03-04-2025
Which jobs were cut at CDC? Here's a list.
The layoffs at CDC this week hit global and environmental health as well as HIV prevention programs especially hard, according to an overview document obtained by POLITICO.
The document, shared during an agency meeting Tuesday, paints a picture of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that will be more narrowly focused on infectious disease, with a significantly less holistic view of public health. The job cuts include the elimination of about a fourth of the staff at the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention and about a third of the workers at the CDC's Injury Center.
'When you see the elimination of the Office of Smoking and Health, when smoking is the leading preventable cause of chronic disease, you have to ask the question, 'What are they thinking?' asked Dr. Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former acting director of the agency.
The cuts are part of a large-scale restructuring at the Department of Health and Human Services — with the goal of eliminating 10,000 employees, 2,400 from CDC. A spokesperson for HHS did not respond to a request asking whether changes to the staff reductions had been made since they were shared with staff Tuesday. ABC News reported that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
plans to reinstate
some workers who were mistakenly fired.
Here are the cuts:
— National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion was reduced by about a third, losing the Office on Smoking and Health, Oral Health, Population Health, and some of the Reproductive Health divisions.
— The Office of Health Equity was eliminated. The parts of its work that are written into law will go to the Office of Minority Health and the Office of Women's Health.
— Discretionary programs were cut from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, leaving behind only the mandatory World Trade Center health program and the Radiation Dose Reconstruction Program. The Trump administration plans to fold NIOSH into a new HHS agency called the Administration for a Healthy America.
— The cuts dissolve the Birth Defects Center, but retain some of its work, including the Surveillance for Emerging Threats to Mothers and Babies Network. Some birth defects surveillance will continue, as well as autism surveillance.
— The National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention lost about a fourth of its staff. The biggest cuts came from the Division of HIV Prevention. The Global Health Center Division of Global HIV & TB was also reduced by roughly a fourth.
— CDC's Injury Center lost roughly a third of its staff. It will retain the Overdose Prevention Division and suicide prevention branch. Some surveillance activities will continue, like the National Violent Death Reporting System and 'adverse childhood experience' monitoring.
— The National Center for Environmental Health lost its Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry will be folded into the Administration for a Healthy America.
— The National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases lost its partnership and health equity branch.
— The media support, broadcast services, visual design, and content and engagement branches were cut from the Office of Communications.
— The Office of Acquisition Services in the Office of Financial Resources and the Office of Human Resources saw big cuts, while the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity was eliminated.
— The CDC's office tasked with responding to Freedom of Information Act requests was cut. The administration plans to create one FOIA office for all of HHS.
— The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response lost 81 staff, according to an HHS official granted anonymity to discuss the cuts. Around a dozen of those let go were Strategic National Stockpile employees who worked in state, local, tribal and territorial programs, while others worked on grant management. Around 30 of the layoffs were from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the person said.
The Trump administration has not publicly released a detailed overview of cuts at HHS, of which CDC is part, leading to confusion about the reorganization.
'The important next step for HHS is to answer questions from Congress, release a chart [of the cuts], share information with partners, and make sure that state and local health departments who carry this work out in communities across the country know who to call,' said Chrissie Juliano, executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition, a forum of leaders from the nation's largest urban public health departments.
