CDC firings include key lab safety jobs

Feb 27, 2025

Presented by the Coalition for Medicare Choices

With help from Sophie Gardner, Ruth Reader and David Lim

Driving the Day

The entrance to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Staffing cuts to a key CDC lab safety program could weaken America's defense against biological threats. | David Goldman/AP

LAB SAFETY EMPLOYEES SACKED — CDC staff cuts by the Trump administration eliminated several employees responsible for improving lab safety and testing for health threats — including mpox and H5N1 bird flu, Sophie reports.

The CDC’s Laboratory Leadership Service has two dozen fellows — roughly 20 of whom were informed on Feb. 15 that they would be placed on administrative leave until March 14 and then terminated.

The fellows were working on performing lab safety assessments, standardizing tests for emerging health threats and improving wastewater surveillance. POLITICO talked with five of the fired employees, who were granted anonymity because they feared reprisals.

“It’s going to be leaving a pretty big gap, and especially in this situation where we are dealing with multiple threats that could threaten public health and public safety,” one fellow told POLITICO.

Why it matters: To date, roughly 700 probationary employees at the CDC have received termination notices. And although the LLS fellows are a fraction of the CDC staff the administration has cut or plans to as billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency pushes to shrink government, their removal stands to have one of the more direct effects on public health.

The fellows often have years or even decades of laboratory experience before being selected to work with the CDC.

“Public health is a fundamental component of national security. A strong state and local network underpins our national laboratory system,” said Dr. Michael Iademarco, past director of the CDC’s Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology and Laboratory Services. “And the strength of our system depends fundamentally on the Laboratory Leadership Service.”

HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

Details: A two-year fellowship at the CDC involves being embedded in local public health laboratories or working at the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta.

“I was the only person really doing the work that I was doing,” said one fellow whose responsibilities included validating tests for accuracy and effectiveness during critical health threats. “Now I’m not there to do it, so I hope somebody can pick that up. It was pretty pressing at the time.”

Key context: The LLS fellowship was established in 2015 after an embarrassing series of biosafety incidents — including CDC researchers sending a sample of low-pathogenicity avian flu that was unknowingly contaminated with the highly contagious H5N1 virus to a USDA lab and possibly exposing personnel to “potentially viable anthrax.”

Dr. Tom Frieden, a former CDC director who created the program, warned that its end could lead to “operational failures and safety incidents.”

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In Congress

Mike Johnson walking in the Capitol Building.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has ruled out proposed major Medicaid cuts in the GOP's spending package. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

JOHNSON’S RED LINE — House Speaker Mike Johnson has rejected major potential cuts to Medicaid as part of the GOP’s party-line package to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda, report POLITICO's Ben Leonard and Mia McCarthy. Despite the House targeting at least $880 billion in savings from the Energy and Commerce Committee, Johnson confirmed that per-capita caps and changes to the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage won't be considered.

“We’re not going to cut into those programs that way," Johnson told CNN Wednesday night when asked whether he would cap federal funding or reduce match rates. "We're talking about finding efficiencies in every program, not cutting benefits for people who rightly deserve them.”

Those cuts could have produced significant Medicaid savings but would have shifted costs to states and led to benefit cuts. The possibility of such cuts had spurred concern among centrist Republicans, many of whom have a lot of Medicaid recipients in their districts.

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Abortion

A car drives past a Planned Parenthood

A federal appeals court tossed out a $2 billion fraud claim against Planned Parenthood's national organization. | LM Otero/AP

PLANNED PARENTHOOD RULING OVERTURNED — A three-judge panel at the conservative-leaning 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday reversed a lower court ruling that Planned Parenthood could be held liable for nearly $2 billion for defrauding Medicaid, POLITICO’s Alice Miranda Ollstein reports.

The unanimous but wonky procedural ruling overturns a lower court decision by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk for the Northern District of Texas, a President appointee. The judge had ruled in 2023 that Planned Parenthood had to return funding from Texas’ and Louisiana’s Medicaid programs to provide services to low-income patients. Texas is also seeking more than a billion dollars in damages as the case continues.

Details: The anonymous whistleblower who brought the case argued that Planned Parenthood’s national organization should be financially liable because the group’s lawyers wrongly advised their affiliates in Texas and Louisiana to continue billing Medicaid while the lawsuit played out. But the appeals court held Wednesday that a third party couldn’t sue the attorneys for advice they gave to their own clients.

