President Donald Trump and OMB Director Russ Vought followed through with their threats to fire federal workers during the shutdown on Friday.
Employees from several major agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were among the terminations, sources told ABC News.
In the process of laying off large numbers of health employees, the Trump administration mistakenly issued reduction-in-force notices to members of key CDC offices due to a “coding error,” a federal health official told ABC News on Saturday.
Workers involved in responding to Ebola outbreaks in Africa and measles outbreaks in the U.S. are among those who were mistakenly issued reduction-in-force notices, the official said.
An overwhelming amount of staff in the office in charge of putting out the weekly CDC science journal, known as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), were also told that they were let go, two sources told ABC News.
But those employees were also mistakenly cut, the federal health official said.
The MMWR report is dubbed “the voice of CDC” and is widely respected and used by clinicians across the country. It has been the CDC’s standard scientific journal for decades.
The federal health official told ABC News that the employees mistakenly laid off will receive a formal notice rescinding their elimination “eventually,” likely within a matter of days.
The coding errors affected just four offices within CDC, according to the health official, meaning hundreds of HHS employees will still lose their jobs.
Trump said Saturday he’s directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to use “all available funds” to pay members of the military on Oct. 15 despite the government shutdown.
The president said in a social media post that said he’s “identified” the funds he’d be able to do this with, but did not give any more details.
A spokesperson for the Office of Budget and Management told ABC News that the funds Trump said he’s “identified” to pay members of the military amid the shutdown are from pots of research and development money from the Department of Defense that’s available for two years. The White House has not immediately provided further details.
Trump also reiterated in his post that he wouldn’t negotiate with Democrats over their healthcare demands until they vote to reopen the government.
Among those impacted by the Trump Administration’s Reductions in Force (RIF) at the CDC are top agency employees responsible for responding to infectious disease outbreaks like measles, two sources familiar with the terminations told ABC News.
Around 130 people in the director’s office at the National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) were let go, including much of the center’s leadership, the sources said.
These individuals managed divisions that responded to various public health threats, including bacterial diseases, viral diseases, respiratory diseases like influenza and coronaviruses, as well as vaccinations. This includes surveillance, policy, and communications, sources added.
The terminations come as the U.S. continues to deal with multiple public health threats. Measles outbreaks in parts of the country have led to the highest number of cases nationally since 1992.
Last year’s flu season was one of the most severe and intense in recent history with a record high number of children dying from the virus. Whooping cough cases are near record highs for the second year in a row.
Representatives for HHS and the White House did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
Employees who worked in various departments at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were terminated as part of Trump’s Friday Reductions in Force order, sources told ABC News Friday.
Among the departments affected were: the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; the Global Health Center; the Alzheimer’s Disease Program; Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology; the Injury Center, the Epidemic Intelligence Service; the Center for Forecasting Outbreaks and Analytics; the Public Health Infrastructure Center and the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention; and Health Promotion.
The RIFs appear to be impacting communications teams at the CDC as well as scientists, according to the sources.
It’s possible some staff who were terminated were not among the employees furloughed during the federal government shutdown, the sources said.
