The Trump administration has terminated hundreds of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including those responsible for key public health roles, according to two sources who spoke to NBC News at the agency on condition of anonymity out of concern over retaliation.<\/p>\n
Among those affected were about two dozen workers who made up the Laboratory Leadership Service (LLS), a group responsible for training public health laboratory staffers and supporting outbreak response efforts. The two-year fellowship program, launched in 2015, focused on laboratory safety and regulatory compliance.<\/p>\n
“We have come up with a new slogan for LLS: ‘the disease detectors.’ If you’re not testing, you don’t know what disease is there,” said a current fellow, who was among those who received termination notices.<\/p>\n
Termination emails, sent to LLS staff members Saturday evening, cited poor performance as the reason for the firings, even though most of the dismissed employees had “excellent” performance reviews, a mid-level CDC official said.<\/p>\n
Multiple outlets reported that a larger sister program at CDC, the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), known as the agency’s “disease detectives,” was expected to be cut significantly, but as of Sunday, two officials who spoke to NBC News had not heard of firings at EIS. One official said everyone who was going to be terminated had been notified by Sunday.<\/p>\n
Other departments that had cuts included the Presidential Management Fellows, which aims to develop future public health leaders, and the Public Health Associate Program, which assigns fellows to local health agencies, the two officials said.<\/p>\n
The termination process has been marked by chaos and a lack of transparency. Almost two weeks ago, the Office of Personnel Management assigned CDC leadership to look through a list of employees who were in probationary or term-limited positions – including new directors, fellows, and highly skilled non-citizen scientists – and designate each as “must be retained,” “mission critical,” or “not mission critical.” According to the two CDC officials, the lists did not appear to have been used in the ultimate firing decisions.<\/p>\n
Representatives for the White House, the CDC, and the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately reply to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
The fellow who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, “A lot of us, we could have gone to more lucrative careers. We could have worked for pharma. We could have worked for biotech or something like that and made so much more money. But we’re all passionate for public health and just want to see public health succeed.”<\/p>\n
The cuts at the CDC are part of a broader effort to reduce the size of the federal workforce, as announced by the Trump administration. While the administration claims that the cuts are necessary to streamline the government, the consequences of these actions will be far-reaching and devastating for public health.<\/p>\n
* What is the Laboratory Leadership Service (LLS)?
\nThe LLS is a two-year fellowship program launched in 2015, focused on laboratory safety and regulatory compliance, training public health laboratory staffers and supporting outbreak response efforts.
\n* What is the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS)?
\nThe EIS is a larger sister program at CDC, known as the agency’s “disease detectives.”
\n* What is the Presidential Management Fellows program?
\nThe Presidential Management Fellows program aims to develop future public health leaders.
\n* What is the Public Health Associate Program?
\nThe Public Health Associate Program assigns fellows to local health agencies.<\/p>\n
Note: The FAQs section is not exhaustive and is intended to provide a general overview of the topics mentioned in the article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Trump Administration Fires Hundreds of CDC Employees, Including Disease Detectors and Researchers Firings Part of Broader Effort to Cut Federal Workforce The Trump administration has terminated hundreds of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including those responsible for key public health roles, according to two sources who spoke to NBC News […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media.nbcchicago.com\/2025\/02\/GettyImages-1242380276.jpg?quality=85&strip=all&resize=1200%2C675&w=1200&resize=1200,675&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13870"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13872,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13870\/revisions\/13872"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}