The case now returns to the district court for further arguments on the remaining claims against the state affiliates.

Big picture: Cutting state and federal funding to Planned Parenthood is a top priority of the anti-abortion movement, and this case was just one of many. Activists are also pushing in Congress, state legislatures and other lawsuits to block the provider from receiving money from Medicaid, the Title X family-planning program and other government sources.

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In the Courts

PAUSE ON BAN EXTENDED — A federal judge in Baltimore extended an order blocking President Donald Trump's effort to cut off funds to hospitals and others who provide transgender-related treatment to people under 19.

Judge Brendan Abell Hurson, a President Joe Biden appointee, extended the hold, set to expire Thursday, through March 5. Hurson had initially blocked enforcement of the ban on Feb. 13.

The order, issued by Trump in his first few days in office, threatened the federal funding of health care providers that “fund, sponsor, promote, or assist” young people in transitioning from their sex assigned at birth.

AROUND THE AGENCIES

VAX MEETING CALLED OFF — The FDA’s outside vaccine advisers won’t meet in March to identify the strains for next season’s flu shots, POLITICO’s Lauren Gardner reports.

Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, said an agency officer notified him via email Wednesday that the March 13 meeting was canceled.

Context: The committee routinely meets in March to recommend flu strains for inclusion in the seasonal vaccines, which are updated annually based on how the virus is spreading globally. The shots are made on a six-month production cycle, so the March recommendations would have set up the drug industry to deliver vaccines by September when flu vaccination campaigns begin.

Why it matters: The cancellation comes amid a previously announced postponement of the CDC’s own expert vaccine panel, which also meets regularly throughout the year to review the most recent data on vaccines and to vote on whether to recommend new shots for patients.

The FDA didn’t immediately comment.

DOGE COMES TO FDA — Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has arrived at the FDA, according to three people familiar with the visit and granted anonymity to discuss the effort.

One of the people said Luke Farritor and Rachel Riley, who have been identified as members of DOGE, arrived at the White Oak campus in Silver Spring, Maryland, asking about its IT contracts. The visit is part of a larger effort by DOGE to curb government spending.

Spokespeople for DOGE and FDA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon declined to comment.

CONCERNS ABOUT HRSA FIRINGS — More than half of the federal staff responsible for direct oversight of the nation’s organ transplant system were let go in recent mass firings, two sources familiar with the situation told Pulse.

The cuts affected an estimated 10-12 probationary employees at the Health Resources and Services Administration as part of a government-wide effort led by billionaire Elon Musk to cut spending. More cuts to federal agencies are expected.

The cuts to HRSA have alarmed Democratic lawmakers and organ transplant advocates as the 40-year-old federal organ transplantation network undergoes a modernization effort that began in 2023 under a bipartisan law passed by Congress.

More than 100,000 patients are waiting for an organ transplant, according to federal data.

On Wednesday, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wrote to HHS urging the department to ensure staffing is adequate to lead the modernization.

In the letter, the lawmakers ask how many HRSA staff members working on the transplant system remain and how HHS will “provide adequate staffing and relevant experience and expertise to ensure continued improvements to the nation’s organ donation and transplantation system.”

HHS would not comment on the cuts.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and has also been involved in oversight of the modernization, told Pulse in a statement that he spoke with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his confirmation process about organ reform.

“I’m closely monitoring to ensure Congress’ reforms are being implemented smoothly as the Trump administration works to ensure HRSA’s staffing levels while ensuring efficient use of taxpayer dollars,” he said.

WHAT WE'RE READING

POLITICO’s Lauren Gardner reports on Eli Lilly’s nod to RFK Jr.’s chronic disease agenda.

Healthcare Dive reports on slowed growth in Medicare Advantage, per a recent CMS report.

Bloomberg reports that the Trump team is weighing pulling funding for Moderna’s bird flu vaccine.

A message from the Coalition for Medicare Choices:

Medicare Advantage helps seniors prevent and manage chronic disease. Medicare Advantage outperforms fee-for-service Medicare in preventive care and supporting seniors living with chronic disease. Seniors in Medicare Advantage experience fewer readmissions, fewer preventable hospitalizations, lower rates of high-risk medications and better outcomes. Learn more at https://medicarechoices.org/