeks earlier. The CDC says that it receives little data on variants from the states every year, leading it to have 'low confidence' in the estimates, but it warns that the variant is likely causing an increasing proportion of infections. The agency's wastewater estimates are based on reports from hundreds of sites across the US that analyze the water for signs of Covid. An uptick indicates more people are shedding the virus, suggesting that infections are rising. It comes after a new study revealed that even mild Covid infections can age your blood vessels by up to five years, increasing your long-term risk for heart disease, strokes and dementia. Known medically as vascular aging, it sees the blood vessels which carry vital oxygen to organs in the body stiffen and is normal as we get older. But according to the study, which included 2,390 people from 16 different countries, it is accelerated by the virus. It was particularly acute in women, wrote the French researchers in the findings, published in the European Heart Journal. Previous studies have shown vascular aging to be linked to an increased risk of developing the memory-robbing illness dementia. The latest study also found people who had been vaccinated against Covid generally had arteries that were less stiff than those who were unvaccinated. And for these people, over the long term, the vascular aging seemed to stabilize or improve slightly.
