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Employees of the National Institute of Health belong to various health agencies that have received termination letters last weekend as part of the urge of the Trump government to reduce federal employees.
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Termination letters ended up in the mailboxes of hundreds of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health in the weekend, while the Trump administration continued with Firings that was announced on Friday.
According to more than half a dozen current employees who have asked for anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly and feared to be feared.
The number of employees who lost their job at the NIH and CDC was lower than initially expected. At CDC, the current employees say that they are not told why and still fear that there could be more cuts.
Among employees who were entangled in the first wave of dismissals: doctorates trained by doctorates who were responsible for helping local and government officials on outbreaks; Employees who provide medical devices for patients with cancer and diabetes are safe; and a public health worker stationed at an international airport that enforces rules to prevent
In total, around 750 CDC employees received termination letters during the weekend, according to a current CDC employee who was on a phone call with desk leadership and another who rated an internal memo.
On Friday, CDC leadership told the staff that 10% of the workshop of the agency – around 1,300 employees – would be informed that they would lose their jobs.
“I’m going to work tomorrow and I don’t know who is in operation,” said one of the CDC employees, who had not yet received an official notification about which employees in their division had lost their jobs.
Between 1,000 and 1,200 employees on Saturday evening that they were cut, two employees with knowledge of the situation told NPR at the National Institutes of Health received a report on Saturday evening. This is a few hundred less than expected.
Officials could save some jobs because certain positions were considered essential, such as people who work in the clinical center of the NIH, one person said.
Dislings at the FDA, people who conduct research and approvals were on the part of the medical devices agency, according to dismissal FDA employees who were afraid of the consequences of pronouncing.
Employees working on drug approvals were temporarily saved, a current FDA employee told NPR.
HHS, CDC, FDA and NIH did not respond to NPR’s request for comments.
Quoted ‘performance’ as a reason for cutbacks
NPR assessed termination letters sent to the staff of the CDC, NIH and FDA.
They all used similar language and mentioned insufficient performance as the reason for their dismissal – but the employees with whom NPR spoke had data about fantastic work.
“Unfortunately, the agency believes that you are not suitable for continuous employment because your skills, knowledge and skills do not match the current needs of the agency, and your performance has not been sufficient to justify further employment at the agency,” the letters of The office of the office of the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, states.
The letters have set a termination date with effect from March 14, 2025.
In all three agencies, most who lost their job in their probationary staff – a long -term test of one to two years for new employees or those who have moved to new positions within the agency – who have less employees’ protection.
Dr. Steve Monroe, a former senior CDC officer, called the decision “extremely short -sighted”, because it saved people “, regardless of whether they played an important role in the organization or how well they performed.”
Some employees remained sharp and confused about their work status and what they could expect in the coming days.
Some who were explicitly told that they would be terminated, including a letter, including fellows in the controversial epidemic intelligence service of the CDC, a prominent training program for what is called “disease elections”, staff sent to respond to outbreaks.
A current CDC employee said they would like to know that cohort was saved at the last minute, but they were not necessarily “optimistic”, given the massive shooting at the weekend.
Which positions have been lost
The work reductions have a blow to some essential functions of the federal health authorities.
NPR heard from various FDA employees, who spoke anonymously because they are afraid of retribution for speaking, who worked on assessments for devices doing things such as detecting cancer and helping people with diabetes. They say they have kept devices that do not work or are dangerous from the market and fear that the shrinking of their ranks can be dangerous for consumers.
At NIH, offices involved in assessing and managing subsidies to researchers outside the agency, such as at universities and medical centers, were hit hard, one employee said knowledge of the situation. The NIH spends most of the annual budget of $ 48 billion in this kind of “extramural” examination of $ 48 billion to find new healings for cancer, heart conditions and other diseases.
“Our nation cannot afford to conduct our research and public health assets,” said Mary Woolley, president and CEO of Research! America, an interest group, in a statement. “Patients wait; lives are at the game.”
At CDC, fellows who respond to outbreaks of diseases of at least two celebrated CDC training programs were cut. Twenty fellows in the Laboratory Leadership Service received termination letters on Saturday. They “help in developing the tests for new and emerging diseases,” explains a guy. Those in the program have a doctoral degree and are often used with fellows in the epidemic intelligence service for outbreak reactions.
Each person in the Lab Fellowship Cohort had tested a letter and a performance assessment a few weeks ago on the high quality of their work, the fellow said: “We recorded that letter in the response -e -mail to a good reputation Showing and more than enough performance “
Monroe, the former CDC officer, is worried that these cutbacks can “bump” the ability of the nation to respond to outbreaks. “Losing them today means that there is less capacity to help states tomorrow if there is a need for an outbreak investigation,” he says.
In the longer term, the cutbacks can lead to fewer people being trained or choosing to work in public health. “In a year there will not be the people who have a year and a half of experience because we release them,” he says.
The ranks of the Public Health Associate Program were also decimated by the dismissals. The Fellowship is recent graduates at the university and master level in national and local health departments and serves as a path for a career in public health, says a current CDC employee who is familiar with the program.
A CDC employee who was accused of preventing the introduction of zoosotic diseases (that jump from animals to people) had assumed that they would be safe for fired because their work concerned national security and border control. They had recently received a CDC Award of Excellence.
It is also not clear how the dismissal will save government money, says Patti Zettler, a professor of rights at Ohio State University who served as a deputy general counsel of HHS, who covered the FDA until January.
FDA user costs paid by drug and device makers, for example, started in the 1990s to accelerate things such as approvals of drugs and devices. In exchange for the reimbursements, the agency undertakes to hire more staff and to revise requests for new products faster.
“If we think about all the dismissals in HHS, none of them will save the taxpayer money in the long term,” she says. “It is especially clear that the dismissing of FDA employees who are financed by user costs will not save taxpayers. The taxpayers do not pay for these employees.”
In response to a request for comments on the cuts when the word of them came out on Friday: Andrew Nixon, Director of Communication at HHS, wrote to NPR in an e -mail: “HHS follows the guidance of the administration and taking action to the Supporting broader efforts of the president to restructure and streamline the federal government.
Do you have information that you want to share about the constant changes in the federal government? Reik from these authors through coded communication: Will Stone @wstonereports.95, Pien Huang @Pienhuang.88 and Rob Stein @Robstein.22.
Rob Stein and Sydney Lupkin contributed to this report.
