Once the gold standard in global public health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now operating with about 30% fewer employees than it had just over a year ago—and insiders say the impact is obvious. New personnel data compiled by former federal scientists show the agency's head count dropped from 9,279 in March 2025 to 6,683 in May 2026, the New York Times reports, after the Trump administration's layoffs and a wave of retirements and resignations. Entire units focused on smoking, sexual violence, child abuse, and senior falls have been shut down; the chronic disease center has lost nearly half its staff. Infectious disease hubs tied to Ebola and respiratory threats are down roughly 17%.
Interviews with more than 30 current and former staffers describe an agency tightly managed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and political appointees, with routine work snarled by delays, vacant leadership posts, and unusual political directives—such as a no-bid study probing a debunked vaccine-autism link. It was funded by diverting money from a children's immunization program. HHS insists the CDC "continues to protect" Americans, but others say the agency has gone quiet on vaccines, slowed responses to measles and Ebola, and grown less engaged with state health departments and global partners. One ex-official likened the situation to "losing a third of a city's firefighters and then wondering why downtown is burning."
Democrats say refusing to spend funding allocated by Congress by gutting programs while technically keeping them alive violates the law, including the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. A spending bill passed this year includes a requirement that federal health agencies maintain staffing levels necessary to fulfill statutory responsibilities, though the bill did not specify staffing levels for each program. But there is no policing agency that Congress can call on to enforce the law, the AP points out.
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