The nation's top public health agency is losing most of the scientists in a prestigious, but lesser-known, laboratory program that has become a mainstay of outbreak responses.
The fellowship program was hit hard during the layoffs coming to many federal departments, according to five Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials who spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the cuts.
The program had been created about 10 years ago to help the CDC remedy embarrassing lab-safety failures. The cuts may not have an immediate impact, but they likely will haunt the nation in the months to come, said Stephan Monroe, a former CDC official who oversaw the reform of the agency's lab services.
“The key thing about lab testing is it’s the smoke alarm,” said Monroe, now retired. “If you can identify those first cases really early, it allows you to mobilize a big response. ... If they don't know what it is that’s going on, it could be a lot of transmission started before response starts.”
With a $9.2 billion core budget, the CDC is charged with protecting Americans from outbreaks and other public health threats. Before the job cuts, the agency had about 13,000 employees. They included more than 1,700 scientists working at laboratories — the people who determine or confirm what germ or other threat is behind a rash of unexplained illnesses.
Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services have not provided detail about where cuts were made, and some at the CDC say they are still sorting out exactly who was cut and which centers or offices were hit hardest. Some workers at other agencies were told they were laid off, only to be informed later that they could keep their jobs.
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Last week, CDC officials were initially told they were losing nearly 1,300 probationary employees, but the final number was more like 700, according to two CDC officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the cuts.
On Friday, it appeared the ax was falling on the Epidemic Intelligence Service, a prestigious two-year program for new disease investigators. Two agency employees who communicated with EIS staffers, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, told The Associated Press about the EIS cuts.
But over the weekend, it became clear that program was spared.
Not so lucky, however, was the Laboratory Leadership Service, a similar program for lab scientists. At least 16 of the program's 24 fellows were terminated, according to one of the scientists who was fired.
The leadership program was created in the wake of a series of lab failures, including an incident in which a CDC lab scientist in Atlanta accidentally mixed a deadly strain of bird flu with a tamer strain and another in which a CDC lab failed to kill anthrax samples before sending them to two labs with fewer safeguards for containing dangerous germs.
The leadership program brought in doctorate-holding professionals who could help the CDC and state health labs improve testing while complying with demanding federal standards. It also was designed to be a way to recruit top talent to the CDC.
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Lab service members often were dispatched to states, territories and other countries to help identify what was causing an outbreak. They helped expand testing for dengue when the mosquito-borne disease hit American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands and rebuilt testing capability in Puerto Rico after hurricanes. They evaluate new tests for state health labs, and train staff how to use them.
That kind of expertise is crucial, especially at a time when the nation is closely watching the spread of a worrisome new form of bird flu, some experts say.
“Our ability to detect and contain health threats including H5N1 is already strained. This not the way to make America healthier,” former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden wrote on LinkedIn about the lab program cuts.