As the government shutdown drags on, the Trump Administration made another round of firings at federal health agencies. The terminations include dozens of key employees across the CDC working to prevent and respond to chronic diseases, respiratory diseases and injuries. Among those fired included 70 Epidemic Intelligence Service officers – or “disease detectives” – as well as the entire team at the CDC’s publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), and the CDC’s Washington office staff. The health agency was already decimated by Trump’s previous layoffs. Now, the US has “lost its ability to detect outbreaks and respond to them”, says Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. “It will no longer be able to track diseases, in America and around the globe. That includes infectious threats like flu, foodborne illnesses, and Ebola, as well as chronic diseases and injuries”.
Dr. Rasmussen added that, “together, this means the CDC is not functional. It cannot carry out any of its mission. America has no national public health agency any more”.